Arson looked up at the sprinkler overhead and ignited her finger with a large flame.

Water burst from the sprayer on the ceiling as the fire alarm began to sound.

A second later Arson blasted the roots away with a fireball and leaped through to the other side,

the other two women following her lead.

The water cascaded off of the assassins and served to betray their location somewhat.

Jessica found her first target and gave her a devastating right hook that spun the woman around like a top before sending her crashing to the floor.

Arson had blasted two of the attackers with flame jets and left them smoldering on the floor.

As she turned to another, she was ensnared in a wire net of some sort that one of the women had thrown at her.

The assassin hit a button on her belt and a powerful electrical current coursed through Arson from the net.

Arson howled in pain and collapsed to the ground after the attack stopped a moment later.

She lay helpless as the woman moved in with her sword to finish the job.

“Get away from her you bitch!” Jessica yelled as she leaped from the breakfast table and plowed into the woman with her stone feet,

smashing her into the ground.

Jessica picked up the crushed woman’s sword and cut the net open to free Arson.

“You saved me.” Arson said weakly as she looked up at Jessica.

“Don’t take it personally, I just didn’t want anyone taking my chance to kill you,” Jessica said with a smile as she helped Arson to her feet.

Flower Child had the remaining two assassins wrapped in a tangle of thorny vines on the other side of the room

and was with Ataris trying to help the heavily armored team leader to his feet.

“Get any survivors to the holding cells,

no clothing,

I don’t want to take any chances with these women.”

Knight said as he took a seat to avoid falling over.

Jessica helped Arson to the couch and went with Ataris and Flower Child to lock up the surviving attackers.

“And someone turn off the water before I rust!”

Knight yelled after them

The base was running a clean sweep to get rid of the mess from the battle,

while Ataris was turning up the security programs on the base.

Jessica lay on her bed with her pillow over her face,

her body unwinding from the excitement of the afternoon.

“Umm, Jesseca, can I come in?” Arson asked from the doorway.

Jessica removed the pillow from her face.

“Come to mock me again?” she asked.

“Actually, I came to apologize and thank you.” Arson said.

“I never had a family when I was growing up,

I was abandoned by my parents when I was born, and by the time I hit fifteen, I was living in halfway houses.

It’s not an excuse for me to be rude,

but I just think the whole thing made me kind of a shut-in, and a bitch honestly.” she said.

Jessica nodded in agreement with her.

“When I was about sixteen,

I hooked up with some anarchist kids,

and we set fires and looted places,

tagged buildings,

all kinds of bad stuff.

Well, we wanted to do something big to gain street cred,

so we went to a factory owned by The Crey Corporation and planned to bomb it.” she said.

“As we were setting the last charges,

Longbow agents showed up and started to bring us down.

I was up on a catwalk and caught a laser blast to the chest that knocked me into a vat of chemicals.

The bombs went off while I was still covered in the stuff, and somehow the fire that engulfed me and the factory gave me power.

After that I went straight and joined the FPR.” she said.

“Doesn’t surprise me that you were a street punk,” Jessica said with a smile.

“Anyway, I’m sorry for earlier, and I appreciate you saving me even though I was a bitch to you.” Arson said.

“If we’re gonna be teammates, we should try and be friends too,” Jessica said.

“I’m starting to understand that.” Arson said.

“But I’m not changing your diapers,” she added with a smile.

“For right now, I’d settle for civility,” Jessica said.

“That I can do.” Arson said as she put her hand out to shake Jesseca’s.

The pair shook hands and smiled at each other.

“Now that we’ve got that taken care of, how about a friendly ass-kicking in the training room?” Jessica asked.

“I dunno, isn’t it almost your bedtime baby girl?” Arson teased.

Jessica cracked her knuckles and glared at Arson.

“It is looking like lights out time now that you mention it,” she said.

“Uh oh, looks like someone’s cranky.” Arson said and ran out of the room.

“I’ll show you cranky!” Jessica called out as she ran after her.

 

“The Blades Of Artemis failed as well?”

the man in the large office asked the man on the other end of the phone.

“It appears that we severely underestimated our adversaries yet again,” he said.

“I want the Titan program put into effect immediately.” the man commanded and hung up the phone.

The man turned to look out the window, he took a pill bottle from his pocket and popped one of the pills into his mouth.

“Calm yourself.” he thought as he massaged his temple and felt his heart rate begin to calm itself.

“This will be resolved shortly.” he thought with a satisfied smirk.

 

Jessica reached the door to the training room after Brianna had gone inside,

she ran in and turned as the doors shut behind her, leaving her in total darkness.

“Computer, Skyway City street simulation,”

Brianna said from within the darkness.

Jessica spun around and marveled as she watched the room light up and transform into an exact copy of downtown Skyway City.

“This is amazing,” Jessica said.

“Sure is.

State of the art holographic technology that makes the holograms solid,

so essentially everything in here is real.”

Brianna called out from her perch atop a light post at the end of the block.

Jessica continued to look around,

she was amazed that she could even feel the heat from the sun inside the simulated city.

“I’m gonna have to get a look at this technology close up,” she said.

“You’ll get a chance as soon as you regain consciousness.” Arson said as she leaped into the air and rocketed toward Jesseca, fists engulfed in flames.

As she neared Jesseca she threw her first fiery punch which sailed over Jesseca’s ducking head.

“Gonna have to be quicker than that honey,” Jesseca shouted with a giggle as she ran in the other direction of Arson.

“At least I’m not running away from the fight,” Arson called after her as she hurled several fireballs at her foe,

all exploding on the heels of Jesseca’s retreat.

