What did I do? Phi couldn’t move, she wasn’t fast enough. Time seemed to stop as he dove at her, she saw it coming a second before it did and that was the only way she was able to step just far enough to the right, to dodge his outstretched hand. His evil intent washed over her and she knew that it was only a matter of time before she would be his, and she knew with startling clarity what he was going to do to her.

Phi’s heart raced and her stomach plummeted with the kind of sheer fear that she had never experienced before. She tried to battle the flash from him, tried not to know what his plans were, they were so vivid and lustful. Hunger. Need.

Christie’s voice and then Jag’s voice echoed through her mind, and she was about to call out for help, knowing that even if she did nobody could get to her in time... but then her stubborn willfulness resisted, deciding that she’d rather die right then than hear an I-told-you-so from Nemesis. She planted her feet into the ground and let out a growl as the man gathered himself to spring for her again. Her thoughts were everywhere, but somewhere in them was an odd sense of triumph, as she thought how sorry they would be for treating her like they did. Like she was nothing more than the person to sign their paychecks, not worth the time to be trained in the field.

As she wallowed in her stubborn pool of self pity, he dove for her again, but this time, he took her down.

Mason, in his Archon persona, ran through the night, body low to the ground, his hooded costume concealing him from any curious eyes. He'd made LeMastre Park his personal project, and he regarded patrolling it at night for the random criminal or gang member as one of his duties and a guilty pleasure. His family was not too happy about his evening habits, but considering what they got out of him, they could very well shove their attitude up their ass, right next to where some of them kept their heads.

While he couldn't claim he'd cleaned out the park entirely (vermin, either of the two- or four-legged kind, were notorious for their tenacity), he'd made a big enough dent in the criminal activity to reduce his nightly patrols to little more than routine.

Tonight, though, he was in Blackbridge Park, on the trail of something dangerous. The scent he'd caught was filled with the promise of violence. Someone was hunting in the park tonight, looking to inflict pain and suffering on another. Besides him, that was.

Archon realized he was getting close when he heard the scuffle of bodies, then was shocked when Phi's scent wafted across his senses. What was she doing out here?

He heard her voice cry out, "Stop!" and redoubled his speed, crashing through the bushes with little regard for stealth.

He broke out of the brush into a clearing in time to see a dark man in a trench coat bear down a woman he knew immediately was Ophilia, regardless of the odd attire she wore. There was no thought, no plan in his mind, just a searing wash of rage that fueled his body.

The man had just enough time to register another presence before Archon collided straight into him, tearing him off Phi and sending them both tumbling to the ground. The feral vigilante wasted no time in assaulting his prey, pouring all his anger into the one who'd threatened to harm the one he loved.

There was a smell of decay about the man, something that no one else would have noticed. The scent wasn't new to Archon; he'd experienced it before in his hunts, like something inside of the man was dying in order to give him the incredible speed and strength that he now possessed. His grunts and efforts were brutal, his body was numb to normal restrictions and he didn't seem to feel any pain, no matter how many cuts that Mason's sharp teeth and fangs dealt him.

This was no cleanly choreographed martial arts dance, this was brutal dirty fighting. Archon drove his knee into his opponent's groin, who returned the favor by pile driving a fist into his side. Archon threw a punch, which the man blocked by grabbing his arm and dislocating the elbow with a wet snap. Archon howled and snaked his head forward to head-butt his foe, hearing with satisfaction the crunch of cartilage and bone.

The battle continued, with Phi a shocked audience, until the two bodies finally ceased moving. A few breathless seconds later, Archon stumbled to a stand, blood dripping from his wounds to stain the ground. He walked slowly, unsteadily towards Phi, without a word. As if in afterthought, he reached out with his good hand and snapped his broken arm back into place, wincing from the sharp stab of pain.

As Phi watched the man approach, she blinked against the darkness as a long bloody gash on the side of his face miraculously mended itself. She shook her head, uncertain if the darkness and stress were playing tricks on her or not. She rallied her faculties and waited on edge for the man to make a move, not quite sure yet what his intentions were, but ready and willing to lash out at him if she needed to.

The hooded man stopped and crouched down next to Ophilia, his cat-like eyes glowing in the dim light and his breath harsh against his ears. "Are you all right? What the hell were you thinking, Phi?" His voice came out rougher than he intended, his concern for her leaking through his words as anger.

