The week after the Justice Guard raided M.A.L.I.G.N.’s orbital lair, their civilian staff were kept busy liaising with other superteams as they sifted through the captured data on the satellite server and identified projects, secret bases, and organisations that the Insider had been working with or investing in.

In Phoenix, they alerted the Phenomenal Five to the new location of the Power House, and politely requested the Five take a look. Valkyrie, their leader, had been happy to agree.

The Power House was notorious. Over the past four decades, its owners and operators had experimented on kidnap victims to find ways to bestow or boost superpowers which they could safely replicate for paying clientele. Almost all of that clientele had done so ultimately for criminal purposes, with only a handful of them either initially being or later becoming heroes. They’d been shut down several times, but always seemed to pop up again eventually.

For decades they’d preyed on the homeless, but in the past few years they’d switched it up; now they instead targeted people through dating apps, using them to winnow out anyone who wouldn’t be missed.

Which was why, that Friday afternoon, Phantom was opening the factory’s front door from inside so Wolf and Electrum could make their way in.

The young heroine’s dual abilities to become invisible and intangible made for an easy way through the toughest security, but you had to be ready for the response as soon as that security noticed the door was open.

That, in turn, was why Wolf was also there; she had strength and resilience to spare, and had married them with a vicious, almost feral fighting style which, coupled with her quiet, almost shy nature, had led to her costumed name.

At the same time, Valkyrie and Emerald were making their entry through skylight, taking advantage of flight to create a pincer movement.

Immediately the whole building was in chaos. Wolf grinned fiercely at the sight of the genebound troopers sent to retake the door. Spreading her arms wide, she bellowed a challenge and raced forwards, her unkempt hair streaming wildly out behind her.

Phantom and Electrum exchanged glances behind her; Electrum unclipped a device from her belt, checked the readout, and pointed off to one side. “This way,” she said. Phantom nodded, then her dark blue bodysuit and thin, pale face disappeared from sight, hurrying forward to clear the way. If Electrum could get to a network node, her technological know-how might help them do more than just shut down this Power House; hopefully they’d be able to find and help more of its victims, too.

In the main lab, Valkyrie, powerful in her glittering steel skirt and bodice, had come face to face with a behemoth of an experimental subject, their skin bright red and boiling to the touch, rippling muscle beneath, glowing green eyes and nine feet tall.

Her response had been to stomp on his instep, then pivot around into a spinning kick that sent him flying backward into a bank of instruments. She favoured spinning strikes; they made good use of her unusual speed, and on at least one occasion she’d caught her opponent an extra, stinging blow as her long blonde braid whipped around.

This guy might take me a minute, she thought. Go catch us any supervisors.

Hovering in the air above, her dark braids splayed out around her in her telekinetic halo Emerald nodded. I’m on it, the psychic replied. When Val got like this, things that would in any case have been direction rather than requests turned into orders. Even Wolf mostly followed along. She switched the direction of her thoughts, reaching out to find unfamiliar minds rather than ones she knew.

Seams along her emerald green bodysuit started to glow, the focusing circuitry built into her suit amplifying her abilities. With the collar seam alight, her dark skin was underlit a vivid green.

She started sorting through the unfamiliar minds by intentionality. In a situation like this, looking for those acting in anger or cruelty was a good first filter to find those behind it.

The giant fighter bellowed and charged Valkyrie, who met him with a spin which drove the point of her elbow into his jaw. He rose from his feet from the impact, and when he fell, he stayed down.

Meanwhile, Wolf had scrapped her way through twenty enforcers. Her dark grey leathers were torn and burned, one hole the size of her hand, but the skin underneath was unharmed, and it hadn’t stopped her.

She chose her next door at random, kicking it with gusto and watching in satisfaction as it splintered out of its frame. Inside she found no resistance but instead what looked like holding cells, some barred, some blocked with heavy metal doors, some walled off by the telltale glow of a forcefield.