“Not running,” Jessica said as she neared the light post where Arson had been perched and leaped at it,

her hands charged with energy,

and her feet encased in stone as she traveled through the air causing the pole to rip from the concrete as she grabbed it as she passed by.

“Just getting a weapon.” she finished as she swung the post at Arson,

connecting with the young hero and sending her slamming into a wall across the street.

Arson stayed on the ground for several moments before slowly getting to her feet,

still reeling from the blow,

she didn’t have time to react when Jesseca hit her with an energy-charged uppercut square in the jaw,

smashing her back into the wall, and keeping her on the ground.

“That was fun,” Jessica said as she sat down next to the unconscious girl.

“Ow.” Arson mumbled as she slowly sat up, her mind in a fog.

“Sorry I had to beat you so bad,

but I thought you could do with a good beating,” Jessica said with a smile.

Arson massaged her temples as the fog cleared from her head.

“I’m gonna want a rematch you know,” she said with a glare that was soon replaced by a smirk.

“Anytime, anyplace,” Jessica said as she got to her feet and helped Arson to hers.

“Good.” Arson said as she sucker-punched Jesseca with a flaming fist and sent the diapered hero flying backward into a parked car,

smashing the windshield and denting the hood considerably.

“You dirty little cheater,” Jessica said as she massaged her jaw as she got off the car.

Arson flew at Jesseca and grabbed her and flew high into the air with her in tow.

“Happy landings,” she said as she dropped her opponent.

Jessica screamed as she plummeted to the ground, and watched as Arson flew to her quickly.

When Arson got into range Jessica gave her a hard kick to the stomach with a stony foot and took flight for herself,

letting Arson take her place in a small crater in the concrete.

Jessica stayed aloft for a moment before landing a few yards from the crater Arson had created.

“You never said you could fly.” Arson mumbled as she shakily climbed out of the Earth.

“Never said I couldn’t,” Jessica replied.

“Now, be a good girl and have enough sense to admit defeat before you get seriously hurt,” she added.

Arson nodded. “Computer, end simulation,” she said.

The city scene disappeared and was again returned to the stark emptiness of the training room.

“Man, getting beat by you is just humiliating.” Arson said after a long silence.

Jessica stuck her tongue out at Arson.

“You know, you’re like the little sister I never wanted,” she said as she put her arm around Arson to support the wabbling girl.

“I’m the little sister, and you’re the one in diapers, that makes sense,” she said with a smile.

The two left the training room laughing together,

their friendship blossoming with every word, even the insults.

The room had the sweet scent of baby powder looming throughout it.

The silence of the room was disturbed by the ripping of tape from plastic and the giggling of a woman.

“My goodness, what a wet baby girl I have,” Hannah said as she tickled her charges tummy, getting another giggle.

A knock at the door ceased the noise and movement in the room.

“Hannah, are you in there?

I wanted to talk to you.”

Jessica said from outside the door.

Hannah looked at Elysa who was shaking her head vigorously in protest of her saying anything.

Hannah smiled at her sister.

“I think we should tell her,” she whispered.

Elysa sucked her pacifier nervously and shook her head in protest again.

“Come on in Jess,” Hannah said.

The door opened, and the three women just looked at one another in silence for a long while.

“You said you wanted to talk to me about something,” Hannah said finally breaking the silence as she proceeded with changing Elysa’s diaper.

“I, umm, What’s going on?” Jessica managed to stammer out after much difficulty.

“I’m getting Elysa ready for bed, wanna help?” Hannah asked.

“…I guess so,” Jessica said and made her way slowly to the bed where the changing was occurring.

Elysa blushed bright red and attempted to hide behind her stuffed bunny.

“Aww, don’t be shy baby, say hello to Jessica.”

Hannah encouraged her sister as she moved the bunny from her face.

“Hewwo Jessica,” Elysa said through her pacifier.

“Hi, Elysa,” Jessica said with a confused smile.

“What happened to her?” she asked Hannah.

“Nothing, she just likes to play baby sometimes,” Hannah explained.

“Don’t you ‘Lysa?” she cooed to her sister.

Elysa only nodded and blushed again.

Hannah finished diapering Elysa and sat the young girl up and began dressing her in a light blue onesie with a baby duck embroidered on the breast.

Jessica watched as Elysa was adorned with infantile clothing,

her blue hair was put into pigtails,

and her transformation was complete.

 

Hannah picked her sister up off of the bed and carried her on her hip into the adjoining room.

Jessica followed behind the pair and had her eyes go wide as saucers when she saw the room she’d entered.

The room looked just like a nursery for an infant,

but everything was sized for an adult.

Jessica wandered around and took in all of the sites of the room while Hannah lay Elysa down into the large crib to put her to bed.

“Goodnight my sweet angel,” Hannah said as she kissed her hand and pressed the kiss to her sister’s forehead gently.

Hannah guided Jesseca out of the room,

turning on a night light before closing the door behind them as they left.

“I’ll bet you have a lot of questions,” Hannah said.

“I’m just trying to understand why she enjoys that,” Jessica said.

“When I moved out of our parent’s house and here to Paragon,

I was eighteen and Elysa was ten.

Elysa begged me to take her with me, our parents were against it but wanted Elysa to be happy,

so they agreed, and so did I, and Elysa and I got a place together.

I got a job at the Terra Volta reactor when we got here and had the job for a little over four years before my powers emerged.” Hannah explained.

Jessica listened intently to Hannah’s story until she felt a familiar squishy feeling in the seat of her diaper that signaled to her that she’d messed herself.

She hoped that she could get out of the room before Hannah noticed, and tried to go back to listening to the story.