The meeting room for the Ladies of Victory was full of light conversation interrupted occasionally by the sounds of a cup hitting the large table in the center or the sound of snacking coming from the direction of Slingshot, whose metabolism gets kicked into overdrive anytime she uses her superspeed. At the head of the table, Jennifer frowned in annoyance as she tapped through the reports for the events of today on the holographic display in front of her, her and Chloe's casual wear at odds with the rest of the team who after today were still mostly in their respective costumes.

Voodoo Queen and Tricksterella were both drinking coffee from travel cups, VQ still wearing her customary black high-cut dress and cloak with silver accents, skull make-up having been magically wiped off and hood down, while Tricksterella had placed her glittering blue waistcoat on the back of the chair, still clad in her black leotard and fishnets, with her blue and black hat off to the side on the table. Slingshot was nearby powering through a burger and fries, the hood of her black spandex bodysuit down and goggles up as she crossed one leg lady-like over the other, sending the neon green halftone dots along them and her sides shimmering.

With no snack or drink to hide behind, Magdalena fidgeted uncomfortably as she picked at the invisible lint on her exposed thigh. The young blonde's designer body was on display in the high-cut burgundy leotard, large cross-shaped cleavage cut out of the middle and exposing her from nape to navel and showing plenty of boob, accented in silver along with her mask. The matching thigh high boots on her slim legs tapped nervously as she bit a plush burgundy-glossed lip, embarrassed after having been woken up from her 'meditation practice'.

Ninjette was next to her trying to both console her and not laugh, her fit body confined in a black fishnet bodysuit covered by a thick black leather leotard. The few pouches along her waist, low slug on a belt along with a slim, curved knife at the small of her back nowhere near the impossible amount of tools and weapons she seemed to always have on hand. The strangled look of help she sent the nearby Demi almost set off a fit of laughter from the curvaceous bombshell dressed in professional work wear with her lab coat in her lap, miming to her teammate that if Ninjette didn't want to upset Magdalena she could pull up the mask and red scarf she used to hide her identity.

Psychometra didn't hide her chuckle, the purple hood of her jacket and domino mask both off as she stretched all five and a half feet of her and heard something pop, pulling off her black gloves to massage something underneath the purple and black skin-tight shirt. It gave her the opportunity to avoid looking at Flamera next to her, whose thick black suit failed to contain her hyper-feminine NuGen perfection, not the least because she unzipped the garment as much as possible. She hated the unattractive uniform but with how hot her flames could get, and the several warnings about public nudity after she'd burned off more than one costume, it was the best option she had to keep out of trouble while she grumbled about societal puritan bullshit.

"Well ladies, good job today." Jennifer plowed through some of the data for today to bring up Mandrill, the leader of the gang of tech-savvy animal transformers known as the Manimals on the holographic terminal in the center of the table.

"Mandrill and the rest of his group have all been accounted for and the RRPD will have them shipped off to a secure super-facility in the morning. Not that they're as much of a threat with all their guns and devices confiscated and destroyed but hey, it just means we don't have to worry about them for a while." The screen flickered to show a group of police leading a scruffy, shirtless man with strange eyes and a thick power-dampening collar around his neck.

"Meanwhile the dragon that hired them is going to be deported back across the Atlantic and dealt with by the proper authorities. He came into the country with a false ID and was clearly tracking the gold shipment that was waiting downtown, so chances are he's doubly screwed. Thanks for handling the feds paperwork VQ, I know you're probably tired but I only understand about half of what the Department for Super and Paranormal Activities puts in there."

Voodoo Queen saluted with her cup before taking a sip, the carryout case of Vietnamese coffee on the table finding another cup gone as Psychometra leaned over to grab one, giving it a quick sniff and sip before making a slight face at the strength of the small beverage. "I'd like to say that's the reason I took public administration classes when getting my MBA but I'm happy my desire to not get screwed or tricked with magical contracts can be used dealing with bureaucratic nonsense." The sorceress looked thoughtful as she remembered her plans before moving to Rapid Rivers, eyes dipping to Chloe who seemed oblivious to the conversation as she tapped away at the panel in front of her.

"Honestly? I probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference." Jennifer's mouth quivered mischievously as a round of giggles circled the room at her comment, swiping sideways to change the hologram to show the storefront of 'A Bimbo's Kiss' and Lucy Maybach.