Many of the Phenomenal Five’s adversaries over the years, even as their membership had changed, had seen Wolf’s forthright approach and short temper and assumed her to be stupid into the bargain, an assumption that had always been to their cost.

She did not try to bend the bars, or rip open the doors, or smash her shoulder uselessly against the forcefields. She looked to her side, where she saw a control panel with a series of numbered toggle switches.

Wolf flipped all the switches rapidly. The forcefields dropped, but the bars and doors remained in place. Now she went down the line, opening each door in turn.

Early in her career, the coiled power in her body and the slightly feral way she carried herself, her wide eyes that often started, even her loose hair refusing to stay neat in the heat of battle, all of it added up to scare hostages or prisoners she rescued. In the last four or five years, though, she had received enough exposure in the press that captives more often recognised her immediately.

Wolf went through the entire cell block, encouraging each of the captives to get up and get out. “Get clear, but stick around,” she told them. “We can help.”

Looking back on the day later, while she’d talked to each of them and physically touched many, helping them back on their feet, giving them encouraging pats on the shoulder, and in one case hugging a young teenage girl who must have lied about her age if she’d been on a dating app, there was one of the captives who stood out.

He’d stumbled on his way out of the cell and she’d caught him, steadying him. As he fell into her, one hand had landed on the upper slope of one breast, his palm resting against her heart.

She felt a surprising jolt of something. The two of them looked up at the same moment, meeting each others’ eyes,

The connection was sudden and immediate. Wolf hesitated for a moment, then mustered a smile that may have come out flirtier than the professional one she was aiming for. Something about this young man spoke to the primal instincts in her. Desire was bubbling up. “Hey,” she said, “You’re fine.”

“Uh.” He blinked several times, hazel eyes looking up at her. He’d definitely had some kind of treatment, she thought; superhumans tended to develop into certain body types, and she would bet that while he’d probably come to the Power House skinny, he hadn’t had that impression of capable muscle layered onto his slim frame to begin with. “What?”

“You’re going to be fine,” she corrected herself. “Just head on down there, turn right, and get to the exit.”

“I… sure.” He lifted himself out of her arms and steadied himself, then scurried away. She watched him go, and was rewarded by seeing him stop at the cellblock door and look back over his shoulder.

Above them, Electrum was perched on an office chair, her white boots and long legs in her amber bodysuit resting on the desk while the software package in her pen drive cracked the encoding on the Power House’s database. A second big scoop of information in a week by American superteams, she mused; they might soon see some of the biggest names in supercrime behind bars with this kind of information.

And above that, Emerald had cornered Doctor Risper, the current owner, with a telekinetically created wall, As he backed away, Phantom stepped out of nowhere and tapped him with a stunrod.

Valkyrie smiled. A perfectly successful operation, as good as anyone could ask for. Nobody was going to be able to question her bringing Phantom and Emerald onto the team when Mr Mystic and Solarheart both retired after the Psi-Clone incident.

None of the original Phenomenal Five were still there, but the team was as good as ever under her leadership. It would be satisfying to shut the press up about it, especially when half of the criticisms had assumed an all-female team couldn’t do as well as earlier incarnations.

*

Six months later, the day after the Phenomenal Five banished the Lady of Vengeance before her cult could start a war, Mei Chun, the woman more famous as Wolf, walked past the doorway to the Five’s HQ without tapping her ID card against the lock and going inside, even though it was time for scheduled team training. She had other things on her mind; today was due to be her third date with Shane, the Power House captive who’d stumbled into her during the rescue.

She hadn’t found out his name in the aftermath of the Power House raid but he’d stayed in her thoughts, which in and of itself was unusual. After some disastrous early experiments, Wolf had more or less stopped thinking about dating or a love life since she assumed her mother’s old heroic identity years ago.

People she met in her secret identity had been killed by her enemies; heroes she’d flirted with had betrayed her in other ways (in the case of Major Impact, the US Army sponsored supersoldier, quite literally) and past a certain point she’d sworn off and made up her mind instead to accept frustration where she had to.

