Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

People don’t panic as much as you’d think, in a burning building. Stress and fear don’t turn them into dumb animals. It’s actually the opposite that’s dangerous. When the fire alarms scream but the smoke hasn’t spread yet, a lot of people will convince themselves it’s not serious and just keep going about their day. Evacuation is hard and uncomfortable. Staying in front of the TV is easy and satisfying. And most of the time it’s just a drill, right?

This time, it wasn’t.

The air was thick enough with smoke that I’d closed my helmet, and I could barely see the walls on either side of me as I ran through the cramped corridors of the twenty-storey apartment block. I was almost glad of it. The building was a shithole in the south Docks, on the run-down border between ABB and Empire territory that saw frequent scuffles between the two gangs. Half the windows were boarded up, the carpets were marked with unpleasant stains and the plaster was sagging on the walls even before the flames started licking at it.

“How’s it going, Starlight?” my comms crackled. Gallant’s voice, calm and confident. “Hotspot over on the east side of the building, seventh floor.”

Here’s another thing most people get wrong about fires. In the fireplace or the stove, the pop and crackle of wood is low-level white noise. But a house fire is loud. It’s a constant surround-sound roar; a hungry growl like a whole convoy of trucks driving over gravel, or deep-throated static from the world’s biggest TV set, or a pot of water the size of a city block boiling and spitting and snarling. The little pops and sizzling sounds from a log on the fireplace become deafening bangs and rapid-fire crackling when entire walls burn, and every so often the shriek of tortured metal cuts through everything as I-beams or girders give way. My helmet had sound muffling integrated into it along with the air supply and HUD, but even with the earplugs, it was hard to hear what he was saying.

“Seventh floor east, Console,” I replied. Hopefully he could hear me in return. “I copy.” I was on the eighth northeast corner, and I could sense what he meant as I jogged over to the stairwell. The glow from below me and off to one side was an insistent eggs-and-bacon taste on the periphery of my mental tongue, and I sped up as I took the flight down. It was baking in the windowless stairwell; bare concrete surfaces and right-angled edges had been turned into an oven by the blaze. I could hear crackling from down below, and an experimental prod told me the metal bannister was hot. I pulled - no sense in wasting energy - and savoured the warmth as it flowed into me.

“Exiting onto the seventh floor, hotspot found.” It was the apartment right across from the stairwell - I could feel the heat even through the concrete of the stairwell. I took a steadying breath, and wished I could wipe my forehead. Heat didn’t bother me, but all the running around still made me sweat, and I knew I’d have a horrible case of helmet hair tonight. Urgh.

“Orbital’s on-site, so keep an eye out for her. Console out.”

“Copy that. Starlight out.” I made it out onto the seventh floor, and had to stifle a flinch. The entire wall of the hallway across from me was on fire - it had eaten through the drywall from the apartment beyond - and a cloud of flame was sprawled across most of the ceiling. I was doubly glad of my helmet’s air seal - the smell from the burning carpet alone must have been awful.

I took a moment to steady myself, pushed the memories back and walked into the flames.

However many times I did it, I never got tired of feeding. It was a rush as the energy inside me called to the energy without, and I’d long ago gotten over my flinch reflex as the flames were pulled off the walls and ceiling to spiral in towards me like stars around a black hole. My aura lit up as they made contact; whites and yellows and reds devoured the fire and I felt an all-over warmth like slipping into a hot bath as I drank it in. It only took a few seconds to clear the corridor. Charred plaster and scorched nylon oozed smoke, but I’d ripped all the heat out of them and brought them down to room temperature.

A quick blast of yellow-white energy left a fist-sized hole in the door where the lock had been and I yanked it open, only to be immediately greeted by a roaring burst of flame. Backdraft. Firefighters have to be wary of it and check whether doors are warm or not. If a normal guy in a protective suit opens a door and gives the fire behind it a rush of oxygen, the explosion could kill him.

Me? I devoured that blast like a quarter-pound burger with fries, pulling on the flames it was connected to and ripping the whole conflagration out by the roots. It was no surprise it had been so fierce. Half the window was blown out - it looked like there’d been a liquor cabinet next to it that had caught light from the building cladding going up. That had been tipped over somehow, and the resultant inferno had breached the gas mains.

“Console, I have a gas mains breach here,” I called in. “I can keep the fire off it for now, but tell Fire Services to shut the gas off outside.”

“Copy that, Starlight. Leave it and go down to the third floor north. One of the main evac routes has a collapsed ceiling, they need you to clear it.”

I gritted my teeth. I’d cleared the fire from this room for now, but it was still licking at the cladding below me. It would spread back up and reignite the gas if I left.

But the evac routes were more important. Triage was a dirty word, but it was one I’d had to learn and get used to over two years of firefighting. “Copy that, Console,” I said bitterly. “On my way.”

And I threw myself out of the window, and flew.

Flight was the best part of my powers. Absorbing energy felt good, and blasting things was cathartic, but nothing beat the rush of soaring through the air like one of my childhood heroes. I opened my helmet as I soared a full circuit around the building, trailing light behind me like a comet. I had better visibility now that I was out of the smoke - I didn’t know how the soot didn’t cling to my visor but I didn’t care as long as it worked - and I took in the state of the fire.

It didn’t look good. Three sides of the building were blackened and charred from the bottom quarter of the building up. Smoke was belching out of every window, and a hellish glow lit it from within, bright against the dark sky. It had started around sunset and at this point it had been burning fiercely for an hour. It would keep burning, too - I could tell. It was only five in the afternoon, but the scale of this was going to keep us here past midnight - though I’d probably be ordered back long before then.

I kept moving, swinging further around as I surveyed the efforts to fight the blaze. The firefighters were training hoses on the lower floors, keeping the cladding there untouched and the fires under control, but halfway up the south side there were five floors engulfed in a sheet of fire that burning chunks were breaking away from. I swung past, yanking at the fires, and a cheer went up from below as I drew them off the building and into my wake, spiralling around me as I shed altitude and curved around to the other side of the block.

I’d seen footage of that move from other fires. It looked pretty cool from the outside, if I did say so myself.

There, at the window - people halfway out the window, leaning out so far that I was worried they’d fall out. If necessary I could ferry people down to the ground one at a time, but that would be slow. I dropped down to hover in front of the window.

“Excuse me! Back away from the window, please!” I shouted. “I need to get through!” I was a pretty distinctive sight, my dark blue costume standing out against the reds and oranges and yellows of my aura. When I was powered up like I was now, the white star on the chest and the smaller ones speckled over my shoulders and upper arms seemed to glow. And the people here knew about Starlight and fires. Everyone did. The other Wards got school visits or charity work for their PR events - I saved lives with the fire department.

“Move aside, move aside!” A fireman in full protective clothing pulled them away from the window. He sounded vaguely familiar. I thought I’d heard him before. “Thank the Lord you’re here,” he hollered up.

“What’s the problem here?” I said, slipping in through the window.

“It’s the ceiling grid!” he yelled, muffled through the heavy equipment and mask he wore. I didn’t have that problem, at least - my helmet broadcast my voice clearly, even sealed. Chalk one up for Tinkertech. “It was clear when we came through, but it collapsed down. Take care! We don’t want anything else coming down on us!”

I pulled at the heat all around me, bringing the temperature down in my vicinity. Crammed up by the window were two firefighters and half a dozen scared residents with wet towels over their faces, crouched low to the floor to avoid the worst of the smoke. Most of them were Asian-Americans. Probably Japanese refugees - we weren’t quite in Little Tokyo proper, but we were close enough that most of the street signs had Japanese scrawled under them and ABB tags popped up everywhere - and it looked like they knew what to do in a fire. They’d just waited too long to do it.

See what I mean? Panic isn’t the problem in a fire; people usually make good choices under pressure. It’s passivity that gets people into trouble.

“Don’t worry!” I shouted over the roar of the flames as they streamed off the ceiling and blockage to wrap around me and sink into my costume. “I’m here to help, you’re safe now!”

First, I extinguished the rubble. A yellow-white beam seared the pile in half, and a concussive blast sent the top half flying back down the corridor the way I’d come in pieces. Another body pulse pushed the thickening smoke back, and then my leg lit up in rivulets of light and energy as I hopped forward and kicked the rest of the pile as hard as I could.

It disintegrated like an egg under a hammer, and I gestured to the stairwell door.

“Coast is clear, get going!” I called, ushering frightened people through. “Console, are there any-”

I stopped.

“Starlight?”

“I can taste another hotspot,” I reported. “Above me - fourth floor, I think. I’m going to check it out.”

I heard tapping over the comms. “You reported that when you were clearing the rooms up on fifth,” Gallant said. I could hear the frown in his voice. “You said it was lower priority. Do you think it’s spreading?”

“It’s… it’s just hotter than everything else in the area. Too hot even for gas.” I was already making my way up the stairwell, feeling the updraft. The rising heat was turning all the stairwells into giant chimneys - though at least that was keeping the worst of the smoke up near the top, away from down here. “I think we may have found our source. If there’s nothing else threatening the evac routes, I’m going to see if I can stifle it.”

“Copy that, Starlight. Good luck.”

There was something weird about the new hotspot. I couldn’t put my finger on what, or how, or why, but it felt different in a way some part of me recognised. I advanced cautiously towards the door of apartment 411, feeling the roaring heat behind it. The scent-taste wafted from behind the wall, rich and meaty and loaded with energy like lasagne or a really good casserole. But it was like... it was like it was pulling on me as much as I could pull on it. There was something tantalising about it. Something alluring.

I blasted the door open, and the backdraft that hit me this time slammed me back against the wall hard enough that my helmet dented the drywall. The warmth sunk into my bones as I absorbed it, flaring my aura and washing away the bruise before it could even form.

My unease grew. Something was going on here, I was sure of it. That flame had... had tasted different, somehow. The meaty taste of heat and flame was seasoned with salt and chilli in a way I didn’t recognise.

“Console,” I said, “you said Orbital was on-site, or en-route?”

“On-site, Starlight,” Gallant replied over comms. “She’s helping evac people from the upper floors.”

“Copy that. Get her attention, would you? Something’s off about this fire, and I want her on alert just in case.”

“If you suspect power use, you should wait for backup,” Gallant warned me, by-the-book as always. I shook my head.

“Negative, Console. I have no evidence of power use, and there could be lives at risk in there. I’m going in.”

“... copy that.” He didn’t sound happy about it. I didn’t care.

The apartments in this building were all built to the same plan, with the door opening right into the living room. I ate the few smouldering spots of fire out from the couch by the window and the cladding outside it, blasted a hole in the wall to vent the room, checked the kitchen was empty and opened the bedroom door.

I was lost instantly.

“Starlight! Starlight! Come in, Starlight! Come in!”

I blinked. Gallant was shouting into my ear, he sounded terrified. I felt strange - a little disoriented, warm - no, hot. Usually when I drank fire it was like wrapping myself up in blankets - this felt more like I’d been cupping a mug of hot tea in my hands. That lasagne-and-chilli taste lingered on my tongue, the spice making my eyes water, and my head was spinning. The smoke was so thick I couldn’t see my feet, but I was standing in the middle of the room, not at the door. When had I moved? What was going on?

My hands were already moving automatically to my comms. “Starlight copies, Console. What’s wrong?”

“Starlight!” Near-hysterical relief at my check-in. “You’ve been unresponsive for six minutes. Velocity’s almost there, what happened?”

I gaped. I’d lost six minutes? In the middle of a burning building? When? How? God, no wonder he’d freaked, he must have thought I’d been hit by a falling beam or something.

I pulsed the smoke away and looked around.

There was an Asian girl about my age huddled in front of me on the charred cinders of what had once been a bed. She was bleeding from a couple of shallow knife wounds across her forearms, and her tank top and ripped jeans were smouldering, though something was protecting them from fully catching alight. I wasn’t sure she’d even noticed I was there, she was crying so hard - completely out of it from a mix of fear and shock. She was the source of the heat I was feeling - there was fire flickering around her, shining and beautiful, important, entrancing...

I pulled, hard and fast and ruthless. The flames streaked into my aura, vanishing into the corona. The tug at my attention stopped. She’d burnt most of the bed to ash, and seared a hole in the ceiling to boot - I’d seen a lot of fires at this point, and from the looks of it this one must have been white-hot and twice as tall as me, at least. It had melted the aluminum bars of the headboard into a puddle.

And she wasn’t the only one in the room. There were three... shapes.

For a split-second, I was back in the car, my skin burning, gunfire ringing in my ears, choking on the tangled seatbelt with a body slumped beside me at the steering wheel, my own screams ringing in my ears...

I forced the memories away and bent to check, shaking. It didn’t take more than a cursory look. They were horribly burnt, massive third-degree trauma, and even if that hadn’t killed them, the smoke in here was thick enough that they’d have suffocated by now regardless. My gorge rose, and I’d never been more thankful for my sealed helmet. The smell... I could remember the smell...

“C-console,” I stuttered, falling back on protocol. “I- I think it’s a new Trigger. Pyrokinetic; her flames have some kind of hypnotic Master effect. I opened the door to the bedroom and I can’t remember anything else until...” I looked around again, and had to squeeze my eyes shut as my stomach heaved. “I think... I think I must have walked right into them. There are three burnt bodies here who she... who must’ve done the same.”

“Easy, Starlight. Velocity’s almost there, get out of there and wait for him.” Gallant was still stressed, but he was trying to be soothing, sympathetic. I shook my head. I couldn’t just leave her here; the building wasn’t safe even if she was immune to the fire. A glint caught my eye - a knife, next to one of the bodies - and I crouched down to look closer, still pulling to keep her fires controlled.

It was a quick study.

“... they’re ABB, I think. They are - were - armed. There’s a knife, and I think this is a melted gun. And this one was wearing one of those jackets,” I reported. Fuck. I could see what must have happened here. Three gang members and a teenage girl trapped in a room. She’d triggered, ignited, and the Mastered goons had walked straight into the fire. She’d burnt them to death right next to her while she was screaming. My hands fisted, and I felt tears trickling down my cheeks. Fuck. I was going to have nightmares for weeks about this.

“Starlight, you are compromised and not thinking straight, get out of there and wait for Velocity. He’s thirty seconds out, it’ll be fine. This isn’t a good situation for you.”

“No. No, I can bring her out. No point in anyone else getting dunked in the M/S tank.” I knew Gallant was trying to coddle me - he knew what this was doing to me. But he could butt out. I was fine. I would be fine. I could get the girl into PRT custody just fine.

I sent a short blast out of the open window. A moment later, Orbital rose up outside it, one construct lifting her as a glowing golden breastplate and the other four circling her head in their usual tennis ball forms.

“Starlight!” she called. “Good to see you’re okay! Gallant was going nuts trying to raise you on comms! What happened? I was gonna go in after you but- oh, you got another rescue?”

“I need a temporary mask,” I shouted back, ignoring the rest. “Velocity should be here by now, can you grab one for me? Anything that can cover her face.”

Orbital’s constructs flared in surprise. “Huh,” she said, shaping one into a full-face helmet against the smoke and hovering closer to the window. “This her?” She gestured around at the burning cladding.

“Just get the mask!” I shouted. Tiny cracking sounds echoed in the wake of my words, like fracturing porcelain, and a web of hairline cracks appeared on the closest parts of her breastplate and helmet. Ginger and sugar flared on my tongue as she yelped and drew backwards hastily, another pair of orbs expanding into a gleaming golden sword and shield.

“I can’t help it!” I cut in before she could start yelling. “I’m having to drain the heat off her; I can’t stop siphoning or she’ll go up in flames again! Get me the mask and get back to helping!”

She was probably muttering something unkind as she dropped back down out of sight, but I could deal with that later. She was the only other flier here, and it wasn’t like there was anything left in the room that I could cover the girl’s face with.

“I’ve dispatched a PRT team, Starlight,” Gallant reported. He was using his ‘I disapprove of your decisions as a member of this team’ voice again, and I rolled my eyes. “They’ll be there in ten minutes. Are you sure you’re okay? Seeing those men-”

“I’m fine, Console,” I snapped. “Alert them of a Master classification. Where’s Velocity?”

“Right here, Starlight. Waiting for you to come down.” I could hear the smile in his voice. “You always seem to be the reason I get an emergency call-out. How are you feeling?”

What kind of stupid question was that? I pulled the girl upright and dragged her over to the window, where I could glare down at the red costume far below. He waved at me from the sidewalk.

“Not great,” I said curtly. “How many days in M/S is this going to be?”

“I have visuals on you,” he confirmed. “And you know why it’s the rules.”

“Of course I do. But that doesn’t mean I have to look forward to it. This was just meant to be a regular firefighting gig!”

Orbital was on her way back up, a backup domino in hand. She passed it over, then scooted back before I drained her constructs any further. Great. Because being treated even more like a plague victim was exactly what I needed right now.

Masking the girl up, I took flight through the window and floated down to the ground. Velocity didn’t approach my landing site - protocol was that as a victim of an unknown master effect, I had to be quarantined and kept separate from anyone else it might affect. He smiled at me, though. It didn’t help.

“There’s still more to do,” I complained. “It was just a hypnotic thing; it didn’t compromise me or affect my judgement. I’m safe to keep helping.” I knew it wasn’t going to work, but I couldn’t help it. “Come on, they need me up there. Half the building’s still on fire. And I bet they haven’t got everyone out yet.”

“Rules are rules, Starlight. Besides.” Velocity gave me a reassuring thumbs-up from thirty feet away. “You’ve already done a lot of good getting the fire under control. They can handle it from here.”

I touched down outside, glowering. The heat of the fire had melted the pavements clear and salt crunched underfoot, put down by the firefighting teams so the snow wouldn’t refreeze as ice. Something else white was falling from the sky, though. A soft pattering of ash, bits of burned paper and cladding from the tower block’s walls, descending from on high and lit by the blue lights of the fire trucks. The snow in the rest of the city would probably be grey from soot tomorrow morning. I knew fire well, but this was the biggest one I’d seen in all my time with the PRT. Bigger than the warehouse fire when the E88 had burned down that place near the docks which had probably been holding drugs for one of the other gangs. That had gone up like a torch, but this was… different. There had been people in there. A lot of people.

And now I was being pulled out. Before I could stop it. When there might still be people in there to save. Because of the annoying M/S rules.

It would’ve been nice if the PRT van had shown up just then, to spare me from moping. But of course, I wasn’t that lucky. Instead it was eight more minutes of sitting in the cold, holding the pyrokinetic on my lap while everyone gave us a wide berth, before they arrived. She’d passed out at some point, and I probably didn’t strictly need to keep draining her - it was a rare parahuman whose powers kept working when they were unconscious.

I still didn’t stop, though. Extenuating circumstances or not, she’d started a fire that had eaten an entire tower block and burnt at least three people to death. And she’d mastered me. I wasn’t letting up on the drain until she was safely in custody back at HQ.

PRT vans always smelled the same. It was almost enough to keep my helmet on, but I’d been breathing recycled air since I’d got to the fire and I wanted something fresh-ish. But now the metal-and-cleaning-products-and-rubber smell of the back was joined by the smell of the smoke. I was going to have to put my costume in for a full laundering. Again. Urgh. They better make sure the inner lining was properly dry before they gave it back to me this time. There aren’t many things which suck more than putting on a damp costume. And I probably stank. I’d been simmering in my own sweat there. At least there’d be showers in M/S monitoring.

Another thought occurred to me, and I swore under my breath and pulled my phone out. I hadn’t accidentally drained the battery, which was a small silver lining to an afternoon this terrible. A couple of taps patched it through to my helmet mike, and I dialled home. And got the answering machine. Well, whatever. Aware I was on a time limit, I explained I probably wouldn’t be home tonight and why, then moved onto the next call. It was a number I knew by heart, and this one rang twice and then picked up.

“Emma Barnes,” its owner said cheerfully. “Who is this?”

“It’s me,” I sighed. “Movie plans are off tonight. I’m getting held up at work.”

“Yeah, the apartment fire, right? I saw the news. And the fire! I can see it burning all the way from my window!” I could tell the cancellation hurt, but she was putting a brave face on it, trying to be cheerful and supportive. “There are already some new pictures of you up on PHO! You look totally awesome, as usual. When do you think you’ll get back home? Is a bedtime call an option?”

“I don’t think I’ll be getting home tonight at all,” I admitted. “This is going to take a while to clean up.” Not untrue, though I wouldn’t be helping with the clean-up like I usually did. But need-to-know was another ugly lesson I’d had to learn since joining the Wards, and this was something Emma didn’t need to know. “Sorry. I might be tied up for tomorrow with debriefing. I’ll see you when I see you.”

“Okay. Go be a hero, Taylor.”

I looked down at the unconscious girl in my lap.

Yeah, I thought bitterly. I sure felt like a hero right now.

Chapter Text

The buzzer sounded, and I glared up at the white ceiling, lowering my book. “What?”

Two boring, boring days in M/S confinement. And two nights of horrific nightmares when I tried to get to sleep. Dreams of fire, and confinement, and the smell of pork and the acrid taste of smoke and burning metal. Of screams and gunfire and oppressive heat baking my skin from all sides and...

... I’d given up at 3am on Sunday morning and stayed awake the rest of the night. When I’d caught myself yawning, I’d done what exercise I could in the tiny cell to get my blood flowing. Not that there was much for me to work with here. White ceiling, padded walls, no exposed light fittings, not even a goddamn bra under the ‘safety’ clothing. And plenty of cameras watching me through their black lenses. This was only my second ride at this particular rodeo, but it hadn’t gotten any better. At least after last time I made sure to stock some books in my locker so I could catch up on my reading. Which I had done… oh, around seven hours into day one. Memo to self: bring more books for next time. Maybe I could raise with the Youth Guard that they should keep video game systems in here. Wait, no, they’d probably want people to study instead. I shouldn’t give them ideas.

Oh, and I’d also been asked a bunch of stupid questions from behind protective glass to check that I was still me, and then yelled at for making a pair of phone calls while under M/S protocols. Because I was meant to ask Console to pass on a text message or something. Which I knew, and had known at the time, but screw that. If I was going to drop out of contact for two days, my family and friends deserved to hear it from me. I’d left it at a brief message on the answering machine at home, because… look, the PRT was fine for telling family the specifics. But I didn’t see enough of Emma these days. And this wasn’t the first movie night I’d had to cancel last-minute.

All in all, I was tired and miserable and feeling like shit, with a growing headache and a case of cabin fever that had started early on Saturday evening and hadn’t stopped growing since.

“Time’s up, Starlight. You’re free to go.”

“Finally,” I grumbled. “So can I go h-”

“You’re wanted in room 204.”

“What for?”

“It’ll be explained there.”

I rolled my eyes, forcing down the simmering irritation that wanted to lash out and tell them to fuck off or stop being pointlessly evasive. I wanted to be home. I wanted a hug and a decent meal and to talk about the nightmares, possibly after some tea and another hug or two. I wanted to call Emma and apologise for missing our night and then curl up in my own bed in my own room and cry for a while. And sleep. Properly. For more than a three hour stretch, without getting woken up screaming by phantom flames crawling up my arms and legs.

But duty called. 204 was down in testing, so it was probably the new girl. Either they were done and I was going to be playing babysitter and showing her around, or they were about to start and wanted me around to keep her under control. Or both. Would that have been so hard to tell me?

