As it turned out, superpowered mice were pretty good at hiding. Mice were already pretty good at things, and they didn't need a relevant power to greatly increase their efficiency. For example, any sort of bruiser power would help them dig into things they really shouldn't. Speed was obvious. If they instinctively used some sort of telekinesis or flight, there was quite a lot they could do. Some powers were obvious, and those mice tended to get caught more often than not- like Everlady's, almost. Except that one flew off into the sky with a twinkle and then hid through a different method than the aforementioned options.

Ghost explosions didn't create neat little burrows to hide in. Unfortunately, Scrying Evermouse didn't end up with any results. Midnight and I decided to get a bit more generic, seeking out any mouse with powers. Whatever Scrying locked onto, we would try to track down. Unfortunately, many of them weren't in convenient locations. Day after day we would go out when we thought we had something, and by the time we got close they would usually have moved on- if we even found the place to begin with. We couldn't rely on Calculator's deductions for dozens of minor cases, so we just had to keep trying.

We showed up at any scene where super mice were rumored to have appeared, but when they were captive we couldn't get access to them and they quite often got away. Every once in a while, it appeared there were completely unrelated superpowered mice as well. And one shapeshifter.

The last guy we discovered because I used Dispel to temporarily suppress some mice powers, and he became a man. It was a good thing we were carrying regular sized super restraints, or we would have had trouble bringing him in. One-size-fits-all restraints weren't actually that. You wouldn't find anything that worked on bears and mice, for example. His name was Feral Felon, and yes that was a name he chose. I wasn't surprised that his career wouldn't be very long. Some supers liked plausible deniability about their villainy, for good reason. Though the reason he got caught was bad luck.

-----

After running into a number of restaurants that just had health code violations, I was getting pretty tired of looking for mice. We kept going, but eventually we had to complain. Friends were the best outlet for that, as I had learned.

"Yeah, that sounds awful," Zeb agreed. "Think of all the cute little animals that still need your help! Maybe Squirrely can help you find the other ones."

"Other ones?" I asked. "Which one is 'E'?"

"Not E, silly," Zeb said. "Do you think I could get away with using letters? I'd have to be delving into obscure alphabets by now!" Zeb gestured along the table that was lined with squirrels eating out of bowls. Miss Flutter was asleep right now, but Fluffy ate from a tub on the floor. He was too heavy for the tables.

I wondered how much Zeb cost the Power Brigade in terms of food. Then again, I supposed there were other supers who ate a similar amount at the cafeteria- and there were more expensive tastes than nuts. Even though the Power Brigade paid well, it was probably best that Zeb didn't have to cover every meal out of her salary… though I didn't actually know what else she would spend money on.

"Anyway, Squirrely is a mouse. Remember?"

"...Yes," I said.

"Of course we remember," Midnight agreed. We exchanged a look.

We could have saved a lot of effort, huh.

"Can we borrow Squirrely for a bit?" I asked. "We need to use her connection to try to Scry on the others."

"That sounds great! Let's do that!"

So that was how we ended up in the Scrying chamber with a ton of squirrels. And a mouse, technically.

"It would probably be best if she looked like a mouse. A normal one," I commented.

"Okay, let me tell her." Zeb conversed with the 'squirrel' for a bit. She turned into a dormouse, which was also kinda squirrely. "No, a normal one. Like all your siblings? Yes, I know it's boring but it's for my friend. Just for a bit."

Fortunately, Zeb was good at convincing her companions to do what she wanted. Otherwise, she would probably be pretty ineffective as a beastmaster. It wasn't too long before I was holding a little white mouse.

It was better for me to do it, because Midnight apparently scared the mouse. Even though I was far bigger- including my teeth. Well, fears weren't always rational and I did have hands.

What we wanted to find were things connected to Squirrely, but not Squirrely. Other things with powers. Possibly even a better connection to that serum Rodentia seemed to have hanging around so we could spot it.

There was a lot of resistance, but we had a good connection so I was hoping it would work well. It took some wrestling, but the mists eventually parted to see… the room we were in.

"Okay," I said. "So, we definitely need to not have all of these guys hanging around. Also I have an important question. Is Squirrely your companion?"

"Obviously."

"But she's got powers."

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"That's okay," Zeb said. "I don't mind."

"But power exclusivity… can't Beastmasters only bond to normal animals?"

For some definition of 'normal'. Fluffy wasn't supernatural, more like advanced biotech. Miss Flutter was just a very big bat.

"Squirrely is always a normal animal," Zeb explained. "She never turns into anything else!"

"Uh. Okay," I said. That explanation made as much sense as anything. "Well, we're going to need to split up your gang for a moment. Too much concentrated connection to Squirrely."

"Got it. Okay guys, we're playing hide-and-seek! You know the rules!"

Squirrels scattered. I managed to hold onto the one we needed to remain behind. "You're supposed to be here. You can hide after." She squeaked sadly. "It will just be a few minutes."

Midnight and I once again put a lot of mana into our spells. I was actually quite pleased how hard it had been to split past the Power Brigade's scrying defenses. It would be much harder for people to do it. Now we needed to get past Rodentia's various layers.