Two months had gone by before they ran into each other, and it had been blind chance when they did; Shane had showed up at the gym where she worked as a personal trainer. He hadn’t recognised her, but she’d known him from the moment their eyes met, had even felt a little disappointment that he didn’t respond the same way.

A month later, Shane had asked her out. Professional instincts had turned him down politely, with no sting to his ego, before her mind caught up with her mouth; it wasn’t even her own principles against dating but hard-won experience that responding to client flirtation meant drama.

To his credit, he hadn’t raised it again. Instead, two months later, when they ran across each other in the supermarket, Mei had laughed and said “We’ve got to stop meeting like this.”

Shane had looked thoughtful, and only then had Mei realised that from his perspective they’d met only twice, once when he signed up for her gym; it was her perspective that showed it as three random encounters. To distract him, and because her time as Wolf had taught her that forward momentum always overcame any obstacle, she asked him if he wanted to get coffee the next weekend.

They’d been to see a film together a couple of weeks after that, and now it was time for a lunch date.

Shane had suggested a place with a beer garden, where he was waiting at a table in the sun. It was strange, Mei thought, but every time she saw him he seemed to be more attractive. It was probably just that his confidence was coming back; the cocky grin had been shy, even nervous, on their first encounter.

She sat down opposite him and smiled a little wider. She was a little late, but didn’t feel like it was worth mentioning.

“Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” she answered. “You good?”

“Yeah. You?”

“Definitely.” She gave it a beat. “Sorry I missed your call last night.”

“I was worried, that’s all. It’s silly.”

She laughed. “Why would you be worried?”

“Well. You know. The Lady of Vengeance manifested in town, pretty much anyone who might have revenge in their hearts started feeling a certain type of way.”

He can’t know. Keeping her face neutral, Mei nodded. The Five had been busy banishing her and hadn’t seen much of the other effects across the city, but she knew some other local heroes had showed up to help contain the worst. If he didn’t know her secret - and if he hadn’t recognised her, there was no positive explanation for why he’d know - there had to be some other reason he’d think that. “What kind of vengeance do you think someone would want to take on little old me?” she asked lightly.

“I said it was silly,” Shane answered. His tone wasn’t quite defensive, but she could tell he felt justified in his concern. “For all I know, you’ve got an ex somewhere in the city who wants to murder you.”

She winced. It was too close to true, except that Major Frank Impert was still in high security a couple of states away. “Well, either way, I’m safe,” she said. “Just couldn’t hear my phone.” Because it was on my sofa at home when I ran upstairs to change and answer a different call.

“I see that.” He was smiling. He reached out, resting his hand on hers over the table, his eyes shining with happiness. Mei shivered, resonating with him. She smiled back.

*

“Honestly, Val, I only have so much of today I can offer,” Electrum said. It was always Electrum who broke the silence on difficult topics; Emerald shot a glance at Phantom and the two women shared a small, private smile. “I have to pick up Geordi from his grandparents before dinner.” There was no father in the picture to share parental duties with her; he was trapped in another timeline, and had been for most of his son’s three years of life.

“We’ll have to train without her,” Valkyrie said. The other three women in the room winced at her tone. As good a leader as Val was, she was a real martinet when it came to training; even she would admit to a “huge bee in my bonnet” about showing the Phenomenal Five was everything it had ever been. “Alright. Let’s cycle up the fight simulator.”

The featureless metal room they were standing in shimmered as a holographic simulacrum of a warehouse appeared. Emerald, as she always did, reached out and touched a crate, felt solidity at her fingertips. Hard light, a technology originally developed by Cineman, a hero operating out of LA in the 1950s. The modern constructs had a lot more texture to them, but the essentials were decades old now, a mature technology. Only a longstanding lawsuit between his estate and the movie studio he’d worked for in his civilian identity meant hard light technology wasn’t in common use.