“Fine, but I’m going to have to get dressed properly.” I bit back what I was about to say. It wouldn’t be a good idea to swear at PRT officials. “Give me a minute.”

It actually took more like five minutes, because I wanted to check my costume over before putting it on. Thankfully, this time there wasn’t anything to complain about. The stench of smoke and burning plastic was gone. They’d scrubbed the soot out until the lighter blue accents radiating out from the white star on my chest stood out from the navy blue. The star was pure white again, as were the fifty smaller ones scattered across my shoulders and upper arms. All of the armoured plates were sitting snugly, and the underlayer - thankfully - was dry.

I pulled my hair back into a short ponytail - it was starting to touch my shoulders, I’d have to get it cut again soon - and slid my helmet on, toggling the lower part of the faceplate shut and then open again. Perfect.

I walked out of M/S containment as Starlight and floated a few inches in the air all the way down to the second floor, just because I could. Flying usually cheered me up, even when it was just bobbing along the hallways. And it wasn’t technically against the rules, even if I got told to cut it out when Triumph or Piggot caught me doing it. Gallant was waiting for me in the corridor when I got there. Or maybe Dean, since he was just in casual clothes and a domino. He raised an eyebrow at me, and I glared back. We stood there for a moment, eyeing each other in a Mexican standoff. Well, he was eyeing me. I was visoring him.

He cracked first. “Glad to be out?” he asked with a grin. “Missy was starting to give you up as lost.”

My glare fractured into a smile, and I scoffed. “Lies. I’m the only decent company she has on this team. I wasn’t going to let her down by letting it beat me.”

“Wishing Vicky had been put in M/S with you too?”

“What kind of boyfriend are you, wishing that boredom on her?” I jerked my head at the door. “Are we testing the new girl?”

He eyed me warily, no doubt picking up on my general annoyance after two days in the tank with not enough sleep and too many memories. I didn’t bother masking the flicker of irritation at his prying. He didn’t rise to it though. Just nodded.

“I know you’re not her biggest fan right now, given your history,” he said, all earnest and noble. “And M/S ruins anyone’s week, so I understand that you’re short on patience. But try to give her a chance, okay? She’s scared and upset and fresh off her Trigger. You remember how that feels.”

... he had me there. I sighed. “Fine, yes, okay. I’ll try not to be too grouchy. At least I’m out now. Let’s go in before they decide to complain that I’m stalling. I don’t have the patience to get shouted at again this weekend.”

204 was one of the Blaster testing rooms and I’d been in this one before: reinforced walls, a firing range which could have various items delivered remotely and a heavily shielded observation booth. The new girl was standing awkwardly in the middle of half a dozen PRT testers, wearing a domino mask and a PRT sweatshirt and sweatpants. She was short - shorter than I’d realised back at the fire - and the bangs that framed her face were dyed blue, the rest chopped shorter than mine. She jumped as Dean and I walked in, snapping around to look at us with a muleish, defensive air and then going slack when she saw it was us. Or rather, me. She barely spared Dean a glance.

“Starlight,” she said. Her tone was stuck somewhere between surliness and gratitude, and her Japanese accent was obvious. That probably meant she was one of the refugees. No doubt Piggot was over the moon we’d picked her up, rather than the ABB. “They, uh, told me you were the one who saved me. So... thanks.”

I nodded stiffly, forcing down the image of charred, blackened skin and billowing smoke. “You’re welcome. So, you’re joining the Wards?”

She hunched her shoulders, giving a kind of lopsided shrug. “Not like I get much of a choice. I mean, I do, but… I mean, what am I going to do if I don’t? When I get freaked out, stuff catches on fire.” She spread her hands, helplessly.

“Well, not while I’m around,” I said, and glanced at the testing staff. “I assume that is why I’m here? To take care of any unwanted fires?”

“You’re the backup,” said Doctor Mahes, a tiny woman with a pixie cut and large glasses. She was generally pretty good compared to some of the other scientists. “Her first night here, she set her bed on fire in her sleep and melted the frame, so we decided to hold off and make sure you were here. Just in case.”

The girl blushed red. “I didn’t mean to,” she mumbled.

That was familiar. I’d burnt one or two things out back when I was going through testing, too. And tripped the breakers for a whole floor of the testing wing when they underestimated how much energy I could drain and how fast I could absorb it.

“So, Megumi, we’ll be working up steadily from the beginning,” Dr Mahes went on. I wondered what cape name they’d slap her with. Codenames were usually pretty cliche, but the PR people meant well. They certainly adored me: little Miss Legend Junior who helped out the fire department and glowed pretty colours and rescued cats from trees.

... okay, I’d never actually done that. One or two kids, but never a cat. I kind of wanted to, honestly, just so I could laugh about it, but in the real world cats seemed generally pretty good at getting down from any place they could get up to. They didn’t need heroic assistance.

“Just go through the first routine we discussed to give us a baseline - Starlight, stay alert.”

I snapped back to attention, a pressing question on my mind. “I won’t wind up stuck in M/S again from this? I only just got out.”

“You shouldn’t. Gallant is here to monitor the master effect - he’ll be observing us, but not the fire itself. And on that note, Gallant, if you would step into the observation booth? We’ll be blacking out the downrange windows for you.”

Dean gave me an earnest nod that communicated ‘please don’t snap at the new girl or bring up how she burned down a tower block’ and murmured something quietly encouraging and inspirational to her that would sound like a corny line from a kid’s cartoon show if anyone but him tried to say it. I mean, I assume so. I didn’t hear it, but it’s the kind of thing he comes out with, and she looked less nervous as he stepped into the booth.

“All right. So, Megumi.” Dr Mahes checked her watch, then wrote something down on her report. “It is… 13:29, on Monday the 29th of November, 2010. We are beginning testing for Megumi Satou, no codename currently assigned. I am Dr Natalie Mahes. With me is James Cahoun, handling the room controls.”

“Present,” said the taciturn African-American man who’d been sitting at the console.

“Assistance in this testing is being provided by Ward member Starlight, assisting in fire suppression and heat suppression if needed.” She glanced at me.

“Yeah, I’m here,” I said.

“And Ward member Gallant, who is serving as backup due to suspected Master effects in Miss Satou’s pyrokinesis.”

“Present, doctor,” said Dean. I was pretty sure he was being more formal than usual just to show me up. I mean, I would have done the same, but that wasn’t the point.

“Excellent. In that case, Megumi, please begin. We’re beginning with item one. If you look in front of you, you will see that you have an ice block measuring thirty centimetres by thirty centimetres. Please confirm that you can see it, and that no other items have been placed near it.”

My fists clenched, and it took real effort preventing the bubbling anger and resentment in my gut from boiling over and flaring into the visible spectrum. Did they really have to do this? I mean, yeah, it was important to be rigorous the first time, but every single time they checked up on me, there was this boring, boring laborious script where you had to confirm everything you saw. And it was so pointless! They were recording everything on a dozen cameras throughout the room! Were they scared of Strangers interrupting the testing, or something? I knew that it was just in case of unpredictable power interactions, but it was still stupid, and I didn’t have the patience for it today. Not when I could be going home, or at least doing something more useful with the time.

“Uh… yeah. There’s ice in front of me,” Megumi said. I sighed and turned my attention back to the tests.

“This current test step has the purpose of demonstrating the basic capabilities of your power. Do not attempt to utilise your maximum strength or push yourself too hard. Just do what you feel comfortable with.” Dr Mahes paused, her pencil held above a checkbox. “You may begin when ready.”

Megumi looked around, and took several deep breaths. She looked at the thick protective glass. “You’re sure it won’t get out… out of control?”

“The fire suppression systems are here, and if they don’t work, we have Starlight here for a reason. You won’t hurt me - she’ll keep me safe.” She glanced at me. “Isn’t that right, Starlight?”

“That’s right,” I said. “I’ve dealt with y… some very big fires before. And fire doesn’t burn me.” She still looked uncertain, and I grit my teeth and forced the impatience down again. What would Dean say... ah. “You can do this,” I added, in my best attempt at an encouraging tone.

She took another deep breath, and bent her knees. Then she jabbed, punching the air, and following the path of her fist came a ball of fire. If it was fire. It didn’t look like it. It was bright white, so bright it left me blinking, and in its trail it left a red glow in the air that slowly faded. Was that fire, or was it some kind of energy blast that just happened to heat things up? I wasn’t sure, but I wanted to know. How did it taste? I’d caught a hint of chilli...

Oh, and the ice was half-melted, like someone had turned a blowtorch on it. But that didn’t matter. Melting ice was easy. But then she punched another ball of light at the ice, and I got another chance to see it. It was just as perplexing as the first time.

“Excuse me.” It was Dean. I’d half-forgotten he’d been watching. “I’m seeing strong surges of surprise with a halo of interest in both Dr Mahes and Starlight. It’s intense and very uniform. I think it should be recorded.”

I blinked. “The fire makes you stare at it? Is that what got me?”

Dr Mahes took off her glasses. “Speculation is out of order, Starlight. At the moment, we’re just gathering data. Please save any commentary for the report phase, after this current session has ended.” She cleared her throat. “Thank you, Megumi. Gallant, are myself and Starlight still affected?”

“Faded. It was strongest when… uh, I assume she used her powers, and quickly decayed away. There’s basically nothing left now.”

“Understood. Dr Mahes motions for further study under proper conditions. However, Item 2 is a temperature measurement test. Now,” she flipped the page on her script, “Mr Cahoun, please send in the testing equipment associated with Item 2, and remove the equipment associated with Item 1 for independent study.”

I sighed. A little motion from Dean in the observation booth drew my attention. He was wagging his finger at me, because he knew I was already bored and frustrated. Like a hall monitor. I rolled my eyes at him, but of course he couldn’t see it behind my helmet.

Bluh.

“God, how long were we in there for?” Megumi rubbed at her eyes as we walked out of testing and up the corridor towards the elevators. “It felt like forever!”

I tapped one of the buttons on my wrist, bringing up my helmet’s HUD. “Two hours,” I told her. “But yeah. It felt like more. Always does. And you’ve got more sessions there. Also, your quarterly re-evaluations.” Dean would probably have commiserated, or told funny stories about his own testing experiences, or made an inspirational speech about how fully understanding her powers was a crucial part of gaining control of them and preparing her for the good work we did in the Wards as trainee heroes. But I didn’t want to, and also couldn’t on the last one. That kind of cheesiness only worked when he did it. If it had been someone else I might have been more chatty, but I couldn’t get the memories of the fire out of my head.

Yeah, Dean would tell me it wasn’t fair to blame her for what she did in the middle of her Trigger event, but screw him. I’d just been Mastered, pulled away from the biggest fire of my career and then shut in a featureless white box for two days with nothing but a couple of books and my nightmares to pass the time. I wasn’t injured, but exhaustion provided a hundred aches and pains all over and my headache was starting to force its way forward and take up residence behind my eyes. I deserved some irrational grumpiness.

Still, I should probably make an effort. Actually, credit where it was due, Megumi was keeping it together pretty well. From the sound of it, her nights hadn’t been any better than mine, and she’d set at least two cots on fire while I’d been waking up clawing at phantom burning sensations and then doing anything I could to avoid going back to sleep. I tried to think of something we could talk about that wasn’t fire-related. Normally I just tried to be myself when I wanted to talk to people, but I didn’t want to be myself here. Not like this. Okay. So. What would Emma do?

... probably either fashion talk or something witty and situational. I was in costume, she was in bland PRT stuff that probably came out of the gift shop, my sense of humour was at an all-time low... tour guide it was.

Curse Dean for getting pulled away on family stuff and leaving me to babysit. I made a mental note to drain his phone battery in revenge next time he called his girlfriend from HQ.

“Anyway,” I started, hoping to get through this without too much awkwardness. “You’ve seen testing, and this is the elevator... have you been shown around already?”

“Oh, uh, no.” She ducked her head. “I was locked up at night. They called my mom and dad who thought I’d been arrested. Then they gave me things to sign. I had to do other test things, but that got cut short when… uh, things went bad. Yeah, I haven’t seen much yet.” She scowled, staring down at her feet.

“Right. So, our elevator is tinkertech. That’s pretty cool.” I thumbed the button, and the hiss of the elevator arriving came only seconds later. “Oh, hey, question. How old are you?”

“Huh? Uh, sixteen. Why?”

I tried not to show how annoyed I was, but I wasn’t sure I succeeded. Sixteen. Sixteen. A year older than me. Which meant she’d be slotted in as Wards Leader for at least six months, maybe more, in command of me and Missy. Despite having two years less actual experience.

Fuck, this was unfair. Why did the Wards get run by the oldest member, anyway? Something about making sure everyone got leadership experience, but screw that. Triumph had never let me or Missy do anything. And Portent was no better. He was worse in some ways. I schooled my mouth into a flat line, but let myself scowl at her through the opaque helmet visor as the elevator wooshed down. I think she picked up on it, because the ride was spent in uncomfortable silence, and she fidgeted as I put my hand on the scanner.

“This is the Wards Base,” I said as civilly as I could. I was pissed, but I wasn’t pissed at her, not directly. I was pissed at the Wards rules. And if I repeated that to myself enough times, I might stop wanting to take it out on her. “You’ll be spending most of your time hanging out here. There’s a mask-up alarm inside when people want to come in, so we wait thirty seconds,” I explained. “You’ve met Gallant, so...”

The doors opened, and I glanced around. Missy was on Console duty, talking into the headset quietly to inform the BBPD about something the others had run across on patrol. I met her eye as she glanced across, and she cut her gaze across to the new girl and made a frustrated face.

Yeah, she’d heard too. I nodded back in solidarity and jerked my head towards our rooms. We could have a bitching session about being the youngest later.

Silent moment of commiseration done with, I took off and hung up my helmet, then turned my attention back to Megumi. She was still staring around the Wards base, drinking it all in.

“Portent’s out on patrol with Dauntless,” Missy called over while Megumi gawked. “Just me here.”

I nodded thanks at her. “Right, so,” I said, drawing Megumi’s attention back to me. “Vista’s on duty, and you’ll meet Portent later.” Which reminded me, he’d probably scold me all over again for everything I’d done wrong at the fire. Urgh. Such a buzzkill. “So, like you can see, we’re down underground here, and the whole structure is modular so we can add and restructure bits as we need to. You’ll have a set of rooms here - we don’t make a habit of staying overnight, but sometimes it’s easier to crash here than go home after a late patrol. I guess we’ll both be doing that tonight, just so I can stay close and squash any fires if you have a nightmare or something. If you get through the night without anything flaring up, they’ll probably relax.”

Or more accurately, reading between the lines, Portent had foreseen something about her maybe burning her house down and they wanted to make sure it didn’t happen. Or maybe the ABB were after her. I wondered, idly, how much overtime he’d pulled searching through different bad futures after she got brought in. Probably a fair bit. He had an annoying tendency to overplan, and he dwelled on how things could go wrong all the time.

Which, okay, was his power. But there was such a thing as taking it too far. Way too far.

But enough bitching about Portent, even if he deserved it. I still had tour-guiding to do. “So, we’ve got our own kitchenette over here, which Portent uses to cook proper meals and everyone else uses to grab snacks.” I scratched my nose. “Uh, you want a soda? We got Coke, Fanta, Mega, Steel Brew… actually, those are Gallant’s and he gets pissy if anyone touches them, so probably not.”

“Coke?” She looked over at me, something odd in her eyes.

“Okay, cool.” I tossed her a can. “And…”

“Um… could you open it for me?”

“What?”

Megumi winced. “I’m… um, strong. A lot stronger than I used to be. I… I don’t trust that I won’t crush the can again.”

Again? I looked at her hands. She didn’t look strong or tough, and she’d lose that roundness if she kept to the Wards training routine like I did. I took the can, pulled the tab with a hiss, and passed it back. “Super strength, huh?”

“It’s not, uh, very super.” She scratched her cheek. “I mean, they… they said it’s like I’m a pro athlete.”

I snorted. “More than I got. That’s neat.”

“Yeah, but you can fly.”

That’s right, I could fly. And it was awesome. I shrugged, trying to act nonchalant. “Anyway, our rooms are over here, and you can decorate however you want. Yours will be on the same side as mine and Missy’s... here. So, one rule is that we’re not allowed boys in with the doors closed. Just so you know. The Youth Guard rules are pretty strict about that.”

It was blank inside, and about as welcoming as a sterile hotel room. Bed, dresser, desk, a row of empty shelves and a wallscreen... yeah, okay, Missy and I spent enough time here that we’d kind of stamped our personalities on our rooms. I’d forgotten how lifeless they seemed without that.

“And, uh, this one is mine; you can see the kind of thing we can do with them,” I added, leading her further along to my door. I’d repainted the dull beige walls in a mix of pale blue and green tones last year, and my shelves were packed tightly with books. My desk was messy with unfinished reports and reference texts - a PRT procedural handbook, crime reports, a couple of electrician’s technical manuals. My awards - most of them for firefighting - cluttered the top of the dresser, and three framed photographs stood on my bedside cabinet.

I winced as Megumi eyed the Vista-themed bedsheets and turned to me, clearly fighting a grin. “She has Starlight-brand covers,” I defended. “We, uh, had a game of truth or dare a couple of months ago. We were making fun of each other’s merch, and she... anyway, yeah.” I cleared my throat. “You can take a look around if you want.” I walked over and sat on the bed in the corner as she gravitated to the awards display, brushing my finger fondly over the picture of me, mom and dad at my thirteenth birthday party. I could feel my irritation draining away now that I was back on familiar ground - two days in the tank had been hard, but being back in my own room helped a lot.

“Oh my god, is that...?”

I glanced up, and followed her line of sight to the other pictures on the cabinet. She probably wasn’t looking at the one of me and Emma, which meant- and yeah, there was the glance at the dresser, matching scene to medal. It was front and centre, standing out from the firefighting awards in its velvet-lined display case.

“Yup.” I pushed up off the bed, picking up the photograph as I went. Three signatures were scrawled on it: one in loopy cyan, another in neat black print and the third in a surprisingly ordinary green cursive. I held it out for her to gawk at, glancing down at the scene of Starlight on stage, surrounded by the Triumvirate and being presented with a medal by Legend.

“My Outstanding Service award, back in May.” Even six months on, the memory made me grin. “I got to shake Alexandria’s hand. And Legend told me I was doing good work, and that he had high hopes for me in the future.” Though I’d gone on a paparazzi patrol with him, and I have to say, the people who call me “the next Legend”? They don’t know what they’re talking about. I don’t have anywhere near his kind of output. Or versatility; his lasers are flat-out absurd. He’s a better flier, too. And faster. And more personable.

No, of course I’m not sore about it. He’s one of the freaking Triumvirate, falling short of them isn’t exactly surprising. It’s awesome that people think enough of me to make that comparison in the first place.

“What about Eidolon?” Megumi asked, staring down at the green hooded figure. I shrugged.

“A lot shorter than I expected him to be, honestly. He didn’t do much talking.”

“Yeah...” She stared down at the picture for a while longer, tracing the heroic figures on-stage. And not saying anything. After a while, the silence started to drag, and I resisted the urge to fidget. What else could I show her... I didn’t want to go back out and bother Missy, the bathrooms weren’t much to look at... maybe the entertainment centre? We had a pretty good set-up, and I might be able to drop her off there and get some time to-

“Starlight?”

“Uh-huh?”

“What, um... how did it happen? For you?” She was uncomfortable, fidgeting with the photograph, not looking at me. For a moment I didn’t understand what she was talking about. But then she continued. “I mean,” she shrugged, “you know my origin story, so... how’d you get yours?”

“I don’t, actually,” I said without thinking. I didn’t mean to, and if I’d had a little bit more time I’d have kept my mouth shut. But it was out before I could stop it, and she was talking before I could take it back.

“They didn’t tell you? Well, I mean, uh, you must have had run-ins with the ABB, right? They run Little Tokyo. And after school on Friday, they grabbed me. They said it was something to do with Dad not paying up and… they said they’d let me go when he paid but th-they started things about how they’d get their money if he didn’t pay and-”

I raised one hand. “You don’t have to tell me.”

“N-no you don’t get it,” she went on, oblivious to what she was fucking saying, still not meeting my eye. “I’d been there a day and it was starting to get dark and I knew nobody was coming, or even knew where I w-was-”

“Stop.” And she shut up. She looked like a deer in the headlights.

Oh. Those weren’t headlights lighting up her face. Those were my eyes, as bright as two little stars. There was a reason my visor automatically darkened.

I screwed my eyes shut. “Listen,” I gritted out. So much for relaxing now that I was back in my room. “What happened to you? That’s standard. That’s how everyone gets powers - the worst day of their lives. You don’t... you don’t ask people about how they got powers. You don’t bring it up - especially not out of fucking nowhere, mid-conversation.” My fists clenched, and I gritted my teeth. I had to keep my aura in. It wasn’t her fault. Not exactly. “Don’t ever ask anyone that question ever again,” I ordered. “Especially not Vista.”

“Okay. Okay, yeah, s-sure,” she stuttered. I cracked an eyelid open. There was a hint of a sob in her voice, and she was shrinking away from me, arms coming up to shield her as if... as if I was going to hit her, or blast her. I’d gone too far, and now she was terrified. Fuck, I just could not get anything right today. Lack of sleep and lingering nightmares were putting me on edge. I forced my fists to uncurl, and sat down again. How to fix this...

... urgh.

“I… I was on the way to flute practice. We’d just stopped for gas.” I kept my eyes shut, and wished I didn’t have to. I didn’t want to blind her, but that meant I was back there. I could smell the gasoline. “Just another day. Right until things started exploding. Empire and ABB. Gang fight. With capes.” Her, up in the sky. Purity. Burning like the sun. All her fault. “They didn’t care who was in the way. All that gasoline, and there were l-laser blasts and guns and… there was a fire. And we were boxed in and… and the car flipped and…”

Breathe. Look up at the ceiling. Exhale, inhale, try not to taste the stink. The burning pork. The pain. At least the ceiling was dark now. My eyes had died down, and I looked at her, all hunched up and defensive. It wasn’t her fault. I reminded myself that just in case I’d forgotten it since last time and forced myself to shrug. As if it wasn’t a big deal. “I didn’t realise I had powers, or what they were, or how they worked. I pulled in the fire that was touching me, and blasted my way out while I was flailing, but I didn’t pull it from the rest of the car. Or the rest of the gas station. The PRT found me passed out in a crater on the street. If I’d kept my head, maybe I could have put the car out before...”

I broke off, breathing heavily, and shook my head clear with a sharp jerk. It was an old guilt. It had no place here.

“So yeah. Not a good question. I’m sorry for snapping at you, you don’t deserve it. I just... I have a thing about fire, and that one at the tower block was bad, and then I got thrown in M/S for two days with nightmares both nights. Plus I’ve, you know... got cramps.” That was actually a lie, but it worked as an excuse. “I’ll get over it, just... I’m really not good company right now.” Especially not to her. Why had Dean thought it was a good idea to leave me with her? Wasn’t emotion-sight meant to tip him off about things like this? He could be a real idiot sometimes, so apparently it didn’t work very well.

“It’s... it’s okay,” she said, uncurling. “I get it. Shitty things happen, and it’s not cool to bring them back up, right?”

“Yeah. Right. That.” I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Listen, I have to go to the bathroom. Just… hang in the kitchen for a moment. ‘Kay? Rifle through the cupboards and find yourself something to eat; I bet you’ve only had cafeteria crap for the past couple of days. We have better stuff here.”