"Easy win with the shop all things considered, thanks again for VQ and Tricksterella for getting through the entire list of people affected by 'Lucy Specials' and there'll be some alerts on the news for anyone who shopped there unwittingly." Another swipe brought up the beaming Abigail Duchesne onto the table. "For anyone who thinks Lucy Maybach got off easy, Abigail's dad is a fairly powerful Congressman and more than one of the wealthy and connected people she took money from or ticked off are going to make her life miserable for a while. As for the girl herself…"

"I've got most of the paperwork and legal bullshit pushed through for her. Rather than make her go through said bullshit though I just ran all the information through the systems she needed to be in and her licenses and documents will be in the mail in a day or two." Chloe added to the conversation, looking annoyed as her fingers flew across the light-spun keyboard in front of her. "That isn't just to save me the hassle though, getting the store back up and running quickly and legally will let her help anyone she has affected who isn't in the mood for big tits and an amped up sex drive faster. I'll have a chat with her at some point about the super-pseudonym she wants from the Alias Registry but 'Spinstress' was available and sounds cute so maybe she'll keep it."

Jen nodded, but Slingshot raised her hand as she powered through the bite of burger she just took, politely covering her mouth until she was done. "Not to dig too deep, but usually dealing with the GAR and getting licensed as a superpowered individual takes longer than an afternoon…"

"Oui!" Magdalena chimed in, a slight flush coloring her cheeks as she didn't mean to interrupt but Slingshot was happy to let her add on to the question and return to her food. "C'est juste que… even though my father is très riche, it took weeks even with help erm… 'greasing wheels'. And I am still just a probationary heroine…"

"True, which is why I just hacked them and back-dated everything." Chloe's nonchalant tone belied the silent shock that went through the rest of the team. The Global Alias Registry wasn't just for superheroes, the organization was a world-wide collection of nearly every super-powered individual's pseudonym connected to their private identity allowing them to claim it as their own. The only reason it worked was because that collection was so private and guarded that it had never been broken into, and gave heroes and villains alike international legal rights to their own identity without fear of being compromised.

"Don't give me that look, it's not like I decided to also go snooping while I was in there. I just did the same thing for her that I did for myself and the 'Maven' alias." Chloe had raised her eyes from the screen and saw the bewildered faces everyone was giving her as she rolled her eyes.

"It's still secure, I'm the only person in the world who has access to an entire sub-reality that lets me literally cheat my way into anywhere digitally, including places where all of the information is kept on physical copies with zero electrical or digital components for miles around. I'm not going to violate the integrity of a major component to keeping the peace between supers just because I'm too lazy to do the proper paperwork, that'd be rude."

That comment didn't help the looks which were getting increasingly incredulous, or in the case of Voodoo Queen's narrowing stare annoyed, as Chloe let out a defeated sigh and stood up, putting her hand on something which caused the hologram in the center of the table to show Demi's lab and the secure glass cell holding the unconscious Bimbette.

"Which I guess is the best segue I can do to the real reason Jen called a full team meeting instead of just letting everyone go about their afternoon. As you guys should be aware, we found Bimbette in a hidden lab built by Technovile into the very sub-reality I use to dodge paperwork. What was left behind made it clear it was also where Brandon Denvers had some help in creating the visors he used to brainwash women and try to rob the IRRIS. We're not really sure what's wrong with her but long-term exposure from the lab keeping her contained was what gave Abigail her magic… and turned her into a bimbo."

"I still feel like you're burying the lead…" Voodoo Queen was in a better mood after fixing her hair from the fire damage and some excellent coffee but it was clear she still expected some answers.

"I'm getting there, because part of that was what I believe to be an AI running the lab, its main objective was to keep Bimbette secure. Since I don't want any of us to be transformed, I reworked the medical bed she's on as well as the suppression devices to keep her magic from affecting anyone in the tower but if she wakes up… she wakes up. I don't really know what happened to the AI because it covered its tracks using the same tech I would use to find out more. I know I just said I'm the only person in the world who has access to Cyberspace, but the truth is what made Technovile so scary is he also used it to help him take over the city and those AHP heroes all those years ago. The reason both of us know about it is because… I'm his daughter."

Considering how little she talked about it, much less in front of a large group, Chloe winced internally as she waited for her teammates' reactions.

"Well, yeah. Obviously."

"No duh."

"Bien sûr."

"See, even Paris already figured it out."

"What the hell!?!" Chloe's expletives drowned out Magdalena's insulted outburst, the latter soothed by a teasing Ninjette as a burst of chuckles rounded from the table. "If you already knew then why are we having a team meeting?!"

"To see if you'd fess up… and because I still have plenty of questions." Voodoo Queen shook her head with a smirk on her lips.

"Yeah, like why did he call it Cyberspace? What kind of lame 70s sci-fi movie did he get that from?" Ninjette flipped out a small knife to play with between her fingers before obscuring it somewhere on her body.