"Mason?!" Ophilia's voice was stretched with emotion. Shock. Recognition. Relief. Accusation. Confusion. Anger.

Mason's face went blank for a second as he realized his error, then flashed a quick grimace and smoothed out. No use crying over spilt milk.

"What...what...how? Your eyes? Your face..." She reached out as if she were going to touch his cheek, but stopped abruptly and withdrew her hand. She pushed herself backwards and then quickly stood up, it was obvious that she was having a difficult time coming to grips with what had just happened. Much more so, now that she realized that her mysterious hero was her long time friend.

She stood over him now, her eyes wide with the realization. He knew those eyes well and he could see the confusion in them. He could almost hear the gears clicking in her head as her mind raced. "How... How long? ...we... I don't understand." Before he could reply she continued and there was the sting of betrayal and hurt in her voice. "This secret? Were you ever going to tell me?"

Mason regained his own feet and faced her, close enough that they could see each other's faces even in the evening gloom. Regarding Ophilia with a raised eyebrow, he riposted, "We all have secrets, Phi. Were you ever going to tell me about this?" He gestured to indicate her alarming but effective costume.

"This is nothing!" She pulled on one of her diamond studded buttons until the resilient material snapped back into place. "This is nothing." She turned her back on him and stepped away. His enhanced senses could see and hear the noticeable signs that she was upset, but how much was from her attacker and how much was about this revelation, he couldn't know for sure. What was unsettling though, was the pedestal that he knew she had placed him on, through it all, through everything, he was the only person besides her brother that hadn't hurt her. Now it was his turn to fall.

Mason tried to remain calm; getting angry would just set Phi off into a spiral of stubborn contrariness. "Nothing? I'd say this," he spread his hands to take in the scene around them, "counts as definitely something. If you really are Marionette, then you've been hiding how powerful your little mind tricks are from me all these years. Or you're just pretending to be better at it than you really are so you can be part of the Conquistadors."

"That's not true!" She said angrily as she turned back around to face him. "I never kept my powers a secret from you. You can't put that on me! Just because you underestimated me and my little mind tricks..." Her voice trailed off and it seemed like she was done, but then, in true DiSantiago fashion she exploded again.

"AND! I'm not pretending, I would have been fine without your help! Contrary to popular belief, I am NOT helpless." She glared at him for a moment before ripping her eyes off of him and turning around again, but not before he saw her bottom lip quivering from her emotion.

He tilted his head as things clicked into place. "That's what this was about, wasn't it? You wanted to be in the team, but someone objected. I won't name names, but I bet his rhymes with 'Nemesis.'"

He moved with panther like grace to close the distance, speaking softly just behind her. "You got upset at being treated like a fragile thing to be coddled, so you dressed up and decided to do some late-night crime-fighting. You came across a woman being attacked by this scumbag and jumped in without looking. And now here we are."

There was no accusation, no judgment in his voice, yet it still carried the sting of truth. Ophilia could feel the warmth of his presence at her back, so close that she could lean back and press herself to his chest if she so desired and receive the comfort she'd found there times before.

Ophilia remained quiet, unsettled by how well he knew her, at how well he could guess what was going on. Finally she shrugged her shoulders again and nodded her head. "Something like that." She admitted, before continuing in a frustrated tone. "It shouldn't have been like this. Something was wrong with that man... this... this... I didn't expect this."

Mason nodded with a frown. "He smelled wrong. He was stronger and faster than a normal human, but it was like he was burning himself up from the inside. I've seen this sort of thing before; some type of drug..." He stalked over to the unconscious man and rifled through his clothes. He removed a small empty vial from a pocket and held it up in triumph. He studied the vial, giving it a careful sniff.

He straightened then, and faced Phi squarely, the incriminating vial still in his hand. "No bullshit, Phi. Honestly, what do you think would've happened if I hadn't shown up?"

"For starters, I was going to get laid for the first time in over a year," she said as she tried to lighten the mood a bit, regretting it almost immediately as she felt the concern and emotion that was rippling underneath his carefully controlled anger. Her forced tone fell away. "It was going to be bad. Really bad, ...but I might have been okay, I had a few more things I was going to try." She walked over to the thug on the ground and gave him a sharp nudge with the point of her boot.

In spite of his effort to stay calm, Mason couldn't help snapping. "Damn it, Phi! I said no bullshit! This man was no plain mugger. He would have killed you, raped your body, and ripped it to pieces. And if you were lucky, he would've done it in that order."