“Kay.”

I made sure she was out of my room, locked the door, and then walked to the girls bathroom like someone whose only thought was that she had drunk too much juice before leaving M/S. Or, y’know, something like that. I didn’t really have a story in mind. Sue me.

I closed the door behind me, stepped into one of the cubicles, made sure it was locked, and then let it all out. By which I meant my aura. My power ignited as I rose up off the ground, lighting up the room in yellow-orange brilliance. Energy coruscated around me, burning light flowing over the surface of my costume and arcing off in yard-long solar prominences. As my outburst peaked, the edge of my aura formed an outline in the air: a rough ellipsoid made visible by heat-shimmer and crackling filaments, like the surface of a plasma globe or the bow shock of re-entry.

The bathroom was good for moments like this. There wasn’t anything flammable in there and the ceramic tiles were pretty tough.

An audible whoomph echoed off the bathroom walls as the toilet roll ignited. I snarled, and yanked the heat back into me.

Breathe. Breathe. I wasn’t surrounded by fire. I was safe here. I didn’t need my aura. I didn’t! There wasn’t any threat, any danger!

It took me a few moments, but I forced those scents and sounds and sights back down into the dark place where they rarely bothered me. It’d just been a bad few days that had dragged them back up. What with the fire and… and the failure. And being dragged off the operation. The bodies. The burnt bodies. It had been ages since I’d lost control like that. I’d have to keep a better lid on it from now on.

I flushed the burned bits of toilet paper, and stepped out to find that the bottle of hand sanitiser had exploded. Crap. I’d need to clean that up. Or find a way to blame that on… no, I’d just need to clean it up.

A new day, a new test, a new teammate. Wasn’t I lucky?

I did my job for the rest of the day without any more outbursts, managed to finish some of the reports on my desk, and after dinner headed into my bedroom for an early night. But before I could settle down, a muffled voice called through my door.

“Open up; this is a no-knock raid.”

I eyed the door, a fond smile creeping onto my face. “Go away,” I called back. “I’m armed and dangerous.”

“Threatening an officer of the law, huh?” The door hissed open, and Missy padded in. She’d changed out of her costume, and was wearing pale green pajamas and holding a pillow. Her blonde hair was starting to regain its waviness now that she was out of costume and had washed the product from it. “Then as a duly appointed hero, I’m afraid I’m gonna have to take you in, criminal scum.”

I put up my fists in a mock boxing stance. “You’ll never take me alive, pig.”

She charged, pillow swinging, and I met her with an outstretched foot that held her back long enough for me to grab my own. Slipping past my legs, she threw herself at me, and I rolled out of the way before she could get me pinned. She was small, but surprisingly good at grappling, and even in playfighting she didn’t believe in holding back. Our scuffle lasted a good two minutes, and ended with the covers bunched up and half falling off the bed, a reddened wrist where she’d overbalanced and thumped it on the wall, and five pillow-smacks on her part to the two I’d managed to land.

Space-warping my pillow smaller was cheating, I’d like to point out. As was the strategic use of non-Euclidean geometry.

We settled into our usual configuration: her perched cross-legged at the end of the bed and me leaning back against the wall at its head.

“So,” she sighed, hugging the pillow to herself and cracking her neck. “The new girl, huh?”

“Yeah,” I muttered. “The new girl.”

“You don’t like her.”

I scowled. “With good reason. She started the fire.”

“Taylor!” she chided me, leaning forward and crunching space to bop me on the shoulder. “You can’t blame her for that!”

“She burnt people to death!”

“By accident!”

“And she still burnt three people to death! She Mastered them to walk right into a bonfire! They were charred to the bone, Missy! And who knows how many more in the rest of the building! I just… I know they were ABB and they were bad, but...” Burning to death was an awful, awful way to go. You know that thing about some causes of death being ‘too good’ for whoever? Yeah, people who say that should shut the fuck up.

Missy sat up straighter and frowned at me. “You can’t just decide to hate her because of how she triggered, Taylor,” she repeated fiercely. “You can’t. You said so yourself, I heard you. She looks up to you - you saved her - and you’re being mean and getting your stuff all mixed up in what happened to her. It’s not fair-”

“Wait, wait, were you eavesdropping on us, you little-”

“Yes! It’s not like Console duty takes much attention, and I wanted to know what you were saying in case you blew up at her! Which you did-”

“You can’t just-”

“Shut up, Taylor!” She’d clambered up onto her knees on the mattress now, straightening so as to look down at me. “Look, I know this is hard for you,” she insisted, gesturing with wide, sweeping waves to emphasise her words. The room’s corners warped and twisted in her agitation. “I know it reminded you of... back then, and that you got thrown into M/S for two days-”

“And had to cancel on Emma. And got pulled away from the fire when I could have done more to help. And got Mastered. Plus I went through all my books in the tank before the first morning was over, and then I... I had the nightmares again. Like I haven’t had since that firefight in the Trainyard last year.”

Her expression creased in sympathy for a moment, and she put a hand on top of mine. “... yeah, fine, all of that. I get that it’s hard, and I’m sorry the bad dreams are back. But seriously, Taylor! You’re being a bitch! It’s not her fault that she didn’t have control! It’s not her fault that she didn’t know what not to ask! You know that. Quit it.”

I scowled at her, and she matched me glare-for-glare. It was more cute than combative - she was too young and still had too much baby fat to screw her little face up into something genuinely intimidating - but I knew the girl under the adorable surface, and she wasn’t going to back down on this. She’d be willing to take this to the training mat if she had to.

“... uuuurgh.” I flopped back down on the bed, spreading my arms out dramatically. She patted my hand, calming down now that she’d won.

“You’re right,” I grumbled. “But it’s hard to just... forget. You weren’t there, Missy. You didn’t see the bodies. I know in my head that she couldn’t help it, but...”

She sat back down, shifting closer until she was almost in my lap. Something soft and furry dropped onto my chest, and I looked down to see Paul Bearyan. She must have done something terrible to the local geometry to grab him from her room across the corridor without getting up, and I was quietly glad I hadn’t seen her do it.

It went without saying that I was the only one in the building who knew she still slept with a teddy bear. And even then, she’d made me swear silence on pain of death if anyone else found out from me.

“Go see Cleates tomorrow,” she told me, softer. “Book an emergency session and get this stuff out. You can’t let it hang over you, and you should be talking about it with someone who can help.”

I hugged Paul Bearyan, and nodded quietly.

“And... you should probably tell Dean, just so he knows to watch out for it.”

That got her an unimpressed side-eye. Her crush on Dean was cute, but it blinded her to some of his more annoying flaws. Not that he wasn’t a good guy, because he was really like that. But he had a tendency to want everyone to make friends and hug it out and Do The Right Thing like life was a cartoon special. Sometimes - often, even - he made it work. This was one of the times it wouldn’t. Not to mention...

“If I tell him, he’ll tell Portent, and Portent’ll ride my ass about it for the next month and come up with a hundred terrible ways our team dynamic could go horribly wrong,” I pointed out. “I mean, a hundred more than he has already, since I’m here making sure she isn’t going to burn the city down in her sleep on his account.”

“Don’t worry about Brian,” Missy told me firmly. “I’ll back you up against him and swear I held an intervention and you broke down in tears and promised on your knees to do better- hey! Hey, cut it out!” I let up on the poking at her ticklish spots, but held the beady-eyed glare for a few more seconds to drive the point home. She grinned down at me, unashamed.

“Just give her a chance, okay? And go talk to the therapist about the fire.”

“Yeah, yeah. I will. It’s just... it’s not just the fire, it’s the unfairness,” I grouched. I was lying through my teeth. It was the fire, and the charred bodies, and the nightmares. But a petty annoyance like this could wash away the foul taste of the real problem. “Dean turns eighteen in August! I was going to have the better part of two years in charge! We had a plan, you as my 2IC, no matter how many newbies wind up between us in age!”

“And now we’ve got, what, six months to a year and a half with a total greenhorn in charge?” she agreed, the PRT trooper phrasing sounding hilarious coming from her mouth. “When’s her birthday, anyway? Whatever, never mind. Look, I know it sucks, but...” She flopped down on top of me, staring up at the ceiling and using my stomach as a pillow. “It’s still not her fault, right? And at least we outnumber the boys now.”

I snorted. “Yeah, okay. I guess there’s that.”

“Plus,” she added with a grin, “at least it won’t be as bad as what Dean gets. Barely a month in charge? Brian fucking cockblocked him.”

“Missy!” I was a little bit shocked. Somehow she always managed to surprise me when she swore.

“Oh come on, you know it’s true.”

“Yes, but it’s not nice to put it like that.”

“Since when did you care about ‘nice’?”

“Excuse me, I am the nicest and the hero-est. And that’s official.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh my god are you going to go on about that stupid award again?”

“It wasn’t stupid. You’re just jealous.”

“No, you’re just annoying about it.”

“No, you’re just annoying about your face.” She thumped me without moving from where she was lying across my legs and stomach, and I chuckled. We lay there for a while, half-dozing.

“Back to school tomorrow,” I grumbled. “I lost my whole weekend to this. First that fire, then this.”

Missy rolled over and looked at me, hugging the pillow. “You… have you seen the news about the fire?”

“Not yet, no. I haven’t had a chance yet.”

“A… a lot of people died. Like, over fifty. So… uh, you probably shouldn’t grumble.”

Fifty. A hand closed around my heart. I felt sick. The room lit up as my aura surged to life, and I thumped the wall hard enough that plaster fell away. Fifty people dead. And I… I could have done more, if I’d been allowed to. If I hadn’t got pulled out because of… damn it. Damn it.

Smaller arms wrapped around me. “You okay?”

“No.”

“Yeah. I wouldn’t be. It sucks.”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

Sleep was a while in coming.

Chapter Text

I went straight from work to school. And I remembered to call home in the morning to say that yes, I was alive, and yes, I should be coming home this evening, and no, I hadn’t forgotten to call. I actually had, but telling the truth would just start a fight.

Despite my long imprisonment and the expectations set by an overabundance of teen movies, none of my friends were waiting for me at the gates of Arcadia with a snappy comment or a heartfelt ‘welcome back’. Two of them could be excused on account of not attending Arcadia; Emma went to Winslow on the other side of town, and Missy was still in middle school. The third, however, had no such excuse.

Nodding in passing to the classmates who qualified as ‘acquaintances’, I went looking for Amy Dallon.

I found her in the west quad, taking up a whole bench with her back against one of the armrests, munching on a bagel before class. It was cold but clear outside. The snow was piled up in the corners of the quad, already starting to get grimy and lose its pristine white appearance. She saw me as I walked up, but didn’t stop eating or swing her legs around. So when I got there, without ceremony, I sat on them.

“Fug!” she swore, spraying bits of bagel at me, and swallowed hastily. “Goddammit Taylor, move your bony butt!”

“Hi Amy, good to see you!” I returned cheerfully. “‘Oh hi Taylor, good to see you too. How was your weekend?’ Not good actually, I got grounded for two days and it sucked. ‘Oh man, sorry to hear that.’ Yeah, well, that’s life. Thanks for showing so much concern.”

She rolled her eyes and tried to push her knees up and dislodge me. Still smiling cheerfully, I drew on just enough downwards flight to keep her pinned to the wooden slats of the seat without giving away what I was doing to anyone watching. After a moment or two of struggling, she gave up in disgust.

“Hate you,” she muttered. “Fine, yes, my sympathies. Now will you stop grinding my shins into the bench? I’m going to get splinters at this rate.”

I eased up and let her pull her legs out from under me. Rather than turn and sit normally, she just slung them across my lap and went back to eating. She had dark bags under her eyes, and her freckles stood out against her sallow skin. The mousy brown hair poking out from under her beanie was frizzier than usual and I could see split ends from where I sat. She hadn’t been sleeping enough, and I was willing to bet she’d had a fight with her family over the weekend. That was a sucker’s bet, of course. At least her wardrobe wasn’t any different from usual - though that didn’t count for much, since even I had to admit she dressed like a terminally depressed crow. Her puffy black jacket even looked like the birds in the nearby tree, feathers ruffled up for warmth against the November cold.

“I heard about the fire,” she said after a few more bites of bagel. “And Vicky told me why you got grounded. Sucks.”

“Yeah.” This was why I liked Amy. She didn’t try to comfort me or offer heartfelt advice or tell me to get over it; she just let me bitch and agreed that it sucked. “Has Vicky forgiven me yet?”

She finished off the last of the bagel and licked cream cheese off her fingers. “Took her most of the evening, but yeah. Come Saturday she was all full of sympathy at how cut up you’d be over the people who died. She’ll probably grab you to hug it out whenever she sees you today.”

Crap. I made a note to avoid that, or at least make sure it didn’t happen in public. I didn’t think I could take the awkwardness of a sympathetic Vicky-hug under the eyes of a hundred onlookers and half a dozen cell phones. And since she couldn’t say what she was actually consoling me for, it’d probably get people asking if we’d had a fight or something. And some asshole guy wolf-whistling, because heaven forbid two girls show any kind of emotion or physical affection in a platonic way. No, letting her catch me in the open was way more trouble than it was worth. Honestly, it was almost worth tracking her down before class and heading it off. “Do you know where she is?”

Amy’s shoulder rose and fell. “Sucking face with Dean,” was her only comment. Ah. Okay, yeah, that made sense. He’d probably spent all weekend tied up with keeping Megumi calm until I got out, and then he’d got dragged away for whatever family thing he’d abandoned me with her for. That was a whole two and a half days without seeing her boyfriend, which in Vicky-time was a small eternity. I wasn’t going to interrupt that reunion.

I looked around the quad, judging distances. Hmm, no. There was a group of kids from the grade above us hanging out close enough that they’d probably be able to overhear if I started bitching - in fact, listening with half an ear, I caught my name. Starlight, that is, not Taylor. Yeah, definitely not a place to talk about the new girl or my feelings on the fire.

“How was your weekend, then?” I asked instead. “Happy and loving, and full of flowers and rainbows as usual?”

“Mom overheard me joking to Vicky about getting an undercut, so I got to sit through a half-hour long lecture about professional image,” she drawled. “So that was fun. Tempted to get one now just to stick it to her. What else... I got to go on a family patrol around the south Docks since the fire’s got everyone on edge and off their usual routines, but the most I spotted was a couple of pickpockets, not even worth Radiant’s time. Uh... I looked at that Power of Three book you wanted me to read?”

I perked up. “Oh! Great! What did you think of it? It’s great, isn’t it? What did you think of Gair?”

Amy shrugged awkwardly. “I only got a few pages in. Sorry. I’ll finish it next weekend and tell you then?”

As an aside, it’s incredibly frustrating trying to talk to people about books when they read so slowly that it takes them a whole weekend to plough through a single short fantasy novel. Seriously, I only had one or two friends I could properly talk to about, you know, reading and in-depth discussion of the plots of my favourite stories. And Leah had strange tastes; half of what she read was weird pretentious overcomplicated stuff that tried to be so clever that it got in the way of the story. It was really unfair.

“Sure, yeah.” I sighed. “Hey, are you free after school? I... I want to go look. At, you know. The site.”

She eyed me for a good long moment. Then shrugged. “I guess I could come along and keep you company. Can’t be any worse than going home.”

True friendship, this. I don’t know what I’d do without her effusive and warm-hearted support.

Today was a full day, so it was already dark by the time school was over. That was late November for you. School had sucked. Everyone was talking about the fire. Everyone. My departure from the scene in the back of a PRT van seemed to have gone unnoticed, but that just had people wondering why Starlight hadn’t hung around longer or helped more. It did fucking wonders for my mood, and if wasn’t that, it was people talking about the deaths. Talking like they were... I dunno how to describe it. But the people who’d lived in that tower block had been poor. It hadn’t been a good place. They’d been blue-collar, or struggling to make ends meet. Worlds away from the kind of kid who went to Arcadia High. No one from that area close to Little Tokyo was in the catchment area for this school. Hell, we hadn’t been, until we’d moved.

Every time I heard someone talking about them, it was with this sense of detachment, like they’d never met anyone who’d lived in a crappy place like that. Some of the comments I’d heard had even been things like ‘it was their fault for ignoring the fire alarms’. Yeah, guess what, fuckwit. I’d been in there and I hadn’t heard that many fire alarms. Just like the city to skimp on the fire safety inspections on a block close to Little Tokyo. And most of the people had been above where the fire started. Hey, genius, what would you have done then? Go on, tell me. Tell me!

It just… it just made me so mad. I came very close to punching someone over that and I had to go lock myself in the bathroom instead. Even then, the only thing that stopped me from going for it instead of venting in private was the knowledge that it would get back to Piggot if I tried to break someone’s jaw, and she probably wouldn’t be very understanding about ‘do you know what they said; they totally had it coming’ as an excuse.

Well, she might understand. But she wouldn’t be pleased. People said I had Dad’s temper, but I knew better than to let it have free rein.

Amy was waiting for me outside the front doors after classes let out, glued to her phone. “I didn’t hear anything about Vicky ambushing you,” was her first comment. “Did you manage to dodge her?”

“She caught up with me after math, but I ducked into a bathroom before she got to me, so we had it out in private. We’re official friends again. I guess,” I said, taking off my glasses to polish them. They were fogging up in the cold.

“You must be overjoyed. So, how are we getting to your little pity party?”

She had the bitch turned up higher than normal. I wondered if she was feeling well, beyond just being tired. “I think the bus line there is on hold until cleanup finishes, so... walking? Or you could fly us.”

She scoffed. “If I waste Radiant-time on that, Carol will have an aneurysm when I get home.” She paused, considering it. “Which... is actually a really good point. Fine, but let’s get away from the gawkers first.”

O... kay, her mom must have either pissed her off way more than usual over the undercut thing, or they’d had a row about something else she wasn’t telling me. I wondered if it was the Endbringer thing again. Either way, that was family drama I wasn’t getting into the middle of. Between Missy and Amy, it got kind of awkward about how non-tirefire my home life was. I kept my mouth shut and followed her around the back of the school so she could get changed in relative privacy.

“Hold onto this,” she ordered, unslinging her backpack and tossing it at me. “You drop it, I kill you and hide the body in the Bay.” I nodded casually, used to this sort of thing from her, and hooked my arm through the straps so I could settle it on my free shoulder.

Amy was a cape, but not like me. She was public. I was with the Wards, so there were court orders banning people from publishing that Taylor Hebert had the code-name ‘Starlight’. I got to have a normal life and the gangs in town didn’t know who that amazing and powerful superhero in dark blue was. But Amy’s parents had gone open as part of their New Wave movement about parahuman transparency. Amy had never had a secret identity, and neither had her cousins or older sister, who was my friend-slash-rival-slash-frenemy as Orbital. As a result, no one blinked at them using their powers during day-to-day life.

Well, that wasn’t quite true. No one blinked whenever Vicky did something with one of her glowing bubbles. But people getting to see Amy’s powers was much rarer, so she tried to be discreet about it or they’d stare. And rightly so. Watching Amy transform was always a treat. She didn’t make a big thing of it, just shook her shoulders out as the iridescent crystal started to form. Amy called them scales, but I always thought it looked more like frost ferns forming in fast-forward. The fractal patterns always started at her hands; branching out up her palms and around her wrists, tracing vivid soap-bubble luminescence up her arms and over her sleeves. It wasn’t just colour; her limbs bulked out as the crystalline matter rolled up towards her shoulders. Her chest broadened as it spread across her torso like a loving embrace, and she closed her eyes as it swept upwards to cover her face.

I kept my eyes there, my gaze rising with her as she grew. Radiant was over eight foot from head to toe, and built like a shapely Amazon. It wasn’t like she was naked, exactly. There weren’t any anatomical details - it was all just smooth white crystal shot through with rippling bands of colour, and while her general silhouette was feminine, there were raised segments that looked kind of like a cape costume. But it still felt more polite not to look. Like watching someone change clothes. Keeping my eyes on her face was less awkward for both of us.

She had her lasers out at the moment, a dozen silver-irised eyes arrayed symmetrically on bumps across her body - her wrists, her shoulders, her chest, her back, her hips. Her face resembled Amy’s real one, but with all the little imperfections and asymmetries removed. If she were human, it would have made her a supermodel - as it was, cast in living gemstone shot through with fractal shapes and patterns, she looked otherworldly, if not outright angelic.

Though ‘angelic’ was a bit of a loaded word to use. Probably safer to just go with her name. She looked radiant.

She didn’t give me any further warning before she bent and unceremoniously scooped me up in a bridal carry. I might have yelped a bit, but... look, getting literally swept off your feet by a crystalline giant is startling no matter how well you know the giant in question. I was tall for my age, and my shoulders were on a level with where her belly-button would be, if she’d had one as Radiant. I had to crane my neck back all the way to look her in the eye when we were next to each other. Frankly, I’d like to see you not yelp under the same circumstances, and if you say you wouldn’t, you’re probably lying. Or Alexandria.

“Alright, no yelling,” Radiant said, and lifted off. Unlike her face, her voice in this form wasn’t remotely like the one she had as Amy. It was all chimes and wineglass resonance that hurt to listen to when she spoke too loudly. She was a faster flier than me so it only took us a minute, and most of that was her holding back because I was squishy and made of meat. Also, she got in trouble for breaking the sound barrier in the city limits. I knew for a fact she was faster than Laserdream when she pushed herself, so she was the fastest hero in the state. She didn’t need any help navigating. The charred husk of the tower block kind of stood out from up high.

She touched down without bothering to brake and dumped me on my feet, shucking the transformation before we were even firmly on the ground. Little shards of crystal flaked away from her like a localised glittery snowstorm. I caught a few between my fingers, rubbing them together as they disintegrated into nothing. They felt weird, kind of like slick powder that made my fingertips tingle.

“Urgh,” she grumbled, yanking off her beanie and shaking crystal flakes out of her hair. “Felt like I was coming up on my limit faster than usual. Since you’re here to mope anyway, I don’t suppose you’d be willing to help out?” She wiggled her fingers at me. I shook my head, and she accepted it with a one-shouldered shrug. “Gimme my bag back, then.”

I passed it back to her, and we set off to walk the last hundred yards or so to the edge of the police tape. The streets of Brockton Bay were cold and dark. It was snowing, but it wasn’t even the nice kind of snow. It was the kind of snow which was half-way to being sleet, the kind of snow that didn’t linger and which had a near-miraculous ability to get down the back of your neck and past the lining of your hood no matter what you did.

The air smelled of smoke, even now. Not like bonfire smoke, though. There was the smell of burned tires in the air, and paper, and that acrid smell of electrical fires. I wrapped my arms around myself, staring up at the gutted building against the night skyline. And at the temporary facilities down at street level, where the firefighters were still operating from - and probably where any bodies they found were going. A blackened patch five storeys up caught my eye. I’d tried to stop the fire there - and there and there and there. And there, there was where the gas main must have cooked off, because the exterior was entirely gone. I… I could have done more. If-

“Remind me why I did this for you?” Amy grumbled, jamming her hands into the lining of her coat pockets and stomping her feet for warmth. “This is a real sacrifice I’m making here. Not all of us are you with your cheating ‘what do you mean, it’s not cold’ bullshit.”

“I asked nicely,” I said. I was glad for the distraction. “And you wanted to piss your mom off.”

“Fair point. It’s a noble cause.”