"Hey! I named it and I was like 7 years old when I created it and my parents did watch a lot of kitschy sci-fi like old Star Trek and- and…"

Chloe shut her mouth listening to the laughter slowly stop as her teammates realized what she was saying. She sighed, retying some of the shoulder-length pink hair out of her face and pinching the bridge of her nose. "Let me start from the beginning and I'll make it short. I learned about my abilities while helping my father with his work; mostly medical related with a major project being a new prosthetic that simulated the lost limb perfectly. He was struggling with training them to act like the old limb and I helped by sort of… cheating, and made Cyberspace. I didn't realize how dangerous what I had created was at the time but Dad did and at the cost of the grant making his work possible, we ended up cutting off most access to what I made rather than using it."

"The main danger being…" Voodoo Queen wasn't trying to be rude, there were things she could do with magic that could certainly be described as breaking reality but every time Chloe had opened her mouth since the Dollmaker incident her mind had gone into overdrive at what was truly possible with the tech available.

"The main? Shit, where do I start? It is data in its simplest format which means it requires a super-brain to actually process it but when I say I'm editing reality I mean it literally. The phenomenon of the data reverting to its original form or retaining its changed shape as the new normal is something I could counteract given enough time. Even with no training or knowledge of what he was messing with you saw the amount of damage Brandon Denvers did in a small sample size, imagine if he was an educated bad actor. The person who gave my dad that grant in the first place was an old family friend and even then he didn't trust letting knowledge of it outside the lab."

"I guess… but if just learning about it was so dangerous why are you telling us now? You were strangely open about it after fixing Dollmaker's little stunt with the screens." The tinge of confusion in Psychometra's voice was echoed by the nods of some of the other girls at the table, with Jennifer all of a sudden looking sheepish and Chloe looking like she was about to lie before shutting her mouth and sighing.

"Well that's because… technically… you shouldn't really be retaining any of the information I say about it or questioning me about my past or my connection to Technovile."

"How heavy is that technically?" Almost against her will, Psychometra felt her hands flex as she worked what was being said between the lines of Chloe's sentence, her wording not all that different from what she would say while using her telepathy to make a guard or a henchman forget he ever saw her. It was suspicious enough that she almost started combing her own mind with her powers only to remember that if her teammate was using Cyberspace she wouldn't find a trace of a change or order.

"Pretty heavy." Chloe looked around the room at the group of heroines who had come to Rapid Rivers to join her at the word of two of her closest friends and internally grimaced. "Listen, there's a justification why I did what I did when I did it but… there's a good reason why I immediately went for an invisible mnemonic device laid over electronics when fixing Brandon's mess. Right before my da- Technovile took over the city, there was a moment where I could have stopped him but I hesitated. I realize I was just a kid but what set him off… I didn't take it well. Really it took talking with Nike and building Athena-"

"Wait, you built Athena to-!" Slingshot was hushed by Voodoo Queen as they both watched Chloe work at keeping her composure before continuing.

"After building Athena and stopping him, it wasn't the end of things. The AHP of course was embarrassed and internally at least they were very interested in the tech he used to mind control the population and heroes as quickly as he did. It wasn't just Technovile I was concerned about though, Miracle Man and Miracle Woman had… detained my younger sister and there were talks about just how far they were willing to go to get what they wanted so… I made the choice for them. Ever wonder how no one seems to remember Technovile's name, or the complete lack of curiosity of the event outside of remembering it happened?”

Chloe grimaced as memories she wasn’t fond of reliving were dredged up, gazing at her confused, curious, but at least thoughtful looking teammates. “I used my own Cyberspace tech to rescue my sister, imprison my dad in a jail better suited to hold him and away from anyone who would try to exploit his knowledge, and made everyone just sort of… forget. To keep it that way, I ended up installing a mnemonic virus into every electronic device on the planet to reinforce that amnesia and apathy, and it keeps me and mine as safe as I can while I try to keep everything together."

"Well.… fuck." Voodoo Queen rarely swore as she put her hands to her face, muffling her voice as she tried to work out everything you just heard. "So you brainwashed the entire planet into forgetting almost everything they saw, your supervillain dad is in prison but no one actually knows where but you, and…"

"Why exactly are you telling us? Is it because something went wrong somewhere and it's not affecting us the way it should?"

"I'm not going to pretend that isn't part of it." Chloe mulled over Ninjette's question, and the theories she had about why it wasn't working. "If I had to guess, recent exposure to Cyberspace tech has made it less effective, or perhaps the AI which caused B-day is messing with the mnemonic device. That might also explain the interaction I had with my old high school principal earlier today. It's more than that though because if I really wanted to I could just boot up the lab and wipe your brains and avoid this entire conversation."

