Aiden stepped in and out of his portal right after reading his daughter's text. He already missed her. It had taken him a while to leave Victoire's campus yesterday and leave her behind. An urge continuously tugged at him to go back there and take her home.

She was growing up so fast, too fast for comfort. It seemed like just yesterday she was a tiny baby, and now she had to be apart from him for the next four years. God, it would be torture.

He wanted her [Hero] journey to succeed if she truly enjoyed it, but there was a part of him that was just hoping she would change her mind and decide that Arcadia would be a better fit instead. And if she was doing this solely for him, he hoped she would snap out of that soon. His case was a lost cause, and he'd made his peace with it. He didn't want her to live her life trying to save him. It was supposed to be the other way around.

It's safer for her there, he reminded himself as he surveyed his surroundings. Especially given how dangerous my investigations are shaping up to be. This is for the best. After all, they say if you love something, you have to let it go.

Aiden sighed. He used to hate platitudes like that, and now they were the things keeping him sane.

But it was true that this was the best way he could think of to keep his daughter safe. This conspiracy was growing larger than he thought, and whatever way he sliced it, it looked like Creevy, or whoever was controlling him, had an in with pretty much every [Villain] group in the Villain alliance. That was the only way to make such coordinated attacks and have the key perpetrators escape each time. Several members of the hero association also had to be involved, and those people definitely would not want their secrets getting out.

If they were bold enough to go after a man like Vacek, they would certainly come after Aiden, too.

The question was why Creevy and his associates would go to this extent and unleash such hell on the world just to get rid of Vacek. As far as Aiden knew, Creevy had been your typical corporate [Hero], a rule follower through and through. Once he retired, he became Vacek's main man for rooting out any notable corruption in the agency. He'd been dedicated to his job, and there were no reports of him being greedy or power-hungry at all. So what would lead him down this path? Was he being mind-controlled? Or did he know something about Vacek that the rest of them didn't know?

Aiden had wondered constantly about it as he gathered information. And now that he was in Capital City, he might as well visit some of his old contacts in the place, those who would still talk to him anyway.

After he'd dropped off Lexie yesterday, he'd stopped at this abandoned alley in Capital City with no street lights or cameras for several buildings over. He'd keyed his portal to the place, so he could have easy access to the city. So that was three places he was now able to key his portal to. That was good. It meant that his training was working, and his new skill base was expanding.

As he stepped out of the hidden area, he kept his hood up, so he wouldn't be recognized.

He was happy to be gaining his power back, but it wasn't the same as the power he'd had.

The work he and Naem had done to bypass the bands had changed the flavor of his magic, and it was now something different, a mixture of the old and the new. He felt the familiar exhilaration rushing through him as he did magic again. For the first time in years, he felt like himself again.

At the same time, he knew this was not simply magic at work. Because he wasn't just learning how to work through his Tilling bands, he was learning to work with the bands.

Tilling bands were made with a combination of magic and alchemy. That was part of what made them so hard to break out of, even for the strongest of mages. While a powerful mage might be able to bypass most magical bonds, the alchemic element of these made it such that the bands were continuously adjusting in ways to suppress the powers in complex, magically inexplicable ways, making the effort futile.

Aiden had managed to break the bands just a little during his fight with Mouse, but the attempt almost killed him. Luckily, it gave him an opening to work with, and he thought he would always have to work through the splinter of allowance to get his power out.

But once the band started adjusting to cover up the fault, and Aiden kept resisting the adjustment, something started changing.

He first noticed his magical pathways for a given skill changed each time he used it, and not by his own volition. The skill also presented slightly different result. That meant that something was morphing his magic on the way out, most likely the bands themselves.

The thing about alchemy was that it was the most unstable and unpredictable of all the power forms, part of why it was so difficult to learn. There were only a handful of dedicated alchemy scholars in the entire world, and even they often disagreed on how it worked. It was also a purely human invention to his knowledge and seemed very individual, with little pattern or modus operandi to be found across the board.

Aiden figured the alchemy in his bands was mixing with the magic on the way out, and was giving him a new type of power he'd never had before.

So, he began slowly experimenting with it.

He monitored the results and used them to expand his skill base. One thing he noticed was that, unlike magic, alchemy did not really have rules; it was more instinctive. He had to feel things out rather than calculate them, and it didn't always make sense. He would likely never grasp the full context of alchemy for as long as he lived, but he could at least understand the magic and alchemy combo that governed the bands around his neck.

Once he did, he would have a different magic signature but would be able to access his full mana. He might even be able to expand his magic base and have more power than before.