We trudged up to the police barriers in companionable silence. There weren’t many officers still crawling around the place at this point - the fire had been put out late on Saturday afternoon - but there were still enough to keep any dumb idiots from daring each other into an unstable structure and keep the gawkers back at a safe distance. Amy and I were attracting some glances, our arrival not having gone totally unnoticed, but her resting bitch face served to keep most of them from trying to come up and ask questions.

I stood there in the dark, with the snow falling down in flakes around us, and looked up at the monument to my failure.

After a while, Amy shifted closer until she was shoulder to shoulder with me, and nudged sideways to jostle me slightly. She didn’t speak. Didn’t offer any platitudes or commentary. Just stood there with me, hands in her pockets, a solid presence on my right looking up at the blackened skeleton.

Eventually, I’d seen enough. I’d failed here, and I wouldn’t forget that anytime soon. But dwelling wouldn’t help me save anyone else. I had work to do. New goals to set. More training to plan.

I wouldn’t fail again.

Of course, we had to walk back to where there was a nearby bus stop. We got to see the area around the building. People were angry. Sad, weary women putting up laminated signs in Japanese which were probably ‘have you seen this child?’. Men standing around the corners, glaring at the cops and the firefighters. When we paused at a crosswalk, ABB bikers roared past, their tires tossing up salt-laden slush from the gritted roads.

“Well,” Amy said, “this is my route.” She paused, and something which almost looked like concern flashed across her face. Which meant she must have been really worried about me, if she was letting it slip from behind her usual mask of sullen hostility to the world. “Are you sure you’re not going to get lost and fall in the bay?”

“I’m fine,” I said, looking up at the sky. It was starting to snow again. “I just have to head to stop B over there, and that’ll get me on the 12.”

“You sure you don’t need my help?”

“You need to get home more than me,” I said, squeezing her wrist. “If those bikers come back, I can just yank up my scarf to cover my mouth and go loud.” I didn’t finish the other half of that point, but her face darkened at the unspoken words.

“Gee, thanks. See you tomorrow at school?”

“Yeah. Tomorrow.”

By the time I got home, I was exhausted. Between catch-up, the workload, and how dark it was right now I was just about ready to collapse by the time I got in the door. So that was what I did. I flopped face-first into the couch.

Of course, it turned out that no one was home, so I didn’t get OJ or cookies or anything like that brought through to console the poor exhausted superhero. What I did get was Paw jumping on my back, and settling down on the convenient warm sleeping place. His little claws dug in.

“Geddoff, you fat cat,” I muttered into the couch cushion.

Paw Marx, being a cat who considered everything warm his rightful throne, did not do so. He wasn’t a very bright cat, but even if he had been, he still wouldn’t have moved. And he was ruining everything. It was easy to feel sorry for yourself when you had collapsed onto the couch after an exhausting day. It was less easy to do so when your stupid over-fed cat was using you as a pillow to nap on. I squirmed under him and nudged him off me. With a disgruntled ‘prrph’ he stalked away.

The front door opened and closed, and I let my head fall sideways on the cushion. At least I’d get to vent a bit more now.

“Taylor? Are you home?”

I sighed and braced myself to recount the events of the weekend.

“Through here, mom!”

Talking to mom helped. Dad and I had always been awkward when it came to talking about our feelings, but mom got it, more than anyone else. She’d lost dad too, and held me together through the first few weeks after he was murdered, when I was barely getting to grips with my new powers. She knew how hard I’d found it, so I got subjected to a quiet frown of disappointment when I admitted how I’d blown up at the new girl. But apart from that she listened quietly and stroked my hair as I recounted more or less what had happened since I’d last seen her.

When I was done, bar the classified bits she didn’t need to know, she folded me into a hug. She was still just a little bit taller than me, so I could rest my head on her shoulder and let her curly black hair fall over my face like a veil. I liked mom’s hair. I’d inherited it from her, though I didn’t wear it as long - helmet hair was no joke even with a shoulder-length cut - and hers always smelled faintly of strawberries from her shampoo. It reminded me of when she used to carry me around when I was a kid, and I let myself relax into the memories with a sigh.

“I’m proud of you,” she whispered, and I felt a little better. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No,” I answered honestly, snuggling into her side. I’d got my hair from her, but my flatness and skinniness were more from dad’s side of the family. She was a much softer and more comfortable hugger than me, willowy and feminine where I was mostly just a beanpole. “But I think I should,” I added reluctantly. “I’ve made an appointment with the Wards therapist for tomorrow afternoon.”

Mom smiled. “Missy’s a smart girl,” she said, and I pouted.

“How’d you know?”

“Taylor, honey.” She tapped me on the nose. “You don’t like talking to me about your feelings, and I’m your mother. I don’t think you’ve made a single unscheduled appointment you weren’t prodded into in the whole time you’ve been a Ward.”

... okay, that might be true, but she didn’t have to point it out so bluntly. I stared at the electric fireplace, pouting a little.

“As for the new girl... does she have a name yet?”

I shrugged. “They were throwing some ideas around towards the end of testing. Her Master power isn’t control, it’s more... attention-grabbing-ness. More of a Stranger than a Master, I guess. Her fire kind of jumps out at you; you can’t help but look over at it even if you’re trying to focus on something else. Most of the ideas are based on that, things like ‘Beacon’ or ‘Signal’.” I paused. “Which I didn’t just tell you, because she hasn’t been officially announced yet.”

“Of course. But here’s my advice: think of it another step back. Nobody deserves to burn, not even criminals, but those three men and the others in the tower block didn’t die because of your new friend. They died because of the ABB.” I frowned, and she held up a hand to stop me protesting. “Don’t think of them as ABB. Separate the gang and the members. It’s because of the trafficking and protection rackets they run that it happened at all. Focus on that, and not the individuals. The gang is to blame. Not the girl.”

I mulled that over for a while. It... did make sense, honestly. I didn’t think I could just stop caring about what had happened, or find forgiveness in me for all those deaths. But mom was right that there were better targets for those feelings than Megumi Satou. I could blame the ABB as a whole without feeling like I was joining those assholes from school in saying it was some kind of fucked-up karma for the three who’d died.

“You’re good at this,” I muttered, squirming an arm around her back to cuddle closer.

I felt her smile against my temple and kiss me. “I’m a mom. We get special tutoring in the maternity ward on how to be right all the time.” She squeezed me a little tighter. “That said, I don’t want you deciding to go after the ABB by taking on Lung. You may be fireproof, but you’re not dragon-proof. Okay?”

“Radiant is,” I pointed out.

That earned me a flat stare. “The very fact that you had that rebuttal ready tells me that you have already put far, far more thought than I am comfortable with into it. Which is any at all.” She reached out and gripped my hand - no, my wrist. “Taylor. Please, please, please. Do not fight that man. Do not talk other people into coming with you to ‘even the odds’.” She drew in a breath. “You are fifteen. There are adults in the Protectorate much better suited for fighting him than you - and he’s killed heroes before. I don’t want you and Amy to become another statistic. Do you understand me?”

“I… mmm.”

“Was that a yes?”

“Yes, it was a yes.”

“And was that a ‘Yes, mom, I am listening to you because you are the smartest and prettiest person I know, and I understand that murderous dragon-men are not people teenage girls should pick fights with’?”

“Urgh. Yes, it’s a yes!” I patted her forearm. “It’s not like I really thought about it. It was just… you know, gaming out the powers. And maybe a teeny bit,” I held out my fingers held closely together, “of, uh, a PHO discussion thread where someone had, um, speculated about who was the most powerful villain I could beat.”

“Oh, Taylor.” She sounded disappointed. Bringing that up had been a mistake. It wasn’t my fault! It wasn’t like I’d posted there. They’d just… it had been pretty flattering to see how big some of the names were, even though the really high end stuff had been misunderstanding how my powers worked. “I do worry about the ideas that place might put into your head. And how much time you spend thinking about parahuman things.”

“It wasn’t serious,” I mumbled, unconsciously fiddling with my glasses. She had a real power for guilting me. Dad had never been like that.

“You know you’re not just a cape. You’re not just parahuman. You’re human too. And I was so worried when I got that phone call and they said you were in seclusion!”

“I was fine!”

“I didn’t know that!” She pulled me up, and wrapped me in a hug. “Look at you. You look tired - and you’ve put on more muscle. I bet you were just on the treadmill non-stop once you read all the books they’d let you have!”

“It doesn’t happen that quickly, mom!” Oh, wait, that wasn’t what I was meant to say. “I mean, it wasn’t non-stop! It’s just boring in there. And... and I had some bad dreams.”

“Oh, Taylor.” She drew me into another hug that I nuzzled into gratefully, then drew back enough to cup my chin. “We’ll talk about those later, if you want. After we’ve eaten.”

“Yeah.” My voice was small.

“And until then, can you tell me what you’re going to be doing tonight?”

“Taking it easy,” I said reluctantly.

“No, you’re going to get started on your homework while I put things together for dinner.”

“I already got started last week! Before the fire!”

“Did you get finished with it?” She read the answer in my face. “Well then.”

“But mom…”

“Don’t ‘mom’ me, this is for your own good. I’m not letting you waste your mind, and if you don’t keep your grades up, you won’t be allowed to patrol.”

Damn. She had me there. Mom was fully behind the Youth Guard as a concept, even if she disagreed with certain of their in-practice stances. But that just meant she had learned all their rules and regulations and would deploy them at the drop of a hat when they suited her and work out how to loophole them when they didn’t. It wasn’t fair. She’d made sure I knew them, too. Which admittedly was useful sometimes, and she’d pointed out how to deploy them and find interpretations that worked for me, but doing so didn’t exactly help my reputation among some of the PRT officers. Also, it tended to make Missy side-eye me suspiciously whenever I sided with the group that held her up as an adorable innocent child in need of protection and coddling.

“Fine! Fine! I surrender! You win, Mega Mom. I’ll go do… like, one piece, I guess. Even though I’m hungry. And tired. And-”

“You know, Taylor, if you put as much effort into doing your homework as trying to think up excuses for not doing it…”

“Yes, yes, I’d have it done already.” I huffed. “This is what I missed. No, I mean it. I actually missed you moaning at me about getting my homework done. There’s nothing like that good ol’ home-y feeling.”

“Careful, miss, or I’ll make lentil bake.”

“Such an awful punishment.” I loved my mom’s lentil bake. Well, liked it. It was better than most of her dishes, which combined ‘not being all that great’ with also being vegetarian. We had an unspoken agreement. I pretended not to eat meat when at school or at HQ, and in return she pretended not to know that I did no such thing.

She rolled her eyes at me, and shooed me away. I dragged my bag and coats upstairs, and slowly unpacked. Maybe I’d just go slow until, oh, it was dinner time. I didn’t feel like doing homework. Not now. But if I looked like I was getting some progress done, I’d have an excuse to...

One of my cellphones chimed. The sound told me it was my PRT phone. Jackpot! An excuse! I logged in with the thumbprint sensor, scanning the notifications. Oh, I had a message on the secure email client. I put in my password, and opened the new email.

“CONFIDENTIAL: CODENAME ASSIGNMENT,” it said, written in all-caps because the PRT loved capital letters.

Whoops. I’d already blown the first one. Oh well. I hadn’t revealed her codename, and I technically hadn’t been explicitly ordered not to say anything about her yet when I’d told mom she existed. As long as she didn’t mention it - which she wouldn’t - it wouldn’t be a problem.

I doubted they’d wait until after Christmas for the unveiling, though. It was late November now; if they rushed it a bit they could probably get the first batch of merchandising out before the holiday, and they’d want to cash in on kids wanting the new Ward’s action figures in their stockings.

And then you could hang the stockings in front of a roaring fire, I thought. My mental voice had a nasty little twist.

... damn. This “giving her a chance” thing was going to be harder than mom had made it sound.

Chapter Text

Sensible people didn’t go anywhere near the Boardwalk two weeks before Christmas. They also kept clean away from the Gull Mall, though that was less because of the crush and more because the Christmas kitsch and jingles would drive a saint to gibbering madness. But unfortunately, sometimes sanity had to be sacrificed at the altar of friendship.

When I went to the mall alone, be it for clothes or books or a new alarm clock or whatever, I had what I felt was a pretty sensible approach. Work out what I wanted to get, work out where to get it, go there and buy it. It really wasn’t my kind of place, so I minimised the amount of time I had to spend there. Sometimes I'd get distracted and make a detour to check something else out, but on the whole I was a pretty efficient shopper.

Emma, on the other hand.

Emma was not an efficient shopper at all.

“Okay, we can come back here later,” she chattered, pulling me out of a Crosston where we’d just spent the last fifteen minutes trying on jeans, only to buy none of them. “Now come on, I heard there’s a new hair stylist open near the food court and I want to check it out.”

“Looking to get a new cut for your modelling gig?” I asked.

Her expression flickered a little, the smile dying. “That was Thursday before last,” she said neutrally. I winced. Shit. Had I forgotten that? I’d been busy walking Flare through basic self-defence along with Portent, which had been a solid two-week-long headache. The worst thing about Portent was that he’d actually be... no, actually, let me correct myself. The actual worst thing about Portent was that there were so many things worse than the thing which should have been the worst thing about him, which was that he’d actually be really hot if it weren’t for all his raging personality defects.

“Sorry,” I said sheepishly. “Did it, uh, go well?”

She looked conflicted, but sighed, looping an arm through mine and starting off across the length of the mall for at least the third time. I followed meekly, opting not to point out that if we’d just come in with a plan, we could have gone around in one circle rather than flitting back and forth like this. It wasn’t the time.

Sometimes the gulf between me and my oldest friend felt horribly wide. We tried to make time for each other... well, no. I tried to make time for her, and she succeeded in making time for me when I had it available. Once upon a time I could babble away at her for hours about anything and everything on my mind, and she’d meet me halfway with enthusiasm. Now, so much of my life was guarded behind classification levels or NDAs that it was Emma making the effort to reach out and find common ground.

I was a good hero. But I wasn’t always a good friend. It had never come naturally to me. I made missteps, or acted clumsy or awkward, or screwed up. Emma had been the only one who’d got me.

So with an apologetic smile, I let her drag me off without protest.

It was a Saturday afternoon, so obviously the mall was crammed. We blended right into the crowds; Emma, tall and red-haired, was prettier than bony, boring, bespectacled me. Most of the people here were normal teens out shopping with their friends, or harried parents being dragged around by their kids. But my eye lingered on the potential trouble spots. Even on my downtime, trained reflex kept me alert to the skinheads loitering by a game store, the Japanese girls in heeled boots and red jackets getting kicked out of a Gap, the mall cops throwing their weight around by looming over a black family’s shoulders.

And I kind of hated it. Because here’s the thing: there were hundreds of teens here who were just talking with their friends and having a good time. There were half a dozen other clusters of girls I could see just in this hallway who had no hints of gang affiliation at all. Most of the mall security walking around were doing it with nods and smiles, helping people with directions or radioing Lost and Found for things that had been dropped. The normal, happy, casually oblivious people going about their days without a trace of ill intent outnumbered the problem cases ten to one, easily.

But I didn’t see the ordinary people. The ugly underbelly of society was the part that jumped out at me. I couldn’t help but wonder if the other Wards felt like this. I knew Missy did. But where she was proud of her awareness... I dunno. I half agreed with her. I’d rather be able to see trouble coming than live in blissful ignorance. But at times like this, I couldn’t help but think of the cost.

“Troubled thoughts?” Emma asked, reading my face. I gave her a pained smile.

“Scanning for trouble. I can’t turn it off.”

She nodded, her expression turning sympathetic, and winched me a bit closer with the arm she had looped through mine. Emma understood. She didn’t have that eye for trouble herself, but she knew about the loss of innocence that came from a couple of years as a cape; I’d talked her through it before.

“Well, scan for something else then,” she suggested. “Like him.”

I followed her nod to a boy about our age strolling level with us on the other side of the hallway, passing a Christmas tree. He reminded me a little of Carlos, who’d actually been a pretty good member of the team until his parents pulled him out back in August. This guy wasn’t as tall or broad-shouldered though, and he carried himself differently, slouching along in jeans and an unbuttoned duffel coat.

“... what about him?” I asked. I couldn’t see anything about him that stood out.

“He’s cute, right? Or at least he has a cute butt, which-”

“Emma!” I slapped at her arm, scandalised, and she burst into laughter at my expression.

“So innocent!” she cackled. “Come on, Taylor, lighten up! Gawk at some boys for once. I know you’re not that married to your part-time job.”

I could feel a blush starting to form as I snuck another glance at the boy. I would never admit it to her, but she was right. He did have a cute butt. Though he was a bit too weedy for me, more her type than mine. The guy coming out of the store he was passing, on the other hand... tall, built, with a t-shirt showing off his arms despite the chill outside-

“You’re drooling,” Emma whispered mischievously, and I snapped my attention away, cheeks burning. “No no, go for it! Go ask him out! You look great today, I bet he’d say yes!”

“I’m not walking up to a complete stranger and asking him on a date out of the blue!” I protested. She just grinned shamelessly at me.

“Want me to ask for you, then?” She started to pull away, and my stomach lurched as I realised she was at least half-serious.

“No!” I grabbed at her arm and yanked her back, prompting another round of hysterical giggles. She got them under control and tapped me on the nose.

“See, that?” she grinned. “The blushing and flustered squeaking and ogling boys? That’s what I wanna see. We’re here for a girl’s day, not boring work stuff.”

“You’ve never even had a boyfriend,” I muttered, still trying to get my blush under control. But there was a reluctant grin there too. As exasperating as Emma could be sometimes, she knew exactly how to get me out of my own head when I got lost there. “How would you even know whether he’d say yes or not?”

“Never had a boyfriend that you know of,” she said smugly. “Who knows what I’m doing at Winslow? I could have a whole stable of boys doting on my every whim.”

I gave her a sceptical look, and she snorted. “Yeah, okay, it’s a shithole and all the boys there are losers or gang kids or assholes. Still. I could have had one. How would you know?”

“There would be literally no force in the universe that could keep you from spilling everything to me within a week,” I pointed out, regaining the high ground. “You’re terrible at keeping secrets from me. You can’t help but gossip.”

“Excuse you, I am a pro at keeping secrets. I gossip to you because you go to a different school and don’t even know anyone I talk about.”

“And because you need to tell someone, because you are an incurable gossip.”

She gave me the point, laughing, and dragged me further onward. The Mall Santas were out in force today. Well, they would be, with only one more Sunday before Christmas. Emma cooed as we passed a Grotto that had a line of children stretching halfway down the hallway for it. I was less taken by the sight. Kids were cute at a distance, but having done kid’s events as Starlight: some are evil. The shy or awestruck fans vastly outnumber the total brats, but it’s the latter who you remember.

Yeah, no, I didn’t want to think about that. We stopped by an electronics store and I lingered by the door while Emma started chatting up one of the clerks about what would be the best choice for a replacement set of headphones. There were half a dozen flatscreens in the window, half tuned into the same local news channel, and I watched it idly as I waited. It was showing off Flare’s debut - or at least the speeches and fluff that preceded her debut getting shown off. Trust me when I say that there is a lot of fuss and pandering to the cameras at a public unveiling before a new Ward gets to step onto the stage and say hello.

Oh wait, no, there she was. From this distance, I couldn't see much of her costume’s details, but entirely predictably it was red. There wasn’t an official colours-to-rating scheme, but odds were that if you saw someone in a red costume, they were either a pyrokinetic or a speedster like Velocity. Well-meaning they might be, but inspired and original our PR team was not. In my opinion they kind of pandered, which was why my costume looked like the flag had thrown up all over my shoulder blades. But they adored me, so I made sure to stay on good terms with them anyway.

Megumi - Flare, rather - was doing an okay job of presenting herself to the cameras. She looked nervous, from her body language, and she wore her costume with a kind of uncertainty that you get to recognise after being a cape for a while. It’s hard to describe, but there’s a flavour to how newbie capes not used to dressing up in spandex wear their first costumes. Still, it was subtle enough that the press weren’t sneering, and she’d get used to it in a month or so. The fact she wasn’t wearing something made in her own garage would probably help.

I checked on Emma, who was now at the counter, and gave the debut one last glance while she paid. It looked like Megumi was working through her introduction now, though the TVs were muted so I couldn’t hear if she was stuttering or not. I’d considered going along for moral support, but I’d already maxed out my allotted hours in costume for the week. Anyway, I'd seen the whole song-and-dance three times already: onstage at my own debut, lurking on the sidelines during Gallant's and watching from the audience with mom when Portent had joined. Another round of the same old ceremony didn't appeal. Megumi had Dean there, she’d be fine.

Also, they were still keeping me away from the press after the tower fire. Public Relations said it was a bad idea until things had settled down a bit and I wouldn’t have awkward questions sprung on me about my absence. And I didn’t exactly mind getting some time to myself to spend with Emma.

My distraction - and wary ongoing surveillance of the line of kids outside the Santa’s Grotto for potential meltdowns - gave Emma the opportunity to yank me out of the electronics place and into yet another store. I didn’t check to see what it was, which was a mistake, since it wasn’t until we were halfway down the first rack that I registered the bras and lacy... things everywhere.

Oh, hell no. Even if I wasn’t so flat as to barely need a bra, this kind of thing was way beyond what I’d willingly wear. I wouldn’t be able to try on half of it without turning as red as Megumi’s new costume.

“Nope,” I declared, and made to walk out. Laughing, Emma latched onto my arm and tugged me back. I should never have taught her about joint locks or suggested she take up karate to keep in shape. She was annoyingly good at keeping hold of me.

“Relax, you idiot,” she giggled. “We’re here for me, not you. Your face, though.” Her smile slipped again, though she did a good job at pasting it back on before I got a good look at what was underneath. She didn’t quite hide the snippiness in her tone as she continued, though. “So, are you going to check back into what we’re doing and stay here now, instead of drifting off into the clouds every few minutes? Because I will drag you somewhere worse than this if you keep ignoring me.”

I winced. I wasn’t sure what qualified as worse than a lingerie store, but I was sure Emma could come up with something. It was… it was just so embarrassing to see all these beautiful things that I knew wouldn’t look good on me. And she was right, I needed to actually pay more attention to her rather than dwelling on how I wasn’t.

“Right, sorry,” I apologised. “I...” I sighed. “... guess I’m on second-opinion duty?”

“You know it.”

I sighed, and tried not to look at the things she was taking into the changing room with her. I’d grown up with Emma, she was basically my sister, and looking at her when she was wearing practically nothing was weird, not to mention awkward. It didn’t help that her modelling work had made her pretty nonchalant about it. My cape costume wasn’t the same. There was enough padding and armour in it that… that… look, I wasn’t Narwhal, by any means!

My determination to give Emma a little privacy and get this over as painlessly as possible lasted until a pair of girls a couple of years older than me came in, heading for the booth next door to Emma’s. I took one look at what they were holding, went beet red and decided that the devil I knew was the better option, darting in after Emma and spinning to put my back to her. The chipboard door to the booth was safe. I focused on that, and blocked out the giggling behind me and on the other side of the door.

“So, how does this one look?”

... right. Staring at the door was only a temporary escape.

Mustering my reserves of will and trying to repress the suspicion that this was some kind of punishment for flaking out on her so often, I turned around and subjected myself to the humiliating ordeal of fashion advice.

