Then a Smurf—rather larger than they looked on the cartoon—walked out through the smoking doorway, walked up to Talon, and punched him. He went flying back another fifteen feet and smashed through one of the office walls. Thunderbolt sucked in all of the available electricity, causing explosions from all of the walls as the cables overloaded, then more on the receiving end when the lightning bolt arced to its target, forcing the Toy Man back a step.
    "You think I didn't have a chance to prepare myself against your attacks?" he scoffed. "That last fight was just an opening round."
    Behind us, Phoenix Talon dragged himself out of the wall and wove his way back to his feet.

[Aside: Phoenix Talon]

    "THIS ENDS NOW."
    A large disk of light appeared in front of Phoenix Talon. A much smaller disk of light appeared on the Toyman's torso.
    Scott, later, said it tasted good. Those of us who lack his ability to absorb energy were far enough away to escape its effects, fortunately.
    There was no way he could have been prepared for that; none of us had ever seen Talon do anything of the sort. The Toy Man's eyes widened slightly as a cone appeared between the two disks, hard to see at first, but it got brighter and brighter. Just before I closed my eyes, I saw the air around it turn to what I suspect was plasma. When it died away, there was nothing there. No Toy Man, no most of the room behind him, a ragged hole in the wall behind where he had been standing. A Smurf-shaped Hiroshima shadow on the wall. Thunderbolt killed the flames, and the two of us stepped cautiously into the charred room. The desk had been reduced to ashes, but there were bits of broken wood lying about as if something had hit it. The windows of the building across the street had warped slightly.
    Phoenix Talon fell over.

[Aside: Phoenix Talon]

    Somewhat revived by the light bath, Scott pulled himself together (literally). "Ow!"
    "Oh good, you're okay." I think we were all a bit stunned.
    "Using a very liberal definition of okay.... Where'd I leave the rest of me?"
    "Not dead." I'd been worried.
    Wendell came running in. "My god, what happened?"
    "You," I snapped, motioning for him to halt.
    "What—Midge?"
    "I'll check on her, you stand over there. Don't move." I was more than ready to consider all of them accomplices at that point.
    "What happened?" Scott wanted to know. "I got sliced about in half, and then...."
    "We found the Toy Man again. I think Phoenix Talon vaporized him." I looked at the hole.
    "...There was a whole bunch of electricity, and then something really tasty, and then I woke up."
    "I need to learn how to do that," Thunderbolt said.
    "No, I'm not sure you do. Well, better you than him...."
    "Phoenix did this?! Dang," Scott sounded impressed. Then he went looking for an electrical cable to suck on for a while and start trying to sort out his internals.
    "Yeah. Guess he got over that mental block." It seems at least a hundred years ago that Lucky was telling me about being inside Talon's head, the night we fought Xyrgoth with a vampire for an ally. I went to check on Midge; she had a lively sunburn over the entirety of her body but wasn't in any immanent danger of dying, so we could turn our attention to Jenkins.
    "You realize how this looks, of course," I told him.
    "He's—he was—Peter? was.... Oh my god. Peter was the...? Who would ever suspect?" Jenkins appeared to be in shock. "Peter was the Toy Man? Peter was the...."
    "Where's the lawyer?" Scott asked. Michael had run true to lawyerly form and dove for cover as soon as the violence broke out.
    "You—you have to help me," Jenkins said. "He's dead, right? He's gone?"
    "Good question," Scott replied—no body to put on the coffee table, and all that. He had that 'not kidding now' tone that means our normally cheerful teammate is taking the situation very seriously. "Why, what do you need?"
    "My daughter, he was—the Toy Man was threatening my...." He slumped down, back to the wall.
    "Where do you live?" Out in the burbs. "You're way faster," Scott looked at me.
    I nodded. "I'll go check them out. You take his story down." I passed a WAMT chopper on my out.