“You know,” Phantom said conversationally as they prepared for combat, “apparently one of the heroes solving problems on the street last night was new.”

“Who?” Valkyrie asked. Her knowledge of the local metahuman scene was encyclopaedic, but she never missed a chance to expand it.

“Called himself Imago.” Phantom was dating Gila, a low-level hero who liked to work solo who’d also been out trying to calm those with vengeance in their hearts. “A telekinetic for sure. He shaped a road into a shield and bent a traffic barrier around someone’s arms as handcuffs.”

Then the first holographic terrorist started firing on them, and conversation had to be set aside for a while.

*

She let Shane kiss her as they left the restaurant, a long, lingering one, if only because she wasn’t ready to let him have anything else traditional for a third date. But as the kiss parted, she almost relented on that. He really did get better the longer she spent around him.

“This has been a lot of fun,” she said. “But I have to get going for now.”

One of his hands had come to rest on the small of her back. His thumb started to trace a slow circle against her skin. It was probably meant to be a calming motion. Mei wasn’t sure whether he was trying to calm her or himself; neither of them seemed to need it. “Are you sure?” he asked. “It is our third date.”

His thumb doing that actually felt pretty good, she decided. Reassuring, relaxing. Positive. But she still laughed at his gambit - lightly, so as not to hurt his feelings, but audibly, so he’d understand her answer. “If you were expecting a payoff like that, why make it a lunch date?”

He grinned. “I know from the gym how much energy we both have,” he said, “so I figured, why not give ourselves time?”

Mei held his gaze for a long moment. It was such a shame, she thought, to have to turn him down, but it needed to be done. If she hurried, she might make the end of training. The team was riding a high, she should at least show her face.

Shane’s eyes were shining with hope. She would have to let him down gently. “Well, when you put it like that,” she found herself saying, “why don’t you come on back to my place?” And as soon as she’d said it, it sounded like the best idea in the world.

*

The Phenomenal Five didn’t always act as a team. To Val’s ongoing frustration, no billionaire philanthropist had yet volunteered to fund the team, in spite of the fact the Justice Guard had two - one of them attractive, single, and also investing in social projects to reduce the need for crime in his area, to boot - so they weren’t full-time the way the Guard were. Each of them had a day job to pay the bills (or at least, Emerald assumed the others had day jobs; she didn’t like to pry) and set aside some time outside work hours to patrol and work cases. Whenever they had a reason, be that a training session of a case which would need their collective attention, they reached out and got into action as soon as they could.

With her costume in place, Emerald, or Raven as her mom had christened her, eased open the window of her third story apartment and stepped out, focusing her power on a telekinetic lift to offset gravity. She headed south, slowly at first - acceleration was her biggest problem when airborne - but gaining speed as she went.

Supposedly, from everything she’d seen, someone serious was establishing themselves as a new gang boss in southern Phoenix. Raven’s main goal was to confirm whether or not they were a super, although if they weren’t, she’d probably take them down herself, as it wouldn’t be worth the effort to get the rest of the team involved too.

She wasn’t nearly as good a flyer as a lot of supers she’d met, but it was still one of her favourite things to do. To her, it was freedom, one of the things that gave her the most joy in life.

Settling herself down near her destination, she concentrated. Her psionic abilities were still growing, as was the ease of using them. Part of her couldn’t wait until she no longer needed the booster circuitry in her costume, although part of her would regret losing the glow that the psi-channels emitted when she was at full strength.

In time, she expected to be able to weave a psionic disguise around herself almost instantly; right now, cultivating a field around her that would substitute out a different appearance to anyone who saw her took time to do, though once constructed it would remain in place either until dismissed or she needed all of her power for something else.

Her costume was still around her; it gave her the power boost she wanted, would even afford her some protection, and it genuinely made her feel more confident when she wore it. All the same, to the rest of the world, she appeared to be wearing low-cut hip-huggers and a tank top, with a light brown stetson nestled on her mass of curls and, of course, the facemask was nowhere to be seen.