I just want to put it out here that it’s not like I’m lacking in self-confidence about my looks. Or at least no more than any other teenage girl. PRT training means I’m in shape. I have Emma for fashion advice, and she’s got the eye I don’t. Thanks to her, my wardrobe is full of slim-fit long-sleeved tops and the product of our bickering about the relative advantages of style vs mobility when it comes to jeans and slacks. I’ve had guys ask me out at school, because they know I’m on the fringes of Vicky’s circle and I’m not ugly - even if behind my back they say I’m too intense. I mean I said no because I didn’t really know them, but still.

But Emma is like… OK, we’ve been best friends since kindergarten. She’s always been the cute one and then she became the pretty one. She’s the one who’s pretty enough to be a model, and if she had superpowers she’d look way better than me in one of the outfits. She’d look as good as Orbital or Laserdream. I’d like to say I’m not jealous, but the problem is I kind of am. I’d love to look as good as she does. It’s… it’s just complicated.

It had been about ten minutes, though it felt more like ten hours. I’d heard the older girls finish trying their stuff on and go off to pay for it, so at least I didn’t have any more witnesses to my stumbling commentary as Emma posed and twirled and generally enjoyed my lack of fashion knowhow. How much had she even brought in here? I was pretty sure she wasn’t even intending to get half of it, this was just payback because she knew how much I hated it.

“I dunno,” I mumbled, trying to distinguish this one from the last four. It was red, and that was about as much as I could say for it. The problem with giving fashion advice to Emma was that she’d look great in a pillowcase. “It looks fine, I guess. How many are left now?” I checked my phone to see the time. Had it only been ten minutes? I didn’t even have a signal in here.

“Don’t be such a baby,” Emma said. She did a little spin. “Come on, some day you’re going to thank me for this. I will have you trained up as a master fashionista, trust me! Now I want your opinion - do I look better in the red or the-” and maybe someone up there was listening to my wishes for a distraction, because the lights cut out. “What the hell?”

“Looks like a blackout,” I said, sighing. The tang of the grid was gone, something I was so used to that I only noticed it by its absence. “Fuck. I hope some villain isn’t going after the power plant again.” I fumbled for my bag in the darkness. The only light was the tiny LED on the smoke detector overhead, and all that managed to do was give some texture and shape to the gloom.

Emma found her own phone first, and turned the screen on. The picture of me and her on the beach last summer added substantially to the light, the orange-tinted glow casting strange shadows on her face from below. “Do you need to go?”

“Dunno.” Where was that stupid phone? “I haven’t got a call, and… uh, my part time job has… like, I’ve maxed out my hours. Maybe it’s just a power cut.”

She slumped down on the bench. “Urgh. This is pissing me off.” She perked up. “Well, I guess there’s no reason to stop. You can hold up the light and we can keep on trying things on while we wait for them to get the power back on. Catch!”

Shouting ‘catch’ and tossing someone your phone is not a good idea, especially when it’s dark. So of course I dropped it.

“Taylor!”

“It’s not broken!” I said reflexively, though honestly I had no idea. The screen was still on. “Don’t throw things at me in the dark!”

“I said ‘catch’!”

“Yeah but I was looking for my phone so I wasn’t-” Someone screamed outside. There were words, but I couldn’t make them out. “What the hell was that?” I breathed, grabbing her phone and holding it up as a light.

“Was that someone screaming?” Emma asked.

“Sounded like it. I hope it was someone just tripping over something in the dark.”

“You don’t believe that.”

I shook my head. “I don’t.” I straightened up, bouncing up and down on my toes as I stretched out my legs. My stomach churned, and my shoulders ached from how tense they were. Emma was about to say something, but I shushed her. I had to listen. Had to - there! That was the sound of something falling over. Something like a clothes rack. And in the distance, there were other raised voices - and more than a few screams. More than that, it was a clamour. The sound of a lot of scared and panicking people. But no gunshots. There’s no way I’d have missed them. “Put your top on,” I whispered to her. “No, wait. No time. Just put your jacket on.”

“But…”

“We might have to run for it.” I pulled my hood up, grabbing Emma’s scarf to wind it around my face. My heart hammered in my ears.

There! Outside. Footsteps. But they didn’t sound right. I couldn’t describe it any more clearly. There’s a certain sound a shoe, or a boot, or even a bare foot makes a surface like the fake-wood just outside the changing rooms, and it didn’t sound like them. Someone breathing. In and out, quite quickly. And above that, a whine. I knew that sound. It was like one of Armsmaster’s drones. Light bled in from under and over the door - clean, white, not at all like the softer mood lighting. Behind me, Emma’s breaths, short and sharp, as she tried to slowly zip up her puffer jacket without making noise.

“Woo hoo! A treasure is near!” a boy - or maybe a woman - said outside. No, ‘exclaimed’. That kind of peppy, cheerful, euphoric-from-eating-too-many-sweets kind of voice was definitely exclaiming.

The whine and the footsteps came closer, closer, closer. Then a splintering sound. One of the booth doors being forced open. A scream. I bared my teeth. No. I wasn’t going to just sit here and listen to whatever was happening here. I was a hero! Piggot would just have to bitch and moan if I got in trouble for what I was about to do. I grabbed my backpack. It would be heavy enough to swing if it came to it.

Emma met my eyes, biting her lip. She knew what I was going to do - what I had to do. She nodded. Slowly I pulled back the bolt, trying to make as little noise as possible. I held up three fingers. Two, one.

I burst through the door, fists raised, and- Jesus! A flying drone was lighting up the corridor, and in the spotlight was a thing. It looked sort of like a cat. Sort of. Only the proportions were wrong. All wrong. It was like a bipedal ginger cat was trying to pretend to be a human. And it was too big to be a regular cat. It was as tall as a kid, and it was wearing a backwards baseball cap and a jacket with the collar up. No pants, through.

And that drone. That drone was flashing away, taking picture after picture of the terrified half-dressed woman who’d been in the changing room two doors down.

“Hey! You! Fuck off!” I shouted up at the drone.

The drone swivelled its light to shine directly in my eyes. “Looks like we have a new enemy for Felix!” it said. It sounded like the kind of voice people used for melodramatic movie trailers.

Oh, I knew who this was. This had to be Half-A. Uber, Leet and Dox. Three losers who ran video-game themed heists. And this kind of casual objectification of women - God, what kind of sicko got off on taking pictures of terrified women in the changing rooms? - this was the sort of shit they did. Mom had words about them and the way people treated them as ‘harmless’, oh yes she did.

“Fuck off and take your freaky cat thing with you!” I ordered.

The cat paused where it was, turning its head to look at me. It was holding the woman’s handbag, mid-way through grabbing her purse. “I’m Felix Fortune, and I’m the luckiest cat in the world!” it said brightly in that voice that made me want to blast it all over the nearest wall. Which I couldn’t do. Because the drone was watching.

“What the fuck are you?” Emma screamed, holding one of the hangers like a badly-shaped sword.

“Emma, keep back,” I snapped, stepping in front of her, my hands raised. “Give her back her stuff! Go away!”

“Felix, can you recover her collectibles and get the special picture bonus?” intoned the drone, before swinging its light onto Emma. “Oh, nice, look at that girl. She’s worth a special photoshoot bonus.”

There was a reason I hadn’t melted the drone yet. I just needed to remember what it was. Camera. Yes. Couldn’t reveal my secret identity. I ground my teeth together, and screwed my eyes shut. Couldn’t glow. Couldn’t glow. Glowing would out me. However much I wanted to blast it into scrap metal, I couldn’t do it.

Emma clutched her coat around herself more tightly. “We’re fifteen, you sick fuck!” she yelled up at the drone.

“Heh. Coulda fooled me.”

Fuck that drone. Fuck that drone. I snarled and tossed my rucksack at it, trying to knock it out of the air - and that horrible cat-thing leapt up and grabbed it.

“Woo hoo! I found a chest! I wonder what’s in it!” it mewled. Dancing around, holding my bag. Which - crap - had my PRT phone in it.

“Give it back!”

“And we’re off! Can Felix Fortune get all the collectibles from the lingerie shop before the area mini-boss, Shouty Tall Girl with a Hot Friend, catches up?” I yelled and tried to jump up at the drone, but it just drifted up higher. “Timer starts… now!” The LCD screen on the front started a two minute countdown, and the drone followed the cat-monster as it scampered away. With my bag.

“Silly dog, you can’t catch Felix!” That awful thing’s mouth wasn’t moving properly to its words, locked in a hideous-looking cheshire grin. I didn’t think it was actually saying them. Were they pre-recorded?

Whatever. I didn’t care, and I could find out later if I still felt curious after smashing that cat robot to pieces and getting my bag back. If it was even robotic. It wasn’t moving like an animatronic, so who knew what Leet had done. Seriously, fuck Uber and Leet for sending Tinkertech thieves into a lingerie changing room. If I caught up with them today I was going to beat them black and blue before handcuffing them. I’d accept any shit I got from Piggot for that, and I could probably tag in PR to explain why vindictive beatings of creeps would play well with the suburban mom demographic. I glanced into the stall where the woman was clutching her coat to her chest, and tried to look reassuring. “Did it hurt you?”

She was dark-haired, and a snotty, terrified mess, bleeding from a shallow cut on one arm. “I… I… it scratched me when it was trying to get my watch. It’s not bleeding too much. Thank you. For getting rid of it. What- what was-”

“Villains. Get dressed, and get ready to evacuate when the cops show up. Keep the door shut. And…” I looked around. I couldn’t delay. “Like, try to call for help or something.” And with that said, I dashed off, trying to chase down the cat. I was playing their stupid game whether I liked it or not because I needed my goddamn PRT phone back. Oh, it had all the modern security measures, but what could a Tinker do to it? And no one knew what Dox’s power was, but her file marked her as a possible technopath.

I yanked the knot in the scarf tight, checked it was covering my face and raced out, scanning for the cat and the drone. The drone wasn’t the only light in here, but the glow-in-the-dark bra-and-panties sets on one wall only added a hint of colour to the gloom. The machine’s spotlight danced over the walls, the sequined decorations casting glimmering specks like a disco ball. There was a woman lying prone on a fallen rack of clothing, and keeping low I checked her pulse. She was alive, but there was something tacky and sticky covering her head that she was frantically scrabbling at. I sniffed it. Smelled like containment foam, maybe some kind of off-brand knock-off. If so, she’d be fine, but I didn’t have the tools here to dissolve it. Something to watch out for.

There, a scream from the other side of the shop! Oh god, it was the two older girls who’d left the changing rooms before us. The drone was buzzing one of them taking pictures as she flailed and screamed at it, and the cat was squatting on a clothes rail like a demented little goblin, trying to rip the other’s necklace off. Her face was red; her fingers desperately clawed at the garotte around her neck.

So much for surprise. I yelled and charged at it, grabbing an empty hanger as a weapon. That got its attention, at least, and it let go of the necklace. But it was quicker than it looked, and it dodged my first swipe with the hanger easily, leaping away to the next rail over. The spotlight from the drone rotated to focus on the two of us, and I squinted in the sudden light.

“Ha ha! Too sloo~ooow!” it cackled. I snarled, and almost blasted it - but then the fucking drone buzzed down right at my face. I flinched. I couldn’t help it - no amount of training is enough to help you keep your cool when a loud buzzing thing the size of a fist with helicopter blades flies right at your eyes, and its lights were blinding me. The cat vanished, and I had no idea where it had gone in the dark room. But at least it had stopped choking the blonde girl with her own necklace. She sagged down, gasping and clutching her throat.

“Get her into the changing rooms and hide,” I ordered her friend. “That thing took my bag; they’re going to grab anything valuable they can see.”

“You’re a kid, I’m not leaving you out here to try and fight them,” she protested, which was... okay, it was actually exactly the kind of attitude I liked to hear, but right now it was also pretty inconvenient.

“I’ve been doing martial arts since I was ten,” I lied. It was actually thirteen, but I was trying to make a point here. “I can handle myself. But these shits are playing games, and you need to keep her safe. Changing rooms, now. Go.”

She went, pulling her wheezing friend with her. I looked around for better weapons. There wasn’t much of a choice, not when I could barely see a thing. Sparkling in the dark, I saw a length of tinsel decorating one of the racks, so I ripped that off - maybe I could snare the damn drone with it - and I grabbed a miniature potted christmas tree that looked fake. Hefting it in my hand, I gritted my teeth.

“Here, kitty kitty!” I shouted, trying to see anything outside the circle of light. That damn drone was keeping its spotlight on me, ruining my night vision. It could be anywhere.

But it wouldn’t be anywhere. Assume that you were a greedy asshole. Where would you send your cat-thing? It hadn’t gone back towards the changing rooms, because I’d have heard more screams. I had a hunch, and the sound of something moving in the direction I guessed only confirmed it. Over by the cash register, stuffing its bag with the contents. Of course.

This time, hurling something worked much better, and my ballistic potted tree crashed into the side of the cat-thing’s head, knocking it off the sales desk.

“Oof, is there a veterinarian in the house?” it groaned as it pulled itself upright, back arched and falling back down onto all fours. I wished I had another potted plant to throw, if only to make it shut up.

It knocked tubs of kitschy christmas-themed lip gloss sticks and badges off as it scrambled back up, inadvertently turning the floor into a minefield of tiny annoying caltrops. Fuck. Okay, bad choice. I drew a little on my flight in readiness. I couldn’t take off without giving myself away, but I could lighten myself a little, and more importantly stabilise myself. Better balance by cheating was an oft-underappreciated side effect of levitation.

It was a smart plan that would have worked perfectly if not for one key detail: I wasn’t expecting it to jump right at my chest. It clawed at me, and I hissed in pain as it opened a gash down the back of my forearm, cutting through my jacket.

But I’d dropped the stupid tinsel, and my instructors would be proud at the way my boot connected with its kneecap. It yowled. That wasn’t a quip, that was just pain. And at the same time, it said in that same annoying voice, “A chocolate a day keeps the reaper away!”

The thing was in pain, and whatever fake-humanity it had seemed to abandon it. It threw itself at me, making an awful noise at the top of its lungs, biting and clawing. We crashed into a giant fake Christmas tree as pink as the rest of the store and the whole thing tipped over, falling along with me and the cat across the edge of a display table. I swore as the edge of it caught my spine, and everything went crashing to the floor - me, the offensively pink tree on top of me, the cat-thing on top of that, and a shower of lacy underthings on top of everything else. My glasses went flying and I didn’t care.

“Remember, Felix, use the environment to increase your combo rating!” The drone dipped down over us, voyeuristically filming everything. I couldn’t pay it any attention, though. I was too busy trying to fend off a furious, in-pain animal-thing while lying on scratchy plastic needles and embarrassing lingerie.

God, I wished I could just blast them both.

I screamed as the thing latched onto my arm, teeth mostly snarling in my jacket, and punched it in the chest as hard as I could. Its claws cut me again and again. It was light, and I managed to roll on top of it, but then it scraped along my thigh and my leg buckled and it was on top again. Fighting powerless was like trying to fight without using my right hand, but I couldn’t or else that stupid drone would see my power, but if I didn’t use my power I might get badly hurt. But then help came from an unexpected quarter.

“Get off her, you dick!”

It was Emma. It was Emma with a bra, which she’d flung at the drone still attached to its hanger. The horrible little thing had been so focused on me and the cat that it hadn’t seen her approach, and the fabric tangled around its rotors to the sound of a delicious grinding, stuttering protest from the motors. It dropped out of the air with a clunk, and Emma brought her foot down on it as hard as she could. The crunch and sizzle was incredibly satisfying.

And with the drone’s camera gone and the CCTV down... my aura flared into visibility, rivulets of light running through my hair and across my chest. I built as much charge as I could in a second of concentration, and released it in a directed blast of light and force.

The cat bounced off the ceiling hard enough to dent the plaster, fell like a ragdoll across another display table and lay still. I climbed to my feet unhindered, the fringes of my blast having sent the pink tree and the underwear skidding away from me.

“Thanks,” I said breathlessly. Emma beamed at me with maybe a little too much pride and elation.

“Is that what it’s always like? Fighting?” She paused. “Taylor, you’re a mess!”

“I feel it,” I said, wincing. “Can… can you find my glasses? I’m not really up to that right now.” I clutched my thigh, and staggered over to the cat-thing. The body of the cat thing. Because it was bleeding. There were metal wires inside it, and when I turned it over, I could see the access port on the back of its skull.

No wonder it had gone wild and attacked me like a bobcat. The poor thing was some kind of cyborg. Probably made from a cat in some way. Made to parade around, spewing off lines from videogames. Those sick assholes.

“So I think I found your glasses, but their lenses have come out. Um... there’s got to be a first aid kit in here somewhere,” Emma was saying off in the distance.

“It’s… fine,” I gasped.

“It is not fine! You look like you just got mauled by a tiger! You know, like that guy in LA.”

I stumbled over to the drone, and rested my hand on the broken machine. Clenching my teeth, I pulled at its battery, draining it dry. Warmth sunk into my bruised, battered body, and a surprisingly strong taste of fizzy soda bubbled over my tongue. Whatever battery these things used held a lot of charge. My cuts scabbed over, my bite wounds closed up. It wasn’t perfect regeneration - more like a few days of my natural healing on fast-forward - and of course it didn’t fix my clothing, but beggars can’t be choosers and I was glad to have it as a power. Considering the state I’d been in when I got my powers… well, it was a good thing that pulling in energy also fixed me up. And that I’d had so much to feed on at the time.

Emma was still looking distressed. “I’m. Fine,” I told her. “It mostly missed. Good thing I had a baggy jacket on.” I saw how distressed she looked, and forced myself to smile. “You keep on telling me to wear more shapely things. Guess it’s a good thing I didn’t listen today, right?”

She laughed, a wet and relieved noise. “Yeah. God. I was so scared that… that…”

“Listen. Emma. You did great. Really, I mean it.” I gave her thumbs up. “You saved me.” I swiped blood off my cheek and grimaced as I re-opened a scab. It was only bleeding a little, though, so I ignored it in favour of searching for my bag. The cat-thing’d had it on the desk, so... yeah, there it was; it’d been sent flying when I’d nailed it in the head with the potted Christmas tree. I rooted around inside for my Wards phone and the set of contacts I always kept around with me just in case.

“Are we going to get out of here?”

“Yeah.” I pulled off my shredded jacket and jammed it in my bag. Crap. I’d liked that one. At least Emma had insisted I get a new top, so I pulled that on over my torn t-shirt. “Just… find me a mirror and help me get my contacts in. Hold up my phone for light.”

“Y’know,” Emma said, the forced humour clear in her voice, “you always look better without glasses.”

“You always say that.”

“It’s true!”

I didn’t think so, but it was an old argument between us. We’d been having it since my first pair of thick, pink-rimmed spectacles in kindergarten.

“Come on,” I said once they were in, taking back my phone and checking it.

“Is… this what hero stuff is always like?”

“Nah. I wear armour for a reason.” Shit, I still had no signal. I stuffed the useless thing back in my pocket, most of my attention on tactics with only a little to spare for my friend. “And it’s usually less embarrassing, too.” If I ever wrote a biography of my life and career as a hero, I was leaving this fight out of it. That had been humiliating.

I looked out of the entrance to the store at the darkened mall, and listened to the chaos going on outside. Crap. Going out there was a risk, but I had to call this in. I couldn’t just stay here and do nothing - and if I went out alone, Emma would follow.

“Come on,” I said to her. “We’re going to try and find an exit.”

Chapter Text

Fight, flight and fright. The three most common panic reactions under stress. None of them work well when you can’t see. It was a dim, cloudy day outside; inside with the mall lights off, the corridors were gloomy and unfamiliar. Phones and flashlights cast constantly shifting shadows that loomed up huge and imposing without warning before vanishing just as fast. Perspective was shot, and the familiar shop windows were turned into dark caverns full of frightened, milling shoppers.

It was morbidly impressive, how much chaos and fear Half-A had sparked just by turning off the lights.

Some of the shops had people desperately barricading the entrances with boxes and shelving. In the gloom, I could see pale faces through the windows, lit by cellphones. They were safer there, rather than being trapped in the wide open concourses. Families with wailing infants huddled up against the solid walls, trying to keep away from the roaming monsters and the whining drones as if they’d be safe if they just didn’t move. Things were worse on the next floor up from the screams echoing down. Was it the creatures, or had people panicked and stampeded?

Emma winced. “Those voices creep me the hell out,” she whispered, as a mascot’s lines drifted out of a CD store. “Are you going to…”

“No. I don’t care if those things are stealing music. Better than attacking people.”

Up ahead, a crowd was milling around the elevators to the parking garage. They were down, of course. And I wouldn’t want to risk the stairs in that kind of gridlock. That was asking for someone to freak out and suddenly people are getting crushed. There was no movement at all in that mass of people. But I understood wanting to get the hell out. A lot of them probably didn’t know who was doing this - and while I knew Half-A probably didn’t want the heat outright murder would bring down on them, civilians had no such guarantee. Capes were terrifying to people without powers. That was one of the first lessons Mom had drummed into me after I’d got mine.

A burst of three shots from some distance away drew screams from all around us. I could feel the tension in the air. Oh no. No, no, that wasn’t good. I was willing to bet that that hadn’t been Half-A. I just hoped that only the monsters had been hit, but I wasn’t so optimistic. Like Mom always said: pray you’re never a random passerby in the area around someone who thinks they’re a good guy with a gun.

This was a shitshow rapidly turning dangerous, and my phone still had no signal, dammit. My power rolled and boiled under my skin, making the veins and arteries in my forearms glow and haloing my hands with dim radiance. I tugged Emma along hastily, keeping close to one of the walls of the hallway. I didn’t have the mall layout memorised, but I was pretty sure I remembered the way we’d come in, and I beelined for that exit at a brisk walk rather than trying to explore. Running would attract too much attention, and risk tripping over something in the twilight gloom. Even as it was, I could feel Emma struggling to keep up in her kitten heels, and I squeezed her hand reassuringly and slowed my pace a little.

Then I noticed something out of the corner of my eye and reversed direction a few paces, yanking Emma back.

“What are you doing?”

“I just gotta pick up something,” I said, pulling her with me into the toy shop.

“Taylor, this is not the time to get your Christmas shopping done,” she said with forced humour.

“Mmm.” I grabbed the box I’d seen from its place in the window, and tore it open. Inside was a vaguely Grecian metal helmet. Well, OK, it was actually plastic, but it was made to look metal. Because this was an Amazing Alexandria Helmet. I ripped its plastic bag, tossed away the polystyrene blocks holding it in place and jammed it on my head, wincing at the tight fit.

Emma looked at me and swallowed, my eyes lighting up her face. “Is that…”

“Look, I just want a bit more defence against those damn drones.”

“You look… kinda really cool.”

“Thanks.” I forced myself to grin, so she didn’t realise how worried I was. “It’s not cool, though. I mean, it’s really plastic-y. This is going to get super-sweaty.”

But that didn’t matter. Because with this and the scarf around my lower face, I could use my powers properly. I clenched my fists, and they ignited.

Screw walking. Time to fly.

Another drone whined overhead, centering its spotlight on me. People scattered. Yeah. No. I pointed, and a brilliant yellow-white finger-beam shot out. The body of the drone dodged it. The propellers didn’t. It fell to the ground with a clunk, and I drifted over to rip the remaining power from its carcass.

Everyone had stopped screaming. They were looking at me. Me, with my eyes lighting up the darkness; me with my glowing aura shedding a sun-like orange glow which banished the gloom.