[Aside: Wendell's Story]

    I reached the Jenkins' house and talked briefly with his wife, who was baffled by my visit; her husband hadn't told her anything about the Toy Man's threats, just that someone had broken into the house and then fled. You'd think he would have wanted to let them know so they could be more careful in the future. Not that I think Peter—Paul—whatever—would have killed anyone, unless he's even more brain-damaged than he seems these days. It's not in the Game. I called down for a black and white to keep an eye on their place, at least until Wendell could get home, and reassured the nervous junior officer that if anything happened, the only thing we expected him to do was to call us.
    Thunderbolt and I rendezvoused at Peter's (heck, I'm just going to call him that) house to check that out, hoping that we might find Albert there. It's a new subdivision, largely undeveloped or in the midst of building, and his place stands alone on a cul-de-sac. Nice and quiet. We were on high alert, but it was quickly clear that no one actually lived there; nothing in the refrigerator, nothing in the cupboards, no old newspapers, the bed so neat I'd bed it has never been slept in. Of course, he might not need to sleep these days, and almost certainly doesn't need to eat. There were clothes, neatly folded. Next to the bed was an end table with two framed photographs on it. One was of a smiling Peter with his arm around a frightened-looking Midge. The other was Peter shaking hands with a frail, elderly man with a rather sinister look; neither of us recognized him, but there was something about him that spoke to both our experience, and what it said was "mad scientist." I'd assume he's the guy who built him the new body. That was the only thing even vaguely reminiscent of a personal touch; he probably didn't even get his mail here.
    We looked for secret passages, extra basements—the usual. Nothing. We went over the rest of the subdivision under construction. Nothing.
    "Shall we head back to AMC and take a look there?"
    "I think it's required."
    I sighed. "This is going to take all bloody night."
    It did. Between his covert ops training and our various unusual senses, we ripped the place apart from roof to boiler room. Zilch. The only things of interest were in Peter's office, the scripts and memos detailing his plans for the Revolution's media future. "Really like this idea, think he's a remarkably dynamic villain, this will certainly show them all." "Must increase Revolution's national publicity, make them most respected superteam in nation."
    Yeah. Right. Maybe they'll put up a statue when we're dead.
    In a way it would be easier if he really was gone, but I'd bet an arm that he wasn't in fact vaporized. Thunderbolt boxed up all of the stuff to go through later on. I suspect it's going to be a while before any of us have the time; as of this morning, theme villains—even crazy ones—are just above reckless drivers on our priority list.

[Aside: Scott, Phoenix Talon]

    As the sun was rising we finally finished our search of the Agglomerated MegaCorp buildings, still without our mesmerist. I was exhausted, flying us home slowly over the city toward the brightening east and thinking that it was among my least favorite sights in the world. We missed the best part of autumn thanks to the Toy Man, and today's was a cold, grey, vaguely damp and generally unpleasant November morning.
    Below us the city was waking up, the streets slowly filling with people. A Wells-Fargo truck rolled slowly along the street and stopped in front of Dick's Sporting Goods.

[Aside: Roy McCoy]

    I heard quacking below us.
    "Now, my mallards, now!"
    "Drop me," Thunderbolt said grimly.
    "What the...?" I circled down and dropped him off, got my shield up. Five silver ducks were flying at the Wells-Fargo guys and the store security guards. Two of them grabbed bags of money and began flying away as Roy McCoy covered several people with his shotgun.
    "It seems it was inevitable," he said loudly, seeing us. "Well, I've defeated you before, Thunderbolt."
    Little angry sparks started arcing off Paul's body. Roy dropped to one knee, aimed, and fired: bird shot. Of course. Thunderbolt dropped to the ground, and it missed him.
    "Ha! Dodge all you want, it won't save you!"
    "You people keep saying that," I sighed irritably.
    "Quickly, mallards! While he's down!" The ducks approached Thunderbolt. One was about to peck at him when a lightning bolt connected, and it flapped backwards with a surprised quack.
    I picked up Mr. McCoy.
    "Bracing self for neuro-electric shock!"
    Apparently they've been working on ways to resist that; I'll just have to stop being so nice all the time. I slammed him into the nearest wall. Hard.
    The three ducks paused. One pecked Thunderbolt and successfully bruised his shin. The other two dropped the money, and they all converged on Roy to try to carry their master to safety. Thunderbolt drained their batteries. He then tried to wring one of their necks, but the hyperalloy is too strong.

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