The stetson was her favourite addition. She always had some kind of hat or tinted her curls something bottle-bright when she built a disguise like this. It meant nobody ever took in any details of her face, and only the most observant matched her silhouette to her costumed identity, let alone her real life.

She sauntered into the saloon with a swagger she truly felt she’d earned. Rather than buy a drink, she headed over to the pool table, where she selected a cue and looked at the two men already around the table. “I’ll play the winner,” she said.

Both men gave her a long visual appraisal, lingering over her hips and thighs, before one of them nodded. “Sure,” he said. “But we’ll make it interesting. Play for stakes.”

“I’m good for that,” she answered. She was more than ready to play this scene out, if that was the way they wanted to go; off-duty she’d consider ensuring her own wins with gentle telekinetic course corrections to be cheating, but in pursuit of a criminal, it didn’t seem like too big a violation.

But she didn’t expect the people she was talking to would be as happy about playing it out. Emerald didn’t believe in messing around or subtlety the way Electrum and Phantom did, but enjoyed the direct approach. It was probably Val and Wolf’s fault, if truth be told; she had a mild case of hero worship toward both women. “You guys can play for money, and I can play for the name of the guy whose men took over Mad Dog Noonan’s protection rackets.”

She hadn’t needed to extend her telepathy to confirm the two men knew the answer she was after. Their body language alone would have told her.

They looked at her for a few moments and she looked back blandly. “You don’t look like a cop,” one of them said.

“I’ll take that as a compliment.”

The other man had clearly been coming to some decision. He reached back behind himself and pulled out a handgun, which he levelled directly at the heroine.

Emerald stared coolly down the barrel. “So,” she said, “we’ve established the two of you know what I want to find out. If you tell me, I can get on with my life and you can both get on with yours.”

The man with the gun said “You’re not a cop, so this is a big mistake,” and pulled at the trigger.

But before the mechanism could fire smoothly, the safety catch snapped back on, propelled by Emerald’s psychic power. He looked baffled for a moment, then snapped the catch off and tried again, only for it to be back in place before his finger could tighten on the trigger.

She didn’t let him get a third attempt, but jammed the safety shut. His friend, having watched this in confusion for a few moments, jumped in surprise when Emerald took a step closer to the gunman, whirling her cue around her hand into a huge uppercut that slammed into his groin.

He let out a strangled shriek and collapsed to his knees, but she was already turning to his friend. “I don’t want to have to ask impolitely,” she told him. “So fess up before we end up with trouble.”

*

The woman was incredible.

Her apartment was a little cramped - he guessed personal trainers’ finances weren’t all they could be - but it was beautifully laid out and decorated, and was just generally a pleasure to be in. All the same, he hadn’t been able to concentrate on it. Not when Mei had backed him onto her sofa and was now straddling him, powerful thighs either side of his, and she was kissing him like she needed him.

He slipped his fingers under the shoulder straps of Mei’s halter top and grinned. She sat back on her haunches; for a moment he was reminded of the kind of coiled power of a hunting animal, or maybe that was something in her eyes.

“I want to see you topless,” Shane told her. He’d already learned that this woman preferred everything clearly stated and out in the open, so he didn’t feel like he had to weasel around his goal. All the same, he read something in her eyes he didn’t want to see. He could see the refusal coming.

Shane had been used to refusals. Used to everything going wrong. When he’d gone along to the date that turned out to be a Power House kidnap, he’d thought even as he left the house that it would end in disaster.

He’d been wrong about the type of disaster and, to be fair, by now he wasn’t sure that disaster was the right word anyway. He knew Mei was about to push back on him, but he could cut it off. It worked better when he was touching what he wanted to affect, he knew that much. Let’s see, he thought; focus on what I want and push my mind in a direction like I hope -

Mei grinned. “You only have to ask,” she said. She brought both of her hands up to grip her halter top just along the neckline and tensed, then ripped her arms out to either side fast, accompanied by the sound of tearing fabric.