Deep breath. “All right! Everyone!” I called out, looking around. I’d been trained for this. “The power has been cut, and the supervillain gang known as Half-A have released,” monsters, “creatures to steal things from the shops. The PRT will be here soon! But right now, we need to get people out of here! I want everyone - calmly! - to head to the fire escape there!” I pointed over at the door I’d seen, shining a light over at it. “You don’t need to be afraid! I’m here! If any more of those things show up, I can keep you safe!”

“The door’s locked!” a man over by it yelled at me. “I was trying to get out and the fire escape won’t open!”

Crap. Okay. Cut the power, block the fire escapes - Half-A didn’t want people getting out of here or calling for help until they did what they wanted to do. And maybe that’s why my phone didn’t have a signal, if they’d taken down the cell network. Right. Okay. “There is no need to panic!” I called out, drifting over to the fire escape. “Everyone stand back and cover your eyes! I don’t want anyone getting hit by shrapnel!”

One blast to each of the door hinges to blow them clean out of the wall didn’t do the job. There was something holding the door shut from outside. So I gritted my teeth, and removed the door. Even that didn’t destroy the looked-like-masking-tape that had been applied across the doorframe, so I carefully knocked out the bits of wall which it had been attached to. Super-durable tape that was tougher than a concrete wall. Yeah, that had to be Tinkertech.

“Okay! Everyone! Please evacuate calmly! Once you’re outside, try to raise the alarm! Call 911 on your cellphones if you can, or if the network is down find a payphone!” I gestured to the door. “Don’t push! Help each other!”

And they did. People are fundamentally decent like that, most of the time. They just need help when they’re lost and alone in the darkness. Faces streamed past me, lit up by my aura, and among them I saw Emma who nodded to me and gave me a thumbs up.

“Go do your thing, tiger,” she mouthed at me, and was gone.

But she wasn’t the only one calling my name. “Starlight! Starlight!” As the crowd thinned out, there was one voice in the clamour I recognised. I touched down in front of Amy, who looked positively murderous and markedly disinclined to evacuate with the others.

“Greetings, citizen,” I said, because that was the sort of thing you were meant to say and technically she wasn’t in costume right now.

She gave me a flat look. “You’re out of costume.”

“You too.”

“Yeah, well, I just go to the mall to get out of the house and now there’s some asswipe doing this bullshit.”

“I think it’s Half-A.”

“Wow. Fuck them. Why are you wearing Alexandria’s helmet? Decided you’re not pissing Crystal off enough by being called Baby Legend?”

I sighed. Amy and her jokes. “Like you said, I don’t have my costume. I had to borrow this from a toy store.”

“You mean steal.”

“I’ll sign it when I give it back. You should get one.”

“Not on your life.”

I cracked my knuckles. “Ready to make them pay?”

She slammed a fist into her palm and bared her teeth.

“Very.”

It didn’t take long to realise that searching the hallways for the three idiots behind this mess wasn't going to work. It wasn’t that we couldn’t find their drones and creepy mascots. It was that we were finding too many. The horrible little things were everywhere, tossing out irritating quips and stealing things while the drones filmed it.

There was no point in Amy transforming. Not yet - not until we found the culprits behind this. So until we figured out where they were hiding, I was stuck on handling things solo, something she was no more happy about than me. I fired beam after beam at the buzzing little drones, blasting them out of the air as soon as I saw them. Sometimes the mascots they were accompanying reverted to instinct and fled from my surging aura. Other times... they didn’t. I felt sick as I put them down. I had to - they were dangerous. But hell, these poor things didn’t deserve this. I was killing scared, abused animals who’d been taken and twisted by tinkertech and forced into fighting for Half-A’s sick amusement.

Fury simmered in my gut, and I added ‘animal cruelty’ to the list of reasons I’d give Piggot for breaking a few bones when I cornered them.

“Where the fuck are they?” snapped Amy, after we’d ushered another group of terrified civilians out towards the nearest exit. “I can’t do shit like this, Star!”

“I don’t know!” I growled, thumping the wall. If I could just find something to aim for... but there was no obvious pattern. We’d covered a quarter of the mall and the drones and their cybernetic mascots were scattered across it. They were either targeting shops that had obviously been picked out for what they held - like the lingerie changing rooms or the baseball cap wearing dog-thing we’d found shovelling new releases into its bag in the video game store - or roaming around at random hitting targets of opportunity. Nothing drew any obvious attention to where their controllers were. If they were even in the mall.

“Urgh. Over there. A dog in a fedora is stealing a TV,” Amy said, with that very special tone of voice which combined weariness with disbelief that she was actually having to say something so stupid.

“I see it.”

I checked my angles. No, I couldn’t guarantee that there wasn’t someone in the shop behind it. I repositioned so I had a solid wall as a backstop, and put the poor animal down. The drone spun on the spot, whirring until its spotlight fell on me. And then all the TVs in the shop flickered on. They weren’t showing the news. Instead, a pixelated black skull floated on a purple background on each screen, flickering every so often to the sound of static.

“What the crap is going on now?” Amy asked.

“We’re probably going to get monologued at,” I said, sighting at the drone.

“Wow I have like no time for that today. Do your zappy thing.”

It was not a zappy thing. I smashed the drone out of the air, but the screens didn’t turn off.

A voice crackled from the TV speakers - young, female and eye-wateringly smug. I wanted to punch its owner immediately, just from her first sentence. “Wow, Starlight, you’re really getting into this property destruction thing. Are you sure you’re not a supervillain in the making? Property destruction, and then there’s your counts of animal abuse. You really need to stop killing people’s pets.”

This wasn’t Uber or Leet. So it was probably Dox, the possible-technopath. “Where are you broadcasting from?” I said stiffly, pointing my glowing hand at the banks of TVs. “And where are your idiot friends? Tell us now and maybe we won’t break anything when we take you in.”

“Starlight, Starlight.” She chuckled, and my teeth ground. “I’m not going to just give you the cheat codes. That would take all the fun out of this game!”

“You think this is a game?” I growled.

“Of course! It’s just cops-and-robbers. We commit innocent hijinks, you blunder after us while beating up poor people and ethnic minorities! You just need three more acts of casual brutality to get an achievement! Also, FYI, shooting the screens won’t do a thing apart from adding more property damage to your high score. So you can do it if you want to, but I wouldn’t recommend it.” She gave a patronising giggle. “Oh no, poor little Starlight, don’t tell me you think things work like the movies and breaking a computer’s screen also breaks the computer?”

Note to self; Dox may have a low-ranked Master power that made you desperately want to punch her in the face. I wasn’t sure why you’d want that superpower, but the evidence was certainly building up.

Beside me, Amy shrugged with artful scorn. “So she’s a loser with no moral compass who’s hanging out with two bigger losers because she can’t get friends any way other than slutting it up with a couple of gamer assholes,” she said, brow wrinkling up. “This isn’t news; we care about her why? It’s not like she’s going to tell us anything useful. She’s just an annoying idiot who wants attention and for everyone to think she’s clever. Let’s keep going.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t do that if I were you.” I thought I could hear a hint of a snarl under Dox’s gloating tone. If I had, she quickly covered it well with superiority. “Unless you want to run around in circles chasing your tail all afternoon? You’ll get nowhere on your own.”

“Whereas you’ll just help us out of the goodness of your heart?” Amy scoffed. “Yeah, okay, sure.”

“She’s right,” I said, turning away. “You’re not going to help, which means there’s no point in talking to you.”

“Who says I have to be helping to give you information? Or do you just think you’ll have more success running around a dark mall killing pets than failing to get intel from an enemy? I might just slip up and give something away.”

I stopped walking, and slowly swivelled back. The file had said possible technopath and I could buy it. The sheer smug superiority and arrogance in that taunt all but screamed Thinker. No other class of cape was quite as obnoxious about assuming they knew better than everyone else. Case in point: Portent.

“Fine,” I gritted out. “So, what? You’re huddled up in a white van somewhere outside, perving on all the people you’re hurting? If I go outside and search the parking lots, will I get to punch you in the face and shut you up?”

“Hah. Cute bravado. But I don’t think you understand, Starlight.” The screens flickered, each one now showing part of a greater image of a young woman in a puffy light-blue princess dress, her face blocked out by the pixelated skull. She carried a star-headed sceptre and twirled it like a cheerleader’s baton. “I’m in the screens. I’m in the net. I am Dox. And do you know what I want?”

“To take over the city,” Amy said, rolling her eyes.

“No, even better. I want to encourage the cause of video game cosplay! Have you two ever considered changing your costumes? You’d look great as Commander Prophet from Atomic Space, Starlight! Fem-Proph, of course, not Male-Proph. The VA is way better. But you, Radiant… hmm. I’m thinking Black Magician Girl from Abyss Blade II.”

“You’re insane.”

“No,” I said, narrowing my eyes. Because, sure, she sounded crazy - but that was the thing. People didn’t do things because they were oh-so-wacky. They always had reasons - ways they benefitted - and if she was doing this for the sake of ‘cosplay’, why wasn’t anyone being forcefully dressed up in costumes? Or something like that which… which followed from that kind of reasoning? Plus, bluntly, she sounded way too smug and self-confident to have a stupid reason like that for being part of this. “She’s bullshitting. What’s your real goal, Dox?”

“What, a girl can’t just want to make a little cash?”

“If you wanted to make a little cash, why would you send… what are these, uplifted cats and dogs? Why would you send them to rob a mall? They can’t have been cheap to make.”

“Sorry, dirt cheap!”

Amy paced back and forth. “Where are you?”

“Hawaii! And I am loving the sun and beaches!”

No, no, no, she was being distracting. There was something off about the motives. “No, seriously, you have to be after something else here. Something specific in the mall. If you just wanted the cash, you’d go… you’d go after a bank. Or one of the gang casinos in Little Tokyo. Or hit an Empire drug ring. Why the mall?”

Another screen flickered on, showing the lower-half of someone’s mouth. Caucasian, female, young and wearing purple lipstick - I committed it to memory. It might not have been hers. Or it could have been computer-generated. But it grinned. “OK, I lied. The boys want the cash. I just want to have F. U…N!”

“What about this is fun?” Amy demanded, marching up to the window and slamming a hand against the glass. She hadn’t been through the PRT Operations training modules I’d taken, and it showed. She was letting this super annoying villain get to her.

“Everything!”

“When I get my hands on you…”

“You dirty girl!” Dox blew her a kiss. “At least ask me out for dinner first!”

I reached out and squeezed Amy’s shoulder. “You know the PRT are coming. You might have cut the power and jammed the networks, but you have to be broadcasting from somewhere. Are you really hoping Armsmaster won’t be able to track you back?”

“His Tinkertech is no match for the stuff I make. And I can’t wait to see. Man, your buddies really are late, Starlight. It’s not like them to be so tardy.”

“We’re done here. Let’s go,” I said, grabbing Amy’s wrist and walking away.

“You can’t just walk away!” Oh, that sounded like it hit something sensitive. Good.

“What’s…”

“She’s trying to delay us. She’s done something to delay them, too - this is all to get something done here.” I frowned, trying to remember the shops in the mall, the briefings we’d had on them, and their layout. “Mason’s. The high end jewelry store. They have to be going there for the gems. Maybe to build a laser, maybe to sell.”

All the screens flickered back to the pixelated skull. “N-no we’re not!” blurted out Dox. “Ha! Heroes are dumb!”

“Come on! Ignore her!” I jogged off, around the corner - and immediately stopped. “Wait. Shh,” I whispered to Amy. “Listen, here’s the plan.”

“I’m listening.”

“I lied. I’m pretty sure they’re after Adamant.”

“The tech place?”

“Exactly. Leet’s profile says his hardware works better when he steals high tech stuff to use. And Adamant sometimes handles special orders for… certain people. People who might be linked to the Patriarca family. Get my drift?” I grinned, maybe a little maliciously. “I wasn’t sure, right until she over-acted about not wanting us to go to the jewelry place. Which happens to be on the exact opposite side of the mall to Adamant.”

Actually getting to Adamant proved harder than just walking across the mall. And no, it wasn’t that I got lost in the dark. After all, I was glowing. It was that we didn’t want to give Uber and Leet any warning that we were coming for them, but this ran into the obvious issue that... I was glowing.

Amy blended into the gloom just fine, of course. She had no problem with ‘dark’. But ‘quiet’ was another matter entirely, given the thick-soled boots covered in buckles and straps she insisted on wearing.

We really weren’t cut out for stealth, as a team. And those horrible animals and annoying drones were still out in force, despite the number I’d disposed of.

So we improvised.

The cold wind clawed at my flesh. I let a little heat bleed into my body, and squinted down at the roof of the mall, forty feet below. The security door I’d broken open banged in the wind.

“I am really. Really. Cold,” Amy growled into my ear, clinging onto my back with her arms around my shoulders. Her hair whipped against my toy helmet. “Hurry up!”

“I am hurrying up!”

“Hurry up faster! The sooner we get down, the sooner you can not drop me!”

“Shut up and help me work out where the loading bay is!” The bitching I ignored. Amy wasn’t a big fan of heights when she wasn’t Radiant. So far she’d been dragged through a dark mall and smugged at by Dox without getting to break anything, so I could understand why she was feeling a bit pissed. “You think that’s it over there?”

I felt her huff against the back of my neck. “I think so? The roof makes everything look the same; I don’t even know where the main halls are. Oh, hey, the drone cameras point down, right? Dip down over that skylight, see if we can peek in and get our bearings. If they’re filming the creepy animal things, they won’t be looking up at us.”

I didn’t really want to smash back into the mall through the wrong loading bay, so in lieu of any better ideas I followed her advice. I did land first, though, and snuffed out my aura before approaching the glass ceiling panels.

“... yeah, that’s Adamant. Can’t see any drones, there. Okay, how do we do this? Just smash our way in and beat them stupid, or try and sneak in to see what they’re doing first?”

“They’re already stupid,” Amy said, leaping down from my back. “But we suck at sneaking. I say we go in hot.”

“Radiant-hot?” I paused. Fuck. Stupid New Wave. I was covered by qualified immunity, but she wasn’t. At the Wards, I’d had one hell of a lecture about the legality of asking for help from non-government capes. Legal had been there too, just to make it clear that they were not messing around. New Wave had insurance, but that wasn’t the same. “No, wait. PRT hasn’t requested your presence.”

“You have.”

“I’m just a Ward, not Protectorate. I can’t. Do you want to find out how much damage Radiant can cause in a high end tech dealership? And how big the bill for damages would be?”

She sucked in a breath. “Fuck no. Okay. What do you remember about this place?”

I frowned, staring out into the middle distance at the blinking red lights on a dockyard crane. Adamant, Adamant... hmm. We’d been briefed on it as a likely target for criminals, but only in passing. “Two storeys. Um… there’s a secure lock-room on the first floor where they keep the high value things. I think the top floor is mostly, like, music and so on. First floor is TVs and gadgets.”

“They’ll probably be on the lower level.”

“That’s my guess.”

She paced over to the edge of the building. “Let’s head in through the fire escape, then. I’m freezing my tits off out here. Not that you have to worry about that.”

That hurt. “That better be a comment about my powers.”

“Yes, it is!” She stamped her heavy boots on the snow-covered fire escape. “Come on!”

“Fine, fine.” I squinted down. Adamant’s outer wall was around the back of the mall, with a pair of blocky loading docks. One of them was empty, a grill pulled down over the entrance, but the other was occupied by an anonymous white truck. It was a bit bigger than the usual kind you saw around, but I might have thought it was there legitimately if not for what my other senses were picking up from it. There was something inside it; some kind of power source that just smelled weird. It wasn’t an internal combustion engine, whatever it was. I knew what electric motors tasted like, and it wasn’t any kind of battery either. Not heat, not electricity, nothing like any kind of laser tech I’d ever encountered...

... yeah, okay, I didn’t really care about the details. However it worked and whatever energy it was using, it was definitely Tinkertech. I tried to pull on it and short out the truck, but it was beyond the edge of my draining range. I probably wouldn’t have been able to even if I’d been closer, Tinkertech was always tricky to rip energy out of. I usually needed to be really close, if not touching my target. That knowledge didn’t make being able to feel it but not grab it any less annoying right now, though.

“That’s their truck down there,” I told Amy. “Okay, I think I’ve got a plan. I’ll go in, get their attention and try to force them out. You stay out here, wait until they come out, then transform. Destroy the truck as soon as you do, then take them down.”

“Why not trash it now?” she asked, scowling down at it and shivering. I wasn’t sure if she was keen to break something or just wanted to stop being cold. Either way, I shook my head.

“One, I don’t know how fast I can force them out of the building, and we can’t risk you running out your clock before I do. And two, if they realise their ride is broken before I force them outside, they’ll run further into the mall instead of going for it. Then we lose them.”

She reluctantly nodded, accepting that logic. “Fine. Get me down behind the truck and go flush them- wait.” I followed her gaze down to the loading dock doors. There were voices coming from it, filtering faintly up through the cold air to our perch on the second floor.

“No, leave that,” someone was saying. His voice was nasal, a little shrill and whiny when he was emphasising. It was the kind of voice you couldn’t help but imagine complaining about obscure bits of trivia in some overrated tv show or other pet obsession. In this case, though, it sounded like he was giving orders. “No, put it down, dumbass, those are just batteries! Yeah, those, bring those over. Hey Uber, hurry it up!”

Leet, then. And Uber was with him. His voice was the polar opposite of his friend’s; he sounded like the announcer of the trailer that a Leet-alike would be complaining about.

“Keep your hair on, we’re fine,” he was saying, sounding exasperated. I listened for any sign of Dox, but I didn’t think I could hear her smugness. It was hard to tell over the clamour of the stupid mascots and their pre-canned lines.

The back door of the truck slammed, and I felt the power source spike. Shit! They weren’t just loading up their stolen property, they were already leaving!

“New plan,” I hissed to Amy. “Fuck that truck up; they’re about to leave!” I dropped off the edge as she began to transform, flaring my aura as I charged a strong enough beam to blow out the rear wheels-

And a wall of sound smashed into me like a train, hard enough to throw me clean across the docking bay yard and into a chainlink fence.

It hurt.

A lot.

Dazed, ears ringing, head throbbing, back aching, I tried to push myself upright. What the hell had that been? God, that had felt like being clipped by one of Triumph’s shouts! I could taste blood, and I thought I’d bitten my cheek. Hotness oozed from my nose. Trying to shake the dizziness off - and only succeeding in giving myself a worse headache - I looked over at where the shouts and loud noises were coming from.

... well, I could see Radiant. Vaguely. My vision was swimming, but it looked like she’d been hit by the same scream as me. God, I hated sonic attacks; sound was the one thing I was even worse at absorbing than kinetics. My aura at least blunted physical impacts; it did nothing whatsoever against sound. And there was something else, something big and dark and horrible that was clobbering her backward.

I squeezed my eyes shut, took a couple of deep, rapid breaths and forced myself up onto my feet, clinging to the mangled fence for support. Once I was up and the blood rushed away from my head, the dizziness intensified for a moment but my vision cleared.

It was a monster.

I couldn’t imagine- well no, I could imagine what Uber and Leet had made it with. Black bear, probably. And maybe some porcupine. It stood level with Radiant, two and a half metres tall, covered in spines with a bow tie around its neck that did nothing to disguise the fact that it was a shaggy-haired monstrosity. This wasn’t one of the creepy anthropomorphised mascots from the mall - those had been cats, dogs, birds, rodents. This was a brute and a bodyguard. Half-A’s ace in the hole in case of hero intervention. As I watched, it bellowed and charged Radiant again - and this time it was the bear-thing that went spinning away from a casual slap.

But what had caused the sonic blast?

As I got enough balance to step away from the fence, the answer whooshed overhead and unleashed another scream at Radiant. I didn’t catch much of a look at it, but what I saw was sickening. Leet’s attempt to make a ‘sexy bat girl’, at a guess. Except this thing was made with real bats, and there was no way to make that look attractive. Or even human.

It was fast, though. Really, really fast, and airborne, and it had that fucking sonic attack. Shit, this thing was almost perfectly suited to fighting me. Or Velocity, come to think of it. He was a frequent first responder, so I’d bet this was Half-A’s answer to him. I was just a bonus.

Wow. Huh. Turns out I could get even more pissed off.

I couldn’t take the bat thing. I wanted to - God, I would love to fire a beam down its too-damn-loud throat - but I knew my limits, and a flying speedster with a sonic attack wasn’t something I was suited for. Not when I was seeing double. Besides, Radiant had it in hand, going airborne and swatting it into the fence further down from where I was before she was hit by a flying tackle from the bear monster. The bat was still moving as I pushed off the fence, but that wouldn’t last long, even with two of them flanking her. I wasn’t needed in this fight, and honestly I wouldn’t even be that useful.

Uber and Leet, on the other hand. I could definitely be useful taking out my grievances on them.

Uber was throwing the last few bits and pieces they’d stolen into the truck. He was big, broad-shouldered and muscular - not that far off Portent’s build. Urgh. My dazed mind couldn’t help but wonder: why were all the hot guys assholes? Something was fundamentally wrong with the universe if it kept doing this. Where were the good-looking boys who were nice? Or at least not flaming bags of dicks with attitude problems.

Whatever. Dammit, Taylor, focus! He was distracted loading the truck, and Leet - scrawny, slouching, his posture in a permanent state of impending cringe - was focused on Radiant’s fight, fiddling with a controller to coordinate his pair of pet monsters against the hero who was beating the shit out of them even two-on-one. He was practically biting his nails with worry, shuffling on the spot like he needed to go to the bathroom with his impatience to get out of there. The screams, grunts and crashes of the fight covered my approach, and neither of them were looking at me. In fairness, Radiant was very distracting.

I floated a foot into the air to stop wobbling so much, and blasted Leet in the chest with a full-hand beam that made the whole truck jerk as it slammed him into it.

Yeah. See how you like it, asshole.

Uber yelled something, but I couldn’t hear him through the ringing in my ears. He ducked down behind the dashboard, radio in hand. I wobbled towards him, entirely prepared to rip him out of the vehicle feet-first and grind his face across the yard. But before I could get there, a screech came from the loading dock, and a menagerie of mutated mascots charged out with murder on their minds.

I didn’t actually have the time or presence of mind to roll my eyes, but I probably should have. The bear was a dangerous brute that could probably tank my blasts. The bat was a fast-moving flier with an attack that could get past my defences.

These things? These were trash. I clenched my jaw as they mobbed me, waited for them to get close, then drew on my reserves as much as I dared and forced my aura outwards. The radial burst of light slammed into the creatures trying to swamp me, and slammed them back. Bodies hit the walls, sliding down into the snow in the corners.

“Sorry,” I mouthed.

I was close enough to the truck that it bucked again when the shell of my blast hit it, and I heard Uber smack into something inside and curse again. Groaning on the ground, Leet looked up at my glowing form and shrieked. He backed away, scrambling with his butt on the freezing ground, looking like a pathetic little rabbit in the headlights from my eyes. Like one of his mascots. He was saying something and I couldn’t hear it, but I didn’t really need to. It was probably just something like “Wait, we can talk, you don’t have to do this.” Yeah, no. We really did. His desperate shuffling backwards took him past the back end of the truck and he fell over without its support, sprawling out on the tarmac.