He didn't want to get his hopes up. It might not be feasible, but this was better than having the association give him another set of bands. They'd made more advanced ones over the years, ones that could record his every move and report it back to his overlords. He couldn't allow that. He had too many secrets to worry about; not just his, but his daughters.

So, he would do everything he could to gain power this way.

He was about to arrive at his first destination, noticing a familiar figure loitering on the edges of a cul-de-sac.

Aiden hesitated, then approached him from behind.

"What are you looking at?" Aiden asked, and it sent the other man jumping two feet in the air.

"Guardians!" Monty swore and laid a hand over his chest. "Did you have to do that?"

Aiden gave him an innocent look that hid his enjoyment of the other man's discomfort. "Do what?"

Monty gave him a suspicious look in return, then shook his head. "Never mind."

"Did you find out what I asked you to?"

Monty sighed. "Yes, and the answer was no. The Alchemist hasn't had any special visitors in months. According to his log, he hasn't left his home, and no one has been to see him."

"And you're sure it's not a golem sitting there."

He shrugged. "We can't really be sure of anything with him, but his mind didn't have the defects that Creevy's golem did."

"There's only one person capable of making a golem that sophisticated."

"Yes, but right now we can't prove it's the Alchemist. And even if it is him, we still don't know what or why he's doing this. We already have him confined, so he's a secondary concern. The most important thing is the dungeons. What have you found out about them?"

Aiden pursed his lower lip. "What I know is that dungeons cannot get to Earth without going through both the Fae's alignment process and the Red Tails. Unstable dungeons are typically dungeons that fail the process and go through the Tails anyway, meaning they're missing some important system components that make them safe. A dungeon spawning underground is a massive error that could indicate an extremely rare failure in the alignment process, one that is somehow routinely escaping Fae notice. An error that major would be hard to hide, so it means there's someone high up in the Fae government helping them. That's my best guess. Now, how does a group get to not only control that error but also replicate it over and over again, such that it always gives that same result at the exact time that they want it to…" He shook his head. "There's no magic powerful enough to do that. I don't even think the Fae could do it."

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"So what do you think is doing this?"

"Alchemy, perhaps," he said. "I don't understand enough about it to know for sure, but something tells me this all comes back to the Alchemist." He shook his head. "He may be doing something in particular to attract dungeons with those errors to Earth. Perhaps if you let me talk to Silas, I can discover–"

"No. Vacek would rather you don't meet with Silas. He says he'll deal with Silas individually. And our engineers are also trying to reverse engineer the golem to locate the real Silas."

"They won't be able to figure it out. Alchemy is not easy, and the Alchemist keeps his techniques a secret for that very reason. You probably won't find anything he doesn't want you to find."

They were silent for a few seconds, and Monty exhaled loudly. He reached into his pocket and took out a cigarette and a lighter.

Aiden gave him a disapproving look.

He shrugged defensively. "I don't do it all the time. It's been a stressful week."

Aiden continued his judgmental staring until Monty rolled his eyes and put his smoking paraphernalia away.

"So", he said. "Lexie starts at school today, huh?"

"Yes." Before Aiden could say more, someone came around the corner and froze, paling when their eyes met. Monty clearly recognized him because he said, "Stein."

He glanced back at Aiden in confusion and betrayal. "You told him?"

Aiden smiled. "Of course. We need his help."

***

Dominic Vacek walked into the black steel cage that held the golem of Silas Creevy.

Silas the Golem didn't know what he was doing here, or why Vacek was holding him captive and preventing him from leaving. He thought it was because he'd spoken against Vacek to the press.

But this was taking things too far. He'd been in here for days already and he was losing his mind. He wasn't even sure why he'd given that impassioned speech to the press. Perhaps he'd been so moved by the senseless tragedy, which could have been avoided if Vacek had called heroes back to earth earlier, that he couldn't help his emotional outburst. Although emotional outbursts didn't seem like his thing either, o that confused him too. Oh well. Silas figured he'd probably done it for a good reason.

That was all the information Vacek's Engineers had been able to glean from the golem.

But other stuff, like where the real Silas was hiding, who he was working with, and most importantly, why he was working with them, was all a mystery.

Vacek took a seat, staring the other man straight in the face.

It had been complicated to get him here for questioning, and the rest of the association heads would only let him hold Silas captive for a few more days. They didn't yet know he was a golem. Vacek was keeping his discovery a secret until he understood exactly who in the association was working with Silas and what their goal was. Likely, the person controlling the golem already knew that he was onto them, and based on their response, he would know who else in the association was involved.

