The next morning, I walked out into my kitchen feeling much better.
The sun wasn’t up, but a night of rest had really put things into perspective for me.
I wanted to continue my ’normal’ life above all else.
The stolen pancake mix still sat on the counter, a reminder of the morning with Stella.
Rolling my eyes, I waved it into the trash.
I never took the time to make pancakes, so it didn’t make sense to keep it.
I smiled as I stared at the box in the trash.
The night of rest had given me clarity.
Waving my hand, I used my powers to pull out ingredients and make myself a quick breakfast of eggs and toast.
And I didn’t even need to dirty any dishes.
I grabbed my toast midair and snacked on it while I watched my eggs cook.
Then I used an imaginary fork to eat them as they floated around me.
When I finished, I got dressed for the morning.
There was an old bike that I rarely used hanging in my apartment, and I lifted it with my powers, floating it over to the window as a reminder before I left.
Breakfast done, I double checked to make sure I wasn’t still exerting my power over anything in the apartment as I stepped out of my window and ghosted across the early morning sky before the sun rose.
I put the bike down in the shadow of a tent.
I made sure no one was watching before I became visible again along with the bike and walked into the BSH tent.
Kim was already in the tent, and a few of the early bird types were sipping on coffee.
I had to wonder if Kim even slept or if her immortality healed that too.
"Zayn, good morning." Kim spotted me and took time to greet me.
"Morning." I picked up the tablet, sitting right where I had left it the day before.
"Point me towards where I’m going to get an update on what happened last night?"
She tapped my tablet. "All right in there. Read the reports.
It seems that our work made the night shift easy.
Short version: The night scouting team reported a sixty-four percent reduction in total bactimen count under the city.
That’s a fantastic improvement, but it’ll get harder from here.
Weeding out the holdouts and making sure none of it exists to replicate is going to prove challenging."
Beatrix, the analyst from the day before, waved at us, trying to flag Kim.
"I think someone wants your attention." I nodded towards the analyst.
"Let me get up to speed and see where we can plunk Demoness into the sewers to do the most damage."
Kim smacked my shoulders with a grin and turned around to deal with the eager analyst.
Flipping through the report, I saw several spots that referenced prior reports or facts that I didn’t already know.
I didn’t have all of these old reports, but I managed to piece together enough of them.
Bactimen apparently congregated at night to share bacteria.
Anything that survived various types of assaults the day before would share that survival mechanism among the other bactimen.
It would be impressive if it weren’t terrifying.
It was like bacteria that became antibody resistant if partially treated.
They were growing an overwhelming amount of immunities.
I read through the list of the different abilities they had developed immunity against, and I grimaced.
The list was long, and I could see why Kim was getting concerned.
The only abilities they hadn’t grown resistant or immune to were extreme heat and life draining.
There were a few that could do heat, but as far as I knew, Stella was the only one with life draining, as they called it.
Technically, she was draining ki, but I’d let them call it whatever they wanted.
I read on through the report.
Scouting showed that, rather than escape to the edges of the city, the bactimen were actually converging in the middle of the city.
And the BSH had been herding and narrowing their range of operations.
The night shift had used ice and earth powers to close off sections of the sewers, narrowing the areas we had to clean up.
It seemed like a good enough plan.
I certainly didn’t have a better one.
The sheer scale of the bactimen would be hard to eradicate in their entirety and would take some time.
While I was musing over the report, more BSH managers had filtered in and mimicked me.
"Heya, newbie." A woman sat down in the chair next to me.
"I hear you’re managing the star of the show today."
"Not quite sure how I wound up here, but I guess that’s true." I put down the tablet.
I’d gotten through all the important information.
The other manager leaned over conspiratorially. "I hear she’s a villain recruited for her power.
Careful with her.
You never know when those types are going to turn on you.
She was probably pulled from a supermax somewhere and will fight us when this is over.
Barely worth the air she’s using."
"Huh?" I wasn’t sure what to say for a moment, the overwhelming prejudice clear.
But then I felt myself wanting to defend Stella.
"Not that it’s any of your business, but she only became a villain because she couldn’t control her power.
Power that she has a lot of and has been using to help this city now that she has control."
"Oh, sure. I’m sure she’ll use any excuse to get in your pants." The woman bounced her eyebrow at me.
"Careful, you can only trust the good ones like me."
Funny, I was just thinking the exact opposite about her.
She hit me as the type to abuse her position of power and authority.
"I’ll pass. Demoness has been great to work with."
The woman grimaced and dropped the mask of civility. "You should learn to take the offers when they come politely."
She pushed off the chair next to me and walked away, excitedly greeting a woman in a blue and pink outfit as she walked in.
I recognized the hero immediately.
Omnigirl, one of the city’s premiere heroes.