I floated up to him, ducking the flying gravel Radiant’s fight was flinging up. Her feet were tearing long gouges out of the concrete and asphalt of the yard as she moved, as if she was walking on styrofoam without much care for kicking holes in it. Already the yard was criss-crossed with footprints where she’d stamped down to get better leverage, and every blurred impact threw the debris out to the sides in a horizontal hail.

Leet flailed at me with his legs, but a glowing finger levelled at his face stopped those attempts cold. I grabbed his wrist and pulled the controller out of his hand, yanking the power out of it. It fell to the ground useless, and the ringing in my ears cleared up a bit as I gulped it down. “I’m taking you in,” I said.

“Uber! Uber! Help me! For fuck’s sake, man! Help!”

Something jabbed into my shoulder, and every muscle in my body suddenly locked up. My aura shorted out, and I dropped down. Fortunately, I landed on Leet, who yelped.

“Come on, man, get out from under her.” It was Uber, pulling himself into view again. The left side of his face was red. “You know your sleep darts don’t last as long as they used to.”

“Yeah, fuck, she’s bony as fuck.” Leet squirmed out from under me, leaving me to flop onto the cold ground. Despite my best efforts, I couldn’t shoot him with eye lasers made of pure hate. And trust me, I was trying. Cheap-ass cheating Tinker bullshit. My aura wasn’t responding. I couldn’t even move my eyes, let alone my limbs. I couldn’t blink. I heard the bat’s scream at the same time as the bear-thing’s bellowing roar, and a deafening crash of crystal-on-metal followed them, but I couldn’t see what had happened. Had they managed to throw Radiant into the loading dock wall? Were they hitting her with something? All I had in view was concrete and the back end of the truck. I couldn’t even taste it. My energy-sense was as numb as the rest of me.

Something grabbed me from behind as I tried to force my body to move. Shit! Uber! He pinned me down, and I heard the ripping noise of duct tape being unrolled. Then something wrapped around my legs and went over my waist, securing me to the ground. Blink. Yes. That was a blink. And my fingers and toes were starting to prickle with pins-and-needles.

“Oh, don’t bother trying to get up.” I could hear the grin in Uber’s arrogant voice. “Leet, get the truck running! But yeah, you probably don’t even have the slightest clue how this works. This is Closed Door Tape. You know how in FPSes, you can’t open a door that’s been taped up? Not without the right item, at least? Yeah, that’s what it does. You can’t get out, even once the sleep dart wears off. Which it won’t - it’s good for a few minutes, at least.” An even more unpleasant note entered his voice. “Look at you, Starlight, trapped down here, useless without your OP powers. Guess you aren’t all that tough. Well, I always knew that the Protectorate favours females over males.”

He was close enough that I heard Dox’s voice on his earpiece. “Uber, stop explaining and move! Before Radiant notices…”

“Oh, chill out, we’re fine. There’s no way she can get out of this and the two bosses are slowing Radiant down.” Another bellow from the bear-thing in the background proved he didn’t know what he was talking about. That was definitely pain. He nudged me with his foot - not quite a proper kick, but hard enough that it hurt. In the background, I heard their truck’s engine start up as that weird taste intensified. “Just talking to - hah! - loli Legend. The one who thinks she’s better than everyone else because she got bullshit powers.”

“God, you’re an idiot! Radiant can blenderise both of you and you shouldn’t be that close to Starlight! The sleep darts don’t work properly anymore and-”

I inhaled, and slammed him in the knees with everything I could muster. It wasn’t much with how the sleep dart was interfering with my powers, but it was still enough to send him sprawling backwards over the hood of their truck. He flipped to his feet with a hiss of breath.

“Mascots, get her!” he snarled, voice taking on the cadence of a dark lord from some shitty sci-fi, and hobbled into the truck. I couldn’t move, not with that tape holding me down, but I could turn my head and get Radiant in sight. She saw them getting away - and she also saw the bear turn towards me, helpless and immobilised on the ground, as she moved to intercept them. Her beautiful crystalline face twisted in fury, and she put herself between the monsters and me rather than go after the villains that had made them.

Here’s the thing about Radiant: people think they understand how powerful she is in that brief window her Breaker state lasts for, and almost all of them get it wrong. They underestimate her, even when they’re trying not to. Hell, I’m pretty sure I underestimate her, and I probably know Amy better than anyone else bar Victoria. Maybe even including her, when it comes to her powers.

You wanna know how much they underestimate her? The bear-thing was a monster. It was the size of an adult grizzly, and unlike a grizzly it was entirely comfortable on two legs. It was fast enough to cross the entire loading dock yard in a second or so, and given Radiant hadn’t pulped it instantly, it was tougher than anything natural. It was big, it was strong, and those porcupine quills made even touching it a hazard. I didn’t know how the hell Leet had made it - and given he had made it I’d lay good money on it having a lifespan of days at best - but it was a monster that would give an experienced cape reasonable trouble for however long it lasted. I could have taken it down, but it would have taken me a while, and I’d probably have had to exhaust myself, kiting it while pumping all my reserves into intensifying my blasts to levels I usually tried to avoid.

Radiant mulched it in, what twenty seconds? It was already bleeding heavily, and once she was able to focus on it properly without Leet timing the bat’s attacks to interrupt her, it could barely even put up a fight. She’d swapped her silvery eyes out since I last saw her for some kind of yellowish glowing liquid that seeped from her pores as it charged towards her, pooling on her crystalline skin and vaporising to form a thin layer of glowing mist around her. When the bear’s second charge hit it, the mist detonated, throwing it backwards hard enough to crack ribs that I heard break even from my place lying helplessly on the ground behind her. She glanced back at me, then sped towards it too fast for the eye to follow, connecting with a shoulder-tackle that would have shorn a human in half. Catching its paws with casual ease as it tried to rip her head off, she dislocated its arms with two precise jerks, pummelled it to the ground and finished it off with a stomp to the head.

The last few seconds were just making sure it was dead.

Then she turned her attention to the fleeing truck, and got blindsided by the bat again. This time, the sonic scream hit her glowing coat of blood plasma, and the detonation rocketed back up towards the bat. It was fast enough to dodge the blast wave, bringing its wings in around it and corkscrewing as the turbulence buffeted it.

It wasn’t fast enough to dodge Radiant. She was just there suddenly, in its path, and she grabbed it in both hands and wrung it like a wet towel.

Maybe five more seconds, tops. Two mutated creatures, each one a Tinkertech monster that a Protectorate hero wouldn’t engage alone, and she destroyed them both in less than half a minute. An instant later she was by my side, her iridescent hands ripping the tape off me.

“Suh-” I coughed, pushing myself up to my hands and knees and then retching again. “Sorry. Din’t... didn’t think he had somethin’ like that.” My numb hands found the dart in my shoulder. “Ow. That’d have just bounced off you, wouldn’t it?”

She didn’t answer. Just checked my pulse and breathing and then shot up into the air, a rapid vertical ascent to thrice the height of the mall. She turned a full circle up there, scanning the streets, then dropped down again.

“I can’t see them,” she chimed, frustration boiling over to make her voice resonate painfully. “And- fuck!” The change back was starting. It was sooner than usual - she’d had maybe two minutes tops. But already those iridescent fractals were unravelling her crystalline form, shrinking her as they flaked away into the air and dissipated into nothing. She shortened and slimmed down as Radiant’s flesh sublimated off her. The thin layer remaining on her skin broke down into frost-fern patterns that retracted up from her feet and from around her chest. The idealised face peeled back, leaving a scowling Amy in its place, and that white-and-soap-bubble sheen bled back down her arms to her hands, and then...

... then it was gone entirely.

“Fuck!” she shouted, and kicked the corrugated metal wall of the loading dock. “We had them, dammit!”

“I screwed up,” I said hoarsely, massaging my throat. She glanced across at me, scowl still in place, then softened.

“Nah. Don’t beat yourself up over it.”

“I should’ve kept an eye on Uber.” I gritted my teeth, working my arms and legs which prickled with pins and needles. “That smug mansplaining asshole.”

“You tried, he surprised you with Tinker bullshit, it happens.” She wrapped her arms around me, letting me rest my head on her shoulder while my body started working again. “It was a fight. People can’t be perfect all the time. Not even you.”

“I can try.”

“Yes, and you’re really annoying how close you get, sometimes.” That dragged a chuckle from me. “Now, c’mon. Are you going to pull some unfair trick which lets us track them down and beat them senseless, or do we call it a day, and head inside and have hot chocolate. Because, newsflash, but it’s still cold.”

I blinked slowly. Something was tingling in the corner of my senses. Not sight or hearing - my energy-sense. It was the odd five-spice blend of the truck’s power source. I could still taste it, mixed into the breeze and dissipating slowly. If it had been a normal engine it would already be gone, but this energy was lingering for some reason. Hell, maybe it was radioactive and I was tasting the half-life of decaying byproducts their exhaust had left behind; it wouldn’t surprise me.

Still. If I could taste it, I could follow it. And if I could follow it...

I grinned. “How do you feel about paying their base a visit for round two?”

“... what, really, I was just making a joke about you having some unfair trick.” Amy cupped my head in her hands. “You sure you’re up for it? You look pretty dry. And you’ve got a nosebleed.”

“That was the bat. The bleeding’s already stopped. Give me a chance to find some street lights to slurp down on and I’ll be fine.” I stamped my feet, bouncing on my toes. “Come on, they’re getting away!”

“Yeah,” Amy said thoughtfully. “Actually, speaking of fuelling up...”

She flexed her hands and looked at the mascots that had mobbed me. My blast had thrown them against the walls and platform of the docking bay, but most of them were still alive, just too hurt or too crippled to flee.

Amy crouched down beside the hideously proportioned figure of a racoon-boy and laid a palm on its throat.

“... let me just clean up here first,” she said.

Chapter Text

It was well past noon and the orange sun was already dipping down towards the horizon behind blanketing layers of grey clouds that menaced the Bay with the threat of sleet but never quite followed through. The streets were packed with trucks and cars. Their rear lights stared up at the sky like hundreds of blinking red eyes. The horn of a solitary ship echoed over from the docks like a lonely whale.

I was back on top thanks to a quick fizzy-sweet-and-soda snack from the mains, and now the two of us were on the hunt. Uber had cut through the backstreets to bypass the police cordon, and even though the truck was pulling to the left from the damage I’d done, he was handling it like a pro. He knew just how to drive to blend in, and once he was away from the mall he looked like just another delivery truck in the late-afternoon traffic. I wasn’t flying because we didn’t want to be spotted, so we leapt from rooftop to rooftop, always trying to keep a block behind the van and its unmistakable taste. It wasn’t the most comfortable form of movement. Piggyback didn’t work with upright jumps like this, so Amy was balanced on my foot and had her arm wrapped tight around my waist, while I’d wrapped mine around her shoulders for support.

The result of this, besides her trying to burrow into my torso for protection against the cold, was that my foot was starting to hurt, my arm was getting tired and I’d probably have bruises around my waist tomorrow. There was a reason we didn’t do this often. Flying with passengers was best left to Alexandria packages with the strength and endurance to take it, and I had neither.

Still, while it was uncomfortable we were making good time. They were heading north through the docks, up towards the edge of the city, and cutting close to the Boat Graveyard to skirt the edge of the area around the Trainyard and avoid the bad streets. Amy was tapping away on her phone with her free hand, but from the distracted grunts she gave when I made landings, she wasn’t having much luck getting hold of Vicky or Crystal. Reception out here was spotty at best and non-existent at worst.

Then another phone rang. Mine.

Uber was going straight up a congested main road, and the traffic was barely moving. I nudged Amy to keep an eye on him and fumbled the ringing phone out of my pocket with my off hand. It was my Wards one. Missy.

“Hey,” I answered it, taking another long jump from the roof of a grimy fast food joint to the converted brick house that was now a shabby letting agency three roofs down from it. “What’s up?”

“You wanna hang out?” she began. She sounded pissed. “Where are you? I’ll come meet you wherever. We can hang out and do, I dunno, stuff.”

“Aren’t you busy at the debut thing for the new girl?” I eyed up the next building, a cramped apartment block four roofs down, and tightened my grip on Amy.

“They ordered me off duty,” Missy grumbled in my other ear as I pushed off.

“Oh.” Leap, soar, keep my foot steady, land. “What happened?”

“What? There’s noise on the line! Are you flying?”

“Uh... not exactly.” I raised my voice a little. “What happened? Why’d you get ordered off?”

“Something’s going down and I got sent home! Urgh, you were so lucky you got to skip the boring PR thing. What are you even doing flying around, anyway? Are you even in costume?”

I looked down at my tattered, torn-up jeans marked by mascot claws and tarmac and oil stains from the loading dock. My long-sleeved top had been new today, though you wouldn’t believe that by the way it looked. There were still bits of that stupid super-tape stuff clinging to it, and other parts ripped off where it had taken material with it while Radiant was freeing me.

“Uber and Leet attacked the mall when I was there in civvies. Now I’m trailing them by air. Radiant’s with me.” Amy snorted from my other side, and I deliberately jostled her a little as we made another leap. She forewent retaliation, because having elbowing contests in mid-air three storeys up is never a good idea, but I didn’t doubt she’d stand on my foot extra hard on our next landing.

“You mean Amy’s with you.” Missy’s tone had shifted straight into disapproval, though I couldn’t tell if it were disapproval of me tailing them with only an untransformed Amy as backup or disapproval of me hanging out with Amy in general. Probably both. “You shouldn’t be going after them on your own! You’re probably walking into a trap! Have you even called this in?”

“You don’t understand.” I tried not to let my frustrations out on Missy. I didn’t want her thinking I was angry at her. “I can feel their engine; we’re trailing them from a block back. They think they got away fine, they have no idea we’re here. And Radiant already beat down their pet monsters-”

“You mean you don’t even have Radiant?” Missy exploded at me from the tinny phone speaker. “What the hell, Taylor? If she’s already done her thing, it really is just you! Up against a whole gang! In their base! A Tinker base! What are you even thinking?”

“That I can take out two villains who attacked a mall in broad daylight! That I have surprise on my side and that I can stop whatever they’re cooking up! That we can’t let them get away with this! Remember, last time the cops got Leet? He got broken out before we even got him transferred over! And this wasn’t something small! They really hurt people!”

“Okay, fine! But why right here, right now? If you can track them, you can just figure out where they’re holed up later-”

“This is Leet,” I snapped, cutting her off. “His tech is crap. It’ll break soon and then I won’t be able to find them again.”

Vista was silent for a good ten seconds or so.

“Are you still there?”

“Yes! Yes I am! Okay, I’m heading over. Where do I meet you?”

“They’re heading towards the city outskirts. North.” I looked around, trying to get my bearings from the air. “Um… you know the McDonalds near the Texaco on the road north of town? Call me when you get there.”

It was slow progress with the traffic at this time of day, and Amy’s bitching about the cold was getting on my nerves. I made the executive decision to speed over to the McDonalds while Uber and Leet were at a stoplight, and drop her off there with instructions to meet up with Missy. Then I had to dash back. Fortunately, they’d got caught in another jam one block over, so it was easy to pick out the taste of their power source.

I’d never actually tailed someone like this before, partly because Wards didn’t do that kind of thing very often and also because I was the single least suited Ward for it until Flare had joined up. Portent was literally precognitive and could call out the points where a suspect might lose him before they even got there, Missy could warp space to follow along at better-than-highway speeds across the rooftops and even Gallant could keep an eye on the drivers and spot any signs of nervousness that might mean they’d spotted their tails. By contrast, I was brightly glowing flying artillery. So this was a new experience for me.

I tailed them north up Washington Avenue. Uber drove five miles under the speed limit at all times, signalled every turn, obeyed every traffic signal and occasionally took a detour completely at random that circled back to the same basic route he’d been following to start with. Even without Amy’s weight on my foot the whole thing was a boring, frustrating trial that left me wanting to just blast all their tires out with precision fingerbeams. Maybe I could get them to crash into a wall.

But no. I was in this to find their base, and after an agonising quarter-hour of tailing them from the mall along a route that could have been done in half that time if not for all the detours, it paid off. I didn’t think he’d spotted me, which meant his efforts to stymie any pursuit were purely caution and habit. Though admittedly, in this case they were fully justified since I was following them through the city and north into the woods up by the coast.

They turned off from the main road. Where were they going? Beyond the next set of trees was a small industrial estate, tucked away into the forest. I paused, clinging to a treetop. There were tire marks on the snow-covered parking lot out front. Way too fresh to be abandoned. This place had seen traffic since the last time it had snowed, which had been… what, three days ago? Yeah. This was their hideout. And I could taste the power coming from inside that place.

“Gotcha,” I whispered.

I couldn’t fly without flaring my aura and someone could be watching, so I landed and jogged a wide loop around the building to scout. We’d be better off going around the back. The buildings there were right against the tree line - there’d be cover for us to advance. Missy wouldn’t be able to bend a path there so we’d be slower getting into position, but it’d be worth it for the element of surprise. The tracks went into that garage, but there was more electricity throughout the building than there should have been, even if the lights weren’t on. Huh. No, wait. Some of the windows had been blacked out. Bad move, boys. That told me you had something to hide there. You should have obscured all of them.

I made double time back to the McDonalds, where Amy was slouched near the counter and Vista was standing stiffly outside the door. She grimaced at the state of my top as I landed.

“You look terrible,” she said. “And is that an Alexandria helmet?”

“Yeah yeah, Amy said the same thing,” I shot back. “Laugh it up and get over it. Like I said, I’ll sign it before I give it back to the shop. Are we doing this or not?”

She shrugged. “I still have no idea what it is we’re doing. She didn’t tell me anything.”

I looked back in at Amy, who was giving me an unimpressed look and not moving from her spot by the counter. I responded with a glare, then screwed my eyes shut and pinched the bridge of my nose - or tried, before being stopped by the helmet. Tapping a mains line to recharge might have patched most of my cuts and bruises up, but I was still in no mood for bitch fits between my friends right now.

“Fine,” I snapped, “whatever, I’ll fill you in on the way. Hang on out here.” I hurried into the shop, doing my best to ignore the looks - and cameras - trained on me from basically everyone inside. It was a Sunday afternoon, so while it wasn’t packed, that was still more than a few people. This was definitely going to be going up online, with me in all my tattered glory. Freaking wonderful.

“Found them,” I said. “Now can we get moving already? And...” I dropped my voice, “remember that Vista is helping us, please.”

“Yeah yeah, fine. She started it by arriving in a snit. Oh, wait a moment.” She stepped up to the counter. “Can I have a black coffee to go?”

“You know,” I said, when she stepped outside, “if you spill hot coffee down the back of my neck, I am going to drop you.”

“Why do you care? It’s not going to scald you,” Amy said, wrapping both hands around it. “And it’s freezing in the sky. I need something warm.”

“It’ll still get me wet.”

“Suck it up.”

Missy loudly cleared her throat. “Hey, you two! Stop bickering!”

“Says the girl in the insulated costume,” Amy grumbled, opening a new front.

“It’s north of here,” I interrupted them both, pointing. “Vista, you mind taking us over the rooftops? I need to save my strength, since it’s away from the city.” And I also wanted to stay close instead of leading them there from in front so I could fill Missy in and prevent any fights. But I didn’t say that part out loud.

Filling her in didn’t take long, and the journey was much, much faster with Missy moving us in jumps across hundreds of yards at a time as I directed. We were trudging through the crunching snow around the exterior of the estate when my Wards phone rang again. I met Amy’s eyes, which were all but screaming “Really?” as I took it out of my pocket. Maybe they were just checking where I was. I could say I was nowhere near the middle of town. They might not have heard I was at the mall yet. It could just be a routine-

“Starlight, this is Portent.”

Fuck. “What’s up?” I tried to sound casual. No, more than that, eager. “Are you calling me in for something? Is there a fire?”

“Starlight, you are probable to engage Half-A in the near future.” He was in full stick-up-the-butt mode. “I’m seeing a high risk that one of you or Vista will be severely injured. That’s not an acceptable risk.”

“I don’t know what you mean. I’m not on patrol.”

His voice deepened as he dropped the act. “You know what I’m talking about. Cut the crap. You two shouldn’t be doing things alone and unauthorised.”

We weren’t alone! We had Radiant here too. “Things are going to be fine,” I reassured him. “Now, did you see anything useful?” It was much easier to ignore him over the phone. “Because I’m pretty sure they had a jamming field over the mall so, y’know, you might cut out soon if they get it up and running. Not my fault.”

“Goddamnit!” He sounded tense. “I saw you bleeding on the ground, nearly torn in half. Starlight, you need to pull back! I’m taking this t-”

The cellphone’s battery died. How weird. I guess I must have forgotten to charge it up last night.

“So that was Portent, being his usual asshole self,” I said brightly to Missy. This is what happened when your team leader was a precog who always saw the worst-case all the time. You had to learn when to watch out, but not let him worry you too much. “We’re gonna be in deep shit after this, but he did warn me that they have something that’s likely going to be more mascots inside. Probably the boss monster ones. So everyone, keep safe, watch out, and Vista - don’t let them get close to us if you can stop them.”

“Sure. How are we doing this, then?”

I turned to the boxy concrete complex and its conspicuously blacked-out windows with narrowed eyes.

“First? We find out what they’re hiding.”

Have I mentioned that Missy is terrifying? Because she is. She really, really is.

The three of us were crouched on the cold, hardened mud between the rusted chassis of an abandoned car and an industrial gas tank. We were twenty yards away from the nearest blacked out window - and yet a distorted funnel of warped space brought the sounds to us as if we had our ears pressed right up against the glass. The first room we’d checked had been a dud, but with the second we’d hit paydirt.

“... no, you don’t understand. You have to move.” A woman’s voice, with that slightly tinny note that meant she was on a cell’s loudspeakers. Yes. That was Dox. “Grab what tinkertech you can, and gee-tee-eff-oh.”

“I can’t leave this!” That was Leet’s nasal whine. “Do you know what I put into some of this stuff? I can’t trash it!”

“It’s going to be trashed. The only question is whether you’re going in the garbage too.”

“You said this job would pay great!” That was Uber. His vocabulary didn’t match his booming, presidential voice. “You said we just had to cut the power and jam the phones, and we’d be in and out before the PRT showed up.”

“Look, I had no idea Starlight would show. She must have skipped out on the Wards event that was meant to be today. They usually have her front and centre. And I have no idea why Radiant was there.” She huffed. “Guess she was just going to the mall.”

“Well, that’s what happens when someone so irrational makes the plan.”

“Irrational? Hey, are you having to draw on your power to know words with so many syllables?”

“You think you’re so clever…”

“Cleverer than you.”

“... when you fucked up. You told us this would be safe. Then Radiant and Starlight show up - and you said you’d diverted them over to the other side of the mall!”

“Oh, come on! Just because Starlight is a Blaster meathead doesn’t mean she’s one-hundred percent stupid!” Dox had an amazing ability to make you want to punch her when she was technically being complimentary. “I told you to bug out but you two had to stick around to grab the Tinkercells.”

“It was your fuck-up. Next time, we listen to me.”

Dox laughed. “Listen to you? Even if we lose everything here, we’re still better off than if we’d just-”

“Can’t you talk to your contacts?” tried Leet. “Maybe get some trucks over? See what we can get out?” He sounded like he was walking away from the window. “You don’t understand. I can’t replace a lot of the stuff here! It won’t work! Like the Mascot Maker 9000! Even if we get more of that stuff from Boston, I can’t make it again! Shit! Shit!”