It was a very simple cat-and-mouse game, one that Vacek was equipped and ready to win.

Silas stared back blankly, but he also looked uncomfortable at the perusal. He knew Vacek had a power that could read everyone's weaknesses and how to exploit them. It was more difficult with a golem because the golem wasn't giving him true information, only information that it was programmed to give. But still, getting his weaknesses wasn't impossible with enough time.

An ache throbbed at the base of his head, but Vacek ignored it. He was good at this, he reminded himself. This was what he was made for: to maintain law and order for the association. For the world.

He was constantly staring at the bigger picture, which sometimes caused him to miss details in everyday minutiae. His powers helped him to avoid that, of course, but there were blind spots, like with this situation.

But very soon, he would get things back on track, because that was what he did.

He wondered what he would do with the real Silas if he found him. Would killing him solve the problem?

It depends on why he's doing this.

That was one of the questions at the top of Dominic Vacek's mind. While they'd had their differences, he'd not read any serious discontent from Silas, at least not enough to require his attention. His powers could read when someone had animosity towards him, but he had not sensed that from Silas either.

When had the switch happened? When had a golem taken his place? How did he not notice something felt off until that fateful board meeting, when Silas' mask had slipped ever so slightly?

What was the other man's goal?

"What is it?" Silas the Golem finally asked. "What do you want to know?"

Vacek shook his head. "Nothing you can tell me."

He continued staring at him for nearly an hour. Then he got up and walked away.

***

Lexie blinked at Journeyman and asked him. "More tests? What's that supposed to mean?"

He gestured for her to follow him as he walked out the door. Lexie jumped out of her seat and hurried to obey.

"I'm very good at assessing an individual's potential and aligning it with their given path," he said, jogging down the spiral stairs. "Sometimes, it's easy to see. Sometimes it's not. You're one of the latter cases."

"Of course I am." Lexie practically sighed. She was getting a little tired of being different.

She walked with him to an adjacent tower, into a room that looked like a medical bay.

Everyone moved quickly and the medics descended on her the second she arrived.

They made her lie down and get scanned by machines, made her stand on scales, gave her a full physical assessment, and had her head in a hairdryer-looking device that was probably scanning brainwaves or something.

Finally, she stepped into the middle of a black metal circular device whose purpose she couldn't tell. "What is this for?"

"We're assessing your soul," the woman taking the measurements said.

Lexie froze. "What?"

"Making sure you're not sickly and there are no defects."

Lexie gave a little squeak that made the woman look up and raise an eyebrow.

All her muscles were tight in apprehension, but she managed to blurt out, "Sorry, it's just…I mean...you should know that I was sickly as a child and had a soul injury. Had another one recently too."

"Yes, your father mentioned."

Wait, Aiden knew about this soul-scanning thing, and didn't warn her? Did that mean there was nothing to worry about then? They wouldn't be able to see the Eldritch part of her, right?

She wished she'd asked him before this. Instead, she just stood there tensely while the woman stared at her screen, with a guarded expression. After a minute, she finally nodded.

"You're done," she said, and Lexie was eager to jump out of the machine. She walked to Journeyman who was muttering to himself while staring at a bigger screen.

"Yes...I think that's what we'll do…that would work out just fine…"

"Mr. Journeyman," Lexie didn't want to interrupt his conversation with himself, but she was desperate to know what he was thinking about. "Is everything okay?'

"Of course," he said brightly. "I have analyzed your potential and have your class schedule right here. I'll transfer it to you…"

MELVIN JOURNEYMAN WOULD LIKE TO SEND AN ITEM. ACCEPT? [YES] [NO]

Lexie accepted it, and opened up the schedule to read the subjects:

Bound Studies: Cards and Spells

Professor: Luna Aikins

Melee and Combat Studies (practical and theory)

Professor: Lucretia Bonds

Combat, specialization in long-range combat

Professor: Hal Yu

Earth Magic Elective - Herbology

Professor: Ludwig Giantsbane

General World Politics

Professor: Clarke

Extraterrestrial Politics

Professor: Ta-Ron-No, Builder of Brains

Dungeonology

Name: Edgar Cainwright

Hero/Helper Relations

Name: Cecilia Love

"That's a lot," Lexie said. She'd been under the impression that she would be having organized classes only once in a while, and most of her time would be spent on her own research.

"Well, you won't have to attend them every week," he said. "Some only once a month. We'll reevaluate after some time."

"Oh…okay."

"Good. One more thing. Your staff mentor is Professor Damien Stein, and your second-year student mentor is Torin Firebringer."

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