Epilogue

It was Christmas morning at the Byron house. Missy's parents had engaged in their passive-aggressive family time and were now off, leaving Missy with her presents.

Two presents in particular. The first one was a letter from Director Piggot, who, after threatening Missy with transfer to a containment zone, grudgingly admitted that she had worked to get Hookwolf out of a potentially dangerous situation. Clockblocker had, for once, looked so pathetic that he'd gotten off Scott Free, that is, after Armsmaster had managed to clean him off.

However, Vista was "being punished."

Missy couldn't keep the grin off of her face. She was being punished by spending two months in LA working for Team Alpha, a Ward's team that worked directly under Alexandria. It was supposedly the hardest course in the entire program and barely 40 percent passed it. In fact, Missy wasn't even supposed to be there, since it was for ages 16+, but Alexandria herself had waived that rule.

And then there was the other package. She hadn't opened it at first wondering who it was from. But then, she finally did.

There was a letter.

Yeah, Kid, we know who you are. Don't worry, the identity of the Wards is pretty much an open secret, but nobody's gonna do anything. If you doubt me, ask your boss's how good teens are about keeping secrets. Anyway, here's some Toybox tasers, and a pair of inertially enhanced escrima sticks. Read the documentation, and there's a (non-E88) dojo on 3rd and Allendale that has a great trainer.

Merry Xmas

Brad.

Missy slipped the brass knuckle style tasers onto her hands and enjoyed the hum, before she picked up the escrima sticks, their inertial enhancers making them heavy in her hands.

"I wonder what my power can do with these…" Slowly, a grin appeared on her face.

Peering through the window, her mother smiled. She had such an angelic look—maybe Missy liked the "Perfect Princess" dress she'd bought her.

On the other hand, that grin showed just a few too many teeth for comfort…

The Undersider's lair

The Undersiders did exchange presents. Bitch got yet another box of squeaky balls for her dogs, Regent got new video games, I got an Alexandria themed overcoat, Brian got some new boxing gloves…and Lisa…

Lisa was staring at a box. There had been no identifying marking on it, so we were all staring at it.

Then, she opened it, and as the wrapping fell away, the grim face of Armsmaster, safe in his wrapped box, appeared.

"I-I, one of the, boxes, big…"

"Gee, TT, if you'd wanted one, we could have just stood in line." Regent smirked.

Tattletale stared at him. At me. At Grue, looked like she wanted to say something and then…

"EEEEEEEE—" thump.

"She's down," Regent said.

"And foaming," I replied.

E88 HQ

Kaiser was relaxing. Well as much as a man who felt like some of his skin had been sandblasted off, could relax. But he wasn't stinking anymore. In fact…

"Ah, Kayden." He said warmly. "I take it the presents were acceptable?" Kayden was holding a box, and her expression caused alarm bells to start ringing.

"Aster loved hers," his estranged wife said. "But Theo… Max, how could you?"

"Um, what?"

"It was a pink box. Those action figures are for girls. Were you sending a message?"

The fuck? How the hell am I supposed to kn—"I'm certain he understands!"

"He does. He's very happy," she held up the box. "He's very happy when I told him that his father was just going to go back to the store and exchange it tomorrow."

Kaiser was about to say something, or maybe just scream inarticulately and then turn and run for the hills, when he and Kayden heard something that they'd never heard before.

Eyes wide, they both stared at Hookwolf, howling with laughter, tears actually coming out of his eyes, fell out of his chair and onto the ground.

"B-best, Christmas Ever!" he wheezed out.

The Everloving End