He took a deep breath to regain his composure. "Phi, I don't doubt you could handle yourself in a normal situation, but this was anything but. There are things out here that work at a totally different level than what you're used to. Can't you at least admit that you were over your head?" The anger crept back in the last words, causing him to bite them off.

"Of course Mason, I was in over my head," she grouched, and his enhanced vision could see the clash of her eyes behind her mask. "I'll go home right now and hang up my mask, right next to my ballet shoes and baton."

Mason visibly drooped in surrender. He looked at her for a moment, then shook his head and chuckled fondly. "Same old Phi. If I told you to eat something, you'd starve to death just to be contrary." Some of the fire left her eyes when he said that.

Speaking as reasonably as he could, he closed in, his arms open. "I'm not telling you to step down, Phi. I know you better than that. Besides, I'm one to talk. It took me some time after... well, after I got these powers to figure out what to do with them."

The rest of the fire left Ophilia's eyes and she swallowed hard at that comment, wondering when he got his powers and how he got them. Things began to solidify in her mind. How many times had she told Mason that something was different about him at the New Year's party? But she'd never pressed, she had been too distracted by other things. How good of a friend had she been to him over the last year when his world was falling a part? It occurred to her for the first time that maybe it was her fault that he hadn't told her.

As he saw the play of emotion across her face, he suddenly looked stricken. Worry and concern wrapped around old pain radiated across the space between them. "Just, please, Phi. Try to look before you leap. I... don't want to lose you, too."

She nodded her head and inhaled deeply. "I'm sorry, Mace." She raised her dark brown eyes to meet his gaze, determined to be strong and not collapse in the face of what was familiar and comfortable. It was so hard to resist the temptation to be weak and allow him to take care of her. She finally broke his gaze, but not before he saw the vulnerability in her eyes.

"I...I... I don't know. I just wanted to help. I had the powers and the opportunity. I want so much to be a part of this team, but no one takes me seriously... and Nemesis, can't see anything beyond my cursed name." She lifted her troubled eyes to meet his again. "I'm just so sick of being overlooked."

Mason nodded sympathetically, his own eyes reflecting his personal pain. "We're prisoners of our name and hostages to our family obligations, Phi. No matter how much we try to escape them." There was a visible layer of context that weighed down his words.

Ophilia's eyes narrowed. Prisoners? No, not anymore. "I don't want that any more. I'm trying for something different, I want to do what's right and not what's expected... and I'll accept the costs."

She looked around a bit uncomfortably and scanned the area. "Look Mace. I should go. I really appreciate everything. I do... but..." Her voice trailed off as she struggled with what to say and how to say it. "I think I need to process all of this..." And then there was what she didn't say, but he knew. It was hard for them to be together and yet not together.

Mason looked down. He understood her discomfort, and the twist of emotions was plain on his face.

She hesitated for a moment in indecision before stepping into him and wrapping her arms around his neck. "Thank you for being here." She murmured just loud enough for him to hear, holding onto him tightly in gratitude.

Mason returned the embrace, pressing her close to him for one fierce breathless moment, the heat of his body threatening to overwhelm her, his face buried in her hair inhaling her scent as if to draw every bit of her essence into his. Just as quickly, he let go and stepped away.

They shared a moment then, as Phi looked into his eyes, the same old struggle.  Usually it was timing that kept them apart, but this time it was different.  This time it was more serious.  "Mace...I..."

Mason jerked his head gently and said, in a roughened voice, "Go. I'll take care of the trash." He couldn't bear to look at her.

Phi nodded her head and walked hurriedly away from Mason and the mess that she'd left behind, never once looking back. As soon as she knew she was out of sight she took off running back towards her hypercycle, wishing that she could run away from the jumble of her thoughts and emotions as easily as she could run from the scene of a crime.

Mason watched her go, then shut his eyes as the old familiar pain, now accompanied by new friends, wrenched at his heart. His teeth gritted as he fought the impulse to howl in rage and pounce on his fallen foe, taking his anger out by ripping the bastard's body apart.

With a visible shudder, he rode the wave of bestial emotion. leaving him even more visibly exhausted. He tiredly pulled out a set of zip ties from his pocket with the intention of restraining the would-be rapist and depositing him where the police could round him up.

Had he not been in distress, he might have felt the silent eyes of the observer that continued to watch him.