The room of heroines, including Jennifer, froze as they heard in her tone that she had definitely thought about it but Chloe continued on unfazed. "But you and Ember remember what Rapid Rivers was like between then and now. I can't help but feel some sort of responsibility if what I used to keep my family out of sight also made the AHP unwilling to set up shop again. I love this city, quirks and weirdos included, and considering it's where me and Madison were raised, all of the memories… It deserves to have people that care as much about keeping it safe as I do. I know all of you came here because of Jen or Nike asking, but I was the one who selected you for the team based on not just your powers but the type of person I thought you were… and if I can't trust you with something like this I don't think I could also ask you to trust me if the worst case scenario were to happen and Technovile broke out."

Chloe fiddled with her fingers as she looked around the table at the other girls. Demi looked pleased, as did Jennifer while Voodoo Queen seemed to still be thinking about everything she had been told. Meanwhile, Psychometra and Slingshot had shot each other a look with both shrugging and relaxing while Flamera and Ninjette nodded, both former vigilantes more than familiar with the state of the city before the Ladies of Victory were formed. Meanwhile, next to the two Rapid Rivers natives, the soft sounds of Magdalena trying not to cry slowly drew everyone's attention.

"Je suis désolé… It's just like, so sad and moving Chloe! Your background is très tragique, I can't contain myself-"

"Okay well, umm… thank you but it's not all that bad. I'm sure there's worse-" Red began tinging Chloe's cheeks as she stumbled through what to say to the clearly upset French girl.

"-and to carry the burden all alone for so long? For the sake of family? It so brave and-"

"-I don't really know about brave Paris but-"

"Non!" Chloe jumped as Magdalena stood suddenly. "I would be… dévasté if my father were to suddenly be evil, and to deal with that all by yourself, le courage est une excellente vertu!" Everyone watched the teary-eyed and scantily costumed Magdalena walk around the table towards Chloe, the latter frozen in place right up until she was swept into a super-powered hug resulting in a small cracking sound.

"Urk! Paris, you have to remember your own strength-"

"And I will!" Despite the words she seemed to hug the remaining breath out of Chloe as she squeezed. "But you are not alone anymore d'accord? I'll keep doing my best to become a great heroine like you and make you proud to trust us, not just as teammates mais en tant qu'amis, non?"

"Okay, okay! We're friends! Just loosen up, and I'm not a hero-OOF!"

Chloe felt the soft weight of the busty doctor before she heard her, as Demi joined in to hug her from behind. "I'm not as enthusiastic as Paris but the emotion is equally heartfelt. I know what it's like to think you have to make up for things you feel responsible for even if they were never really your fault, and I'm happy you gave me a place where I get the opportunity to do so."

The blush coursing through Chloe's face was reaching max heat as Jennifer joined in from the side. "and I'm just proud that you're finally opening up and making a few more friends than just me." Jen's face was a bit red as well, but the sly wink she gave her friend as she stuttered, wide-eyed to try to say something ended in a startled squeak as Flamera snuck in next to her… having stripped out of her bulky costume and into her birthday suit.

"What's a little skinship between friends, don't be a prude." Ember giggled as Jen's face now rivaled Chloe in the amount of red showing. "But seriously, you're right. I remember what it was like to try and fix this city alone or uncoordinated and I'm happy I don't have to worry about that anymore."

"The problem with skinship Ember, is that some of us are psychometric telepaths and may not want to know whatever is going on in that head of yours." Psychometra sighed as she adjusted her costume to make sure there wasn't any exposed skin and stood up, chuckling to herself as Ninjette flitted past to join Ember in agreement and looking over at the two remaining sitting heroines. "Never been on a team that would have a group hug, much less one I'm about to join in on."

"Strangest team I've certainly ever been on." Slingshot neatly cleaned herself off, having finished off the impromptu meal and checking her breath to avoid any lingering onions. "But then again that's half the fun of you guys. Are you going to join?"

The last remark was at Voodoo Queen who was still sitting in contemplation as she watched Slingshot wrap her arms around the knot of girls, with one very embarrassed Chloe clearly fighting back tears of some kind. The warm smile she usually kept hidden lit up her face as she chuckled, standing up and making her way over the group hug more carefully than some of her peers.

What a strange, strange bunch... Certainly the Ladies of Victory were women from all different walks of life, but somehow they managed to fit together in their own way. Despite her reputation as the ice queen of the group even Voodoo Queen couldn’t deny the warmth of real friendship filling her as she joined the giggling gaggle of superheroines that made up her new team…