The bra beneath was revealed - patterned and elaborate in design, but built to support the full, heavy curves that stood now almost revealed. The kind of bra someone would buy to feel pretty when lacy, delicate, or plain sheer material just couldn’t be trusted at their size.

She shrugged her ripped top off at the shoulders, then reached behind herself and unsnapped the clasp, bringing her arms forward and tossing the bra to one side, a casual discarding.

Shane grinned and reached up, cupping her tits in his hands. A part of him did feel that what he was doing was perhaps not right. On the other hand, he felt like he was doing his part elsewhere. “The more of you I see, the more beautiful you are,” he told her. “It’s amazing how good you look.” And hope-

Mei coloured prettily. “I’m glad. I don’t usually want to look pretty for people. It gets in the way.” She was about to say but, he was sure, about to respond to the latest little push, but then a loud electronic squawk cut through the air, a phone ringing, and she practically jumped off him and darted away to her bag. She was moving so fast, he thought, but then adrenaline did that to you. Maybe that was a result of him getting her worked up. Maybe she just felt guilty. It might depend who was calling, or at least who she thought was calling.

She plucked something small and slim out of her bag, too small to be a phone, but it was definitely the source of the sound, the ringing was growing louder as it emerged. She was already at a doorway as she brought it out and then she was through, the door closed behind her. Whatever she was answering, she didn’t want it to be heard.

He sat back on the sofa, reliving what had just happened. A nudge at the right time and she’d ripped her top open, just to please him. That was heady stuff.

It was also a lot more assertive than he’d have preferred, and a little more assertive than he was comfortable with. He was going to have to adjust that, he thought; it might take a little bit of thought.

Or maybe not. His nudges seemed to be getting more effective.

The door reopened and Mei came back in. She’d thrown a hoodie on and had a small, sturdy backpack thrown over one shoulder. Her bag was gone. “Shane,” she said hurriedly, “I’m really sorry. Something’s come up and I have to go.” Stepping into her shoes, she finally looked up at him, and he read the raw emotion in her eyes. “I really wish I didn’t have do to this, okay? I’d love to stay, and I…” She took two steps toward him, hesitant. “I really want to do this again, okay?”

She leaned down and planted a quick kiss on his cheek. “I just have to go,” she said. “It’s kind of an emergency. Will you let yourself out?” She was practically at the door, Shane noticed; she moved so much faster than he did. Adrenaline, he told himself again.

“Call me,” she called over her shoulder, “and please don’t be mad!” And then the door closed behind her, leaving him alone in her apartment.

Shane couldn’t think of an emergency so all-overpowering that he wouldn’t wait until a visitor was out, or at least usher them out himself. Maybe they had different priorities, but he didn’t think so - not so much that it would stand out, anyway.

Slowly, a thoughtful frown on his brow, he stood and went through into the room she’d been in. He wasn’t surprised that it was her bedroom; given she’d put on a new top and grabbed a bag while in there, he’d have been surprised if it had been anything else.

The wardrobe door was slightly open, and her bag lay on her bed, but everything else was undisturbed. He picked up her bag and looked in; her phone was there and he could confirm it wasn’t what she’d picked out, but whatever that had been, she’d taken it with her.

He tried the wardrobe next. Opening the door it just looked like the wardrobe of a reasonably well-off, sporty woman, but something was off. He stared at it for a long time before he worked out what that was.

The wardrobe was shallower on the inside than it looked from the outside.

Reaching in slowly, he explored the wooden back wall of the wardrobe with his hands. His fingertips brushed against a gnarl in the wood, and there was a click.

The back wall opened like a door.

Shane stared at three almost-identical costumes hanging in the back. He recognised that costume instantly. He’d seen it, close up, on what had been the best day of his life; the one when the experiments stopped and his freedom was restored, just two weeks after the worst day of his life.

He started to laugh.

He was dating a superheroine. He was dating the superheroine that had rescued him.

He was planning to tame the Wolf.