One sign, two signs. On to the good stuff. We actually flickered past a few powered mice that Rodentia had around. I couldn't tell the precise location, but I knew we weren't moving far. Then, the serum. We got a much better look, and were able to confirm Calculator's earlier reading of the labels. 'Garbage injectors that usually give super cancer.'

The city was going to want us to grab those and deal with them. Or maybe they would send some heroes. Either way, the Power Brigade would be paid for finding a lead- we had a better image of the room which was a bunch of random stuff on shelves all with similar labels. Not about super cancer, but 'this doesn't do the thing I wanted' sort of stuff. All very dangerous looking.

Like the one labeled 'Overly efficient mini-fusion reactors, dispose of in the sun'.

I'm not really sure what threshold one had to hit for overly efficient reactors, but I assumed it was something along the lines of 'explosive' given the context.

So now we had all this stuff, but no way to get there. I sure wasn't going to try to teleport into a place likely packed floor to ceiling with death traps, dimensional entanglements, and random explosives.

Squirrely was getting impatient. We did just one more casting of the spell, this time looking for mice. Flipping between their surroundings, we recorded as much of the area as possible. Hopefully someone could cross-reference it with known tunnels to determine what sector this secret lair was planted in.

-----

Rodentia's lairs were serious business, and New Bay knew that. They also didn't want their heroes to have to be associated with more mouse stuff at the moment, so they were quite happy to hire the Power Brigade for this particular job.

We took things quite seriously, which was why Swiss Arms was sent with us. She didn't go on missions much, but she was a pretty good counter to a lot of super tech villains. Rather than the personal animosity that she held with Doctor Doomsday, Swiss Arms was relatively neutral as far as Rodentia went. I didn't know of anyone who hated the woman with great passion, but I also didn't know any owners of supermarkets or tech shops.

Obviously if we were talking about 'us', Midnight and I were involved. We also had Sorority, who was always welcome. She wasn't as potent of a bruiser as Great Girl, but she was great for filling out any team. Finally, we had Squirrel Swarm because 'Rodentia won't hurt most of my buddies'.

The exceptions were her larger companions, but they would still be useful so they were coming with us. Fluffy was particularly useful against tech based villains.

It took a few days of attempts to finally narrow down our search to the right section of tunnels. It was possible that Rodentia would figure out we were coming, but ultimately there was only so much we could do about that. It would have been best if we could have directly waltzed into her lair, but she didn't leave convenient signs. Not like that one guy, Lair. He really liked people invading his bases. It was difficult to classify him as a villain because he didn't do anything except squat in the sewers.

But we weren't after him. We were after Rodentia- or rather things she had. We were actually hoping she wouldn't be present, so that we could get to her dangerous storehouse and secure everything.

Miss Flutter was a very big bat. The sewer tunnels we were in were large enough to fit her wingspan, but just barely. She was still capable of maneuvering, though. More importantly, her job was to find things that we otherwise might miss with her echolocation. Small openings could reveal a lot.

Our group was never going to be stealthy, and having a bat in tunnels wasn't the craziest thing. It was also entirely justified fairly quickly.

Zeb explained her findings. "Miss Flutter says there's a big thing just ahead. No, two big things- in either direction where the tunnels split."

"Can you send a couple scouts ahead?" Swiss Arms asked.

"Absolutely!" Zeb said. "Okay guys, remember- be sneaky and everyone gets extra treats!"

I was surprised when the squirrels actually self-selected two individuals from among them. I supposed if it was an individual competition, they might not be sneaky.

I hadn't expected squirrels to be good at climbing tunnel walls, but it shouldn't have surprised me with any amount of improved physical capabilities. They climbed up trees just fine, and those didn't usually have good handholds. They kept up high as they navigated along, poking their heads around corners- until I couldn't see them.

A minute later they reported back.

"N+5 says he chased away a big croc. That's uh… not sneaky, but good job anyway. As for the other tunnel, #13 says he saw a winged lizard."

Midnight had a similar reaction to me. "Do you think…?"

"No way," I said. "She was way over in the forest. Would she even fit in these tunnels?"

"It was green," Zeb continued, "And barely fit in a larger chamber further on."

"It could still be some other-"

"Does it look like Fleshmelter?" Zeb asked, bringing up an image on a small device that dangled from her collar. She didn't have as many cool gadgets as Midnight because she had to get stuff smuggled from Bunvorix, but she at least had some conveniences. Her other squirrel chittered an answer upon seeing the image. "It's Fleshmelter."

I narrowed my eyes. "Faceeater. So we meet again." At least we could prepare ahead of time. Stoneskin was already in place, as it lasted long enough for an excursion. Energy Ward would be very helpful. We applied it to everyone… and then I was going to be ready with another, inverted one once we got in sight of Faceeater. Unless… "I do want to fight her, but is that actually the right path?"

"Seems likely," Swiss Arms said.

Good. Now why couldn't I sense a dragon up ahead, if she was so strong? How troublesome. Maybe I needed active magic for some reason.

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