I nudged Missy. “Can you get us visual?” I murmured. She looked up at me like I’d asked for the moon, but poked her head around the car and peered up at the building.

“Get ready,” she hissed back. A few gestures brought the roof to us in a dizzying trick of shifted perspective that left the distance to the corrugated metal roof no greater than stepping up onto a curb. We shuffled across hastily, careful not to make any noise, and she let space snap back to normal in the yard.

Looking between us, she put a finger on her lips and then drew it across her throat. Amy and I nodded. Moving around too much on profiled steel cladding like this would not be quiet. She’d put us down next to the wide-fanned mouth of an air vent, and a casual flick of her fingers widened one of the gaps in the grill mesh to the point where I could stick my head through it if I wanted. Then she took a deep breath, squinted, and held her hands out towards it.

The inside of the vent... bent. Except it wasn’t the vent bending, it was the space inside it. A ninety degree angle became a straight line, showing us the dark rectangular confines of an air duct disappearing down below. Another twitch, and the bottom of the duct was inches away, close enough to reach through the expanded grill and touch.

I resisted the urge. I could see what Missy was doing, and it was going to take her enough concentration and effort even without me interfering.

Her tongue stuck out of the side of her mouth as she bent space at the bottom of the duct, twisting it through ninety degrees again until our vent was looking straight along the duct inside the building. A bit like a periscope, except instead of mirrors she’d grabbed the fabric of spacetime in a couple of places and bent it like untwisting a pretzel.

I shone a flashlight-strength beam down the duct. There were two grills that I could see, one close to the bottom of the exhaust pipe and the other some way off. I cancelled the light and nodded to her, and she crunched space between our periscope-warp and the first one. Her eyes were nearly shut now, and her breathing was slow and measured as she gently, geeeeently widened the grill slats just enough for us to peek through. Amy and I leaned in on instinct and yelped as we knocked our heads together.

“Quiet!” hissed Missy. “This is hard enough without you two being like John & Johnny! Do you wanna get us caught?”

A few mutinous glares got thrown around, but we settled back as she stabilised the chain of spatial distortions and sat back to take in her handiwork. The three of us peered through an inch-wide gap two floors below us and a couple of yards along.

It wasn’t a great view. The angle was weird, and despite the crunched space having made it so that we were effectively peering out of the grill from inches away, it was awkwardly positioned to get a good look at the interior. Still, we’d lucked out and got a duct that was running along the side of the room, so we had a decent view into the open space. Uber limped back and forth, gesturing with the cell phone Dox was speaking through. One side of his face was coming up in a bruise. Leet was fluttering around the room agitatedly, dithering over things and shaking his head, wringing his hands together like a kid in a candy shop who couldn’t decide what to pick. Only instead of eager happiness at a treat, he seemed on the edge of a panic attack. He was topless, with blood-stained patches of gauze taped to his scrawny chest and bruises flowering across his back.

The rest of the room was a disorganised mess, occupied mostly by plastic folding tables heaped high with a riot of mechanical junk. Rows of wheeled bins were lined up against the walls with rubber tubing spliced into the sides, and a flatscreen TV sat on a low table in the corner with fast food containers and cans littered around it. Near the barely-visible door was a big, patchwork machine that looked like the hybrid child of an oversized air conditioning unit and a high school chemistry fume cupboard. The ‘Mascot Maker 9000’, presumably. The tables around it were covered in beakers and buckets with sealed lids and what looked uncomfortably like a dead cat, half obscured behind a pile of magazines teetering on the edge of collapse.

I narrowed my eyes, looking at the cat, the buckets and then the plastic bins along the walls. Thinking back to the store... yeah, the mascots I’d fought would fit in one of those, if they were curled up a bit. And the cat would fit in one of the buckets. Were they... growth tanks, then? Feed an animal into the machine, spit it out into the bucket, transfer it to the bins when it got big enough, then decant it?

... but how did they make the bear, then? That was way too big for anything I could see.

“Move us onto the second grill,” I murmured in Missy’s ear, and the grill slats shrunk back down. Her head tilted as she felt out the space at the end of her chain of distortions, and crunched the distance to the second grill down to nothing, then widened the gaps. We peered through. A strange, suspicious smell wafted up. I wasn’t sure if the others could smell it, as their noses were numbed by the cold, but it stunk of pool cleaner and blood and hospitals.

“Holy shit,” breathed Amy. “Is that thing meant to be Lung?”

“I... fuck, I think so,” I murmured, rocking back on my heels. We were looking at one of those above-ground swimming pools, the kind made out of a flexible plastic tub you could roll up with a steel frame to give it shape. It was at least twelve feet across, longer in the other direction, and it took up a good chunk of the room.

And inside it was something elongated and reptilian and massive. It almost filled the pool, vaguely serpentine save for the powerful limbs and underdeveloped wing membranes. The growth fluid it was submerged in obscured the details, but that four-part mouth was unmistakable.

“Shit,” I muttered. “Shit. It must be a, a clone or something. Or some kind of lizard blended with his monster form. I dunno, I’m not a Tinker.” I glared at it through the distortions. Missy’s mangling of space was great for getting a view inside while sitting on the roof, but the visual effects made everything slightly off, like looking at the reflection in a subtly curved carnival mirror. Through this many warps, proportions and details were a bit of a crapshoot. But...

“I don’t think it’s done yet,” I hazarded. “I mean, if it were they’d probably have brought it, right? The mall must have been, I dunno, a test run for their creepy mutants.” I shivered, an unwanted mental image coming to mind of the sheer destruction they could have caused if they’d brought along a discount mutant Lung-lizard. No wonder Portent had seen bad futures for us coming here.

... and I was totally going to rub this in his face as an example of why coming was the right idea regardless. Because if they finished this thing, it would be bad. Capital-B Bad, for the whole city and then some.

“We need to destroy it,” I decided flatly. “Even if we don’t manage anything else in this attack, we need to destroy that thing before they can complete it.”

“Yeah,” Amy said, with feeling. “Agreed. I like my city not on fire or trashed.” She paused. “Well. Hate it less.” She nudged me in the ribs. “We’d be fucked if we were in Mississippi,” she murmured into my ear. “They’d want it to be born first.”

I had to bite my lip to avoid snorting. Goddamnit Amy. I couldn’t let her get away with this. I had to escalate or she’d win. “Just don’t tell the PRT,” I said softly. “Wards get federal funds, so, y’know. Hyde Amendment says me and Vista can’t take that thing down.”

She bit her lips to avoid making noise, then frowned. “Wait, is that a real law?”

“Yeah.”

“How do you know about it?”

“Mom.”

“Figures.”

“So,” Missy said quietly, her eyes fixed on the monster cradled in its plastic tub. Thankfully, she hadn’t heard us being bad examples to the impressionable. “How do we do this?”

I’d like to say that the plan we came up with was a measured and comprehensive strategy that took all the variables we were aware of into account. And in fact, I was the one who was going to be writing the reports back at HQ, so yeah. It was definitely the result of careful considerate planning and not just the first idea we could all agree on while crouched on a cold steel roof in mid-December above a Tinker’s workshop that contained a literal sleeping dragon.

There was no point in trying to sneak in, and we already had the advantage of surprise. Amy’s... cleanup at the mall had recharged her a little, but she wouldn’t have much time as Radiant this time. Ten, maybe twenty seconds, she guessed. And I couldn't help her recharge more. Not with Missy around.

So we got into position, watched the crystalline fractals wrap their fern-like patterns around her, and then came down through the ceiling on them.

It was louder than I’d expected, and the impact was jarring. Radiant had tried to aim for Leet’s Mascot Maker, but we’d missed it by a few feet. The concrete floor cracked underfoot, kicking up swirling clouds of dust lit up by me and Radiant. She didn’t stick around to correct her aim. Before Vista and I had even got our feet under ourselves, she turned and smashed her way through the wall towards the swimming pool. A crash of spilling water and tearing meat came a second later as she started in on the dragon. I winced as I heard an aborted screech. It was partly awake. I doubted it would be able to beat Radiant, but it would probably take her long enough to put it down that we wouldn’t be seeing her come back before her time ran out.

The drop and Radiant’s charge had happened within seconds of each other, and the idiot pair were only just reacting. Our entrance through the ceiling had drawn a shriek from Leet. I blasted him from both hands, two bolts of light cutting through the dust. One clipped the scrawny man and with a yell he dove out of the way of my follow-up flying leap. Uber grabbed for some kind of gun, but I slammed a beam of light into his arm and it went flying. Before he could dive for it the room stretched on him until we were at opposite ends of a football field. Good. Vista could keep him contained until I was done.

I fell back to the Mascot Maker as Leet snatched up some kind of welding torch, until my back was pressed against it. Then I ripped, as fast and ruthlessly as I could, and shoved half of what I stole back into the machine without care for where it was going.

The look on Leet’s face as his baby crackled and hissed and died with a series of sparking pops was almost better than the fast-food fries-and-ketchup taste of what I’d yanked out. Something cracked inside the contraption, and greenish fluid spilled out, soaking my ankles. Yeah, asshole. See how you like it when someone breaks into your home and trashes all your stuff. Not so funny now, is it?

“Hands up!” I yelled at him, stabilising my right arm with my left as I pointed my open palm right at his chest. “I mean it, Leet! Get your fucking hands right up!” My aura condensed down into it, the light cutting through the swirling dust like a flashlight through smoke. It painted an orange-yellow circle on his chest.

He squeaked, staring up at my glowing eyes shining out from behind my Alexandria helmet. He was cringing. Slowly, he raised his hands. “Oh God oh God don’t shoot!” he blurted out.

I floated forwards. “Hands on your head!” I screamed at him. “Do it! Do it now! Hands! On your! Head!”

“I’m doing it, I’m doing it!”

“Now! Kneel!”

“Huh?” His eyes were wild and snot was dripping from his nose.

“On your knees!” I roared, shining my light in his eyes and cranking up the brightness to something painful. Light, sound, noise; he was a Tinker and that meant I had to keep him off balance. Stop him thinking, stop him remembering a gadget he might have in his jacket, stop him from pulling some trick out of his sleeve. “Do not move your hands! Do not reach inside your pockets!”

He dropped to his knees. “Y-you broke my machine,” he mumbled. He bit his lip. Like he was trying not to cry.

I raised my voice. “Everything OK, Vista?”

“Yeah!” she called back. “Got Uber contained.” I risked a glance over in her direction. She was keeping Uber in between two expanded tables, preventing him from making any headway as he tried to close the distance to us, so I was free to focus on Leet.

“Where’s Dox?” I demanded of him.

“Huh?”

“Dox! The girl!”

“I… she’s not here!”

“I know she’s not here, but where is she?”

“I don’t know!” He looked away from me. He was lying. No, wait, I could see him glancing around the side towards a tinkertech gun that looked like a souped-up super soaker, lying on a pile of junk just out of reach. I swung my hand over towards it, and zapped the gun hard enough to send it skittering across the ground, out of reach.

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know!”

Questions for later. And there would be a later. God, this was where it sucked that I was out of uniform. I had nothing that could actually hold Leet on me. I always kept a pouch with fastlock ties on me on patrol, because it wasn’t like my power could safely knock people out or anything. Even a blast I pulled was still like a punch, and punching people could really hurt them. I’d already hit him hard once already today. Another hard impact to his head could kill him, if I got unlucky.

“Tell Uber to turn himself in!” I ordered him.

“And then what?”

“We’ll hand you over to the cops.” I floated slightly closer, intensifying my glow. “If he doesn’t stop fighting and surrender, I’ll have to take him down. Hard.”

He swallowed, visibly running the numbers in his head. “Uber! She’s got me! She… she wants you to give up!”

Unfortunately, he wasn’t going to do the goddamn sensible thing. “Mascots!” yelled Uber at an ear-splitting volume. “Attack!”

There was a split-second pause as I tried to figure out what he was talking to. We hadn’t seen any mascots except the dragon, and Radiant was still- wait. That had been in a growth tank. But it had woken up enough to fight back, even if it had gone quiet now. That meant-

I had just enough time to realise my mistake before all the wheeled bins along the adjacent wall burst open and spewed forth a pack of screaming mutants.

Well, wasn’t he predictable?

Luckily, Vista was as fast on the uptake as I was. Distance warped, and the bins were half a football field away in the blink of an eye. There were maybe a dozen of them, immature and half-grown and somehow even more unsettling for it. Neoteny did not work for them. Not one bit. The childishly oversized heads and underdeveloped features combined with the growth fluid dripping off them to make them look like something out of a horror movie. And not a high budget one. The kind with fake slime and terrible special effects. Except these were real, and no matter how weird they looked, those claws and teeth were no joke.

I’m no Legend. Not even close. But that’s not a low bar to fall short of, and I was fucking freaked by what was charging at us. The lights overhead flickered and died as I ripped everything I could from the grid only to shove it back at out them. My blistering volley of counter-fire scorched and burned and blasted through them hard enough to light up the room and crater the wall. But though the monsters went down, we paid for our moment of distraction.

With Vista keeping them away from us so I could shoot, she’d lost focus on Uber. The space between them sprung back to normalcy like a rubber band. And he was big, fast, strong, and didn’t hesitate to hit a kid. He was on Vista before I finished firing, moving like a boxer despite his limp - and he hit her so hard she tripped over fallen debris and went over backwards.

Oh, that was not going to happen.

My last beam carved through a mutant hedgehog, and movement from the other side of the room drew my attention. Leet, the little rat, had scrambled over to the not-a-super-soaker and had it trained on me. I could taste the stale thrum of the power cells in it. Except Uber was moving up on Vista and… I made my decision. My blast picked Uber off his feet and tossed him into one of the overturned tables. And that let Leet get his shot off at me.

“Fuck you!” he howled gleefully.

With a sound like tearing fabric, a bright white-blue beam lanced towards me. And did precisely nothing. A couple of feet from me, the jet of Tinkertech bullshit came apart and I inhaled the overly-sweet milkshake tang. All that ruffled my hair was a room-temperature breeze.

“You alright, Vista?”

“J-just… just winded,” she wheezed.

“‘Kay. What was that, Leet?” I shook my head, my helmet sliding around on my sweat-slick brow. God, thank goodness it had been an energy weapon. I’d thought it was, from the shape of its barrel, but that would have been a really bad time to be wrong. “Plasma? A laser? Some kind of projected forcefield gun? And you used it on me? Did you, like, forget what my power does?” I drifted over to block his line of sight to Vista, and punched out a blast that took out Uber’s legs as he tried to pull himself upright. He went down heavily, hissing through clenched teeth. I didn’t think I’d broken something by hitting him hard in the legs a second time today, but I didn’t really care if I had. “Or is it just that you’re an idiot?”

“I hate you.” It wasn’t a howl or a wail. It was something bitter and resentful. A whine, really.

“Bluh bluh ‘I hate you’.” I shook my head. “You’re pathetic. And an idiot.”

“You’re a bitch! God! This is so unfair!” He took in a breath. “Well, at least the dragon will have...”

“Hey, you finished with these morons?” Amy called in. It was too perfectly timed. She had to have been waiting and listening for the chance to interrupt. God, I could kiss her for that, because all the fight went out of him. “I turned the dragon into ground meat. It really wasn’t that hard.”

“A pathetic baby who bases his life around his shitty toys.” I wished I had a camera. Maybe Emma would feel better about what had happened if she could see me - and him - now. “Leet, put your fucking hands up!”

He slowly raised his hands. And then his expression shifted, taking on an edge of a very stupid person who’s had an idea they think is very smart. “Dox!” Leet screamed through the blinding glare of my aura, his voice shrill. “Hit the Homeward Coin!”

For a moment, nothing happened. All the hair on the back of my neck rose up. Then the two men stiffened up. Uber screamed - and so did Missy, as his hands turned grey and started to flake away, his fingers coming apart into falling chunks as he stared at them in horror. The same thing was happening to Leet, who curled up into a ball. I watched as his ear fell off, and felt my stomach turn as his left eye and cheekbone caved inward into a collapsing skull while the rest of his face sagged like wet cardboard-

I couldn’t bear to watch any more. I looked away, clapping a hand to my mouth and dry heaving.

Eventually, the screams stopped. “Is… is it over?” Missy asked after a little longer, voice cracking.

“... yeah,” Amy choked from the doorway to the swimming pool room. It sounded like she was barely holding back vomit. “You two can look back now.”

I peeked. Just clothing on the floor. Clothing and grey dust. “God.” I wanted to throw up. “That was… grim.”

“That looked like it hurt a lot,” Missy said in a tiny voice. She coughed. “What… what happened?”

I limped over to her, feeling my thigh ache. I couldn’t even remember when I’d whacked it. My body was taking its measure of the aches and bruises as I came down from the adrenaline high. I wrapped my arm around her shoulder, leaning on her. “I… I think. That looked like Oni Lee’s power, right? Slower, but he turns into… into dust like that.” I thought back, trying to remember if there had been some weekly briefing that had mentioned Half-A having a run in with the ABB. But I couldn’t. Not when I just felt limp and exhausted and sick.

“Mm,” Amy grunted. She had a hand over her mouth. “Kinda. Just slower. And really. Not good.”

“Yeah. So I reckon that was meant to be some kind of teleporter. Some kind of escape thing.” It helped to try to be clinical about it. If I stuck to thinking tactically, I wouldn’t have to think about the way Leet’s face had given way like a hollow paper-mache mask left out in the rain. “I dunno if it worked. Or if something went wrong.”

That seemed to be too much for Amy, who started retching, palms on her knees. “God, why did I watch it all? It… it got really bad towards the end.” She spat on the floor, and wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. “I hope they’re wishing they had just surrendered.”

“Yeah.” This was Leet. Maybe he’d killed himself with the fuck-up. Or maybe not. We couldn’t change anything now. But I did hope they’d survived. That looked like a horrible way to die. “Everyone OK?”

“I’m fine,” Missy said, trying to sound brave.

“Yeah, I’m not trusting you on that because Uber punched you pretty hard,” I said.

“I’m fine! His hand came off worse! He hit my chestplate!”

“And we’ll see that later.” I glanced at Amy. She was fine. She always was when she came out of Radiant mode, and aside from a little sogginess to her clothes from the portable pool she’d destroyed, she was barely even mussed. “Okay, then. Right. Well, we lost the villains - hell, we never even saw Dox.” Something occurred to me. “And we have to assume she has surveillance set up here, so remember, you two, we’re still in public.” I couldn’t resist looking up at the ceiling, and adding, “Yeah, sorry Dox. You don’t win there.”

“Ha! Yeah,” Amy said, flipping off the ceiling.

“Huh?” asked Missy.

“Never mind.”

Missy leaned into me. “Can you track where they went?”

I shook my head. “They got away,” I said bitterly. “I won’t be able to follow them - there was some kind of energy field, but there’s no trail. Nothing to follow.” Stretching, I rubbed my aching right arm. “We’re probably going to have to call this in, Vista.”

She winced like she’d bitten a lemon. “Maybe Piggot will be happy that we took down this… weird animal cloning place?”

Yeah, no. We both knew that wasn’t going to happen.

Chapter Text

“I don’t know exactly what you were thinking.” A grey, soulless office for a grey soulless woman. “Or if you were thinking at all.”

It was time to take my licks. And that meant standing in front of Director Piggot’s desk, hands behind my back as I stared at the far wall instead of the bleached-blonde tyrant in front of me. The Director wasn’t a pretty woman at the best of times, and right now her jowls were wobbling with anger at me and Missy. Which was, of course, mostly unjustified.

The lights flickered overhead. I didn’t think it was me, but she only intensified her glare. “And control yourself,” she snapped.

“I am controlled,” I retorted, which I probably shouldn’t have.

“Hrmm. You haven’t answered me.”

“It’s not like I went looking for trouble!” I inhaled. “I was at the mall with a friend! I didn’t have my costume with me! It’s not like I planned to wind up like this! I was just on the scene and had to do something! I saved some girls from Tinkertech creatures, then helped evacuate the mall - and then, like I told you already, I tracked Half-A back to the facility where they were creating those things! And we nearly caught Uber and Leet, too! They only got away because they pulled a teleport escape out of nowhere!”

She clicked her tongue. “You’re acting like your initial actions justify everything you did.”

Yes. They did. I bit back what I wanted to say because that would get me shouted at. “I… I am sorry for getting caught up in the moment and forgetting to call things in after I got out of the jamming signal that meant I couldn’t do it at the mall,” I offered.

Of course she didn’t accept it. “You knew exactly what you were doing. You chose to not call this in so you could chase them down with the aid of Radiant. Who isn’t even a Ward. And more than that, you chose to disobey an order from Portent. That’s why I don’t believe you forgot to call things in. If you had simply forgotten, you would have held back when he contacted you.” She glanced over at the door, where Missy was waiting outside. “And then you dragged a thirteen-year old into your insubordination.”

That statement was a trap, and we both knew it. Anything I said - denial or defence - would get me further into trouble. I kept my mouth shut, staring straight ahead with my arms rigid at my sides and my back ramrod stiff, as Piggot went over things. At length.

“I suppose you think I’m talking down to you like you’re a child,” she said, in something of a conclusion. “That you cannot wait to graduate to the Protectorate and get to do your own thing.”

She wasn’t wrong. Right now I just wanted her to get out of my face. “No, director.”

Piggot let out a short chuckle. “Things won’t change. If Armsmaster or Velocity had done the same, I would be shouting at them. They’re adult members of the Protectorate and I would be furious at them too if they pulled a stunt like you just did. Because we have these rules for a reason. If you encounter a villain at a crime scene, you call it in as soon as you can. If you are trailing a villain, you call it in. If you identify a villain’s lair, you call it in. And you are not a stupid girl, Starlight. You know exactly why we have those rules.” She paused. “Go ahead. Tell me why.”

My face felt warm. “So that the PRT has this information,” I said, trying not to look away.

“And?”

“... so that you know where your capes are.”

“Yes. But it’s not because I’m a ‘control freak’, like I know some of you call me. It’s for your safety too, because you capes need proper support from professionals. What if we knew for a fact that the Half-A hideout had a lethal grid of Tinkertech sonics, but because Miss Starlight the fifteen-year old felt she was above the rules, she didn’t call it in and all three of you had wound up dead?” She folded her hands over each other. “You are not some law-breaking vigilante who’s little different from the criminals out there. You are a teenage girl who is under the protection of the Wards. And you will act like that.”

I blinked heavily. I… I wasn’t upset. I just didn’t like being shouted at. “I understand.”

Piggot paused, looking at my face, and narrowed her eyes. Her voice softened fractionally. “Part of the reason that I am angry with you right now is that I wish I didn’t have to be. You started off well and let yourself down.

“What you did in the mall was good. The BBPD says you helped a lot by providing an evacuation point, and you thinned out the Tinkertech creatures. And you drove off Half-A, and avoided heavy civilian casualties or collateral damage.” She chopped her hand into her open palm. “We can’t allow the proliferation of bio-Tinker weapons. Ever. Even if they were short-lived sterile ones like these ones turned out to be, we have to act. And so if you had simply got out of the jammed area and called us in then I would be giving you nothing but praise. I would have sent backup to support you while you trailed them to their base.

“But I have to punish you because you took such a significant risk here. I believe you, Miss Starlight, have to be punished because if I do not punish you for your actions here, you will think you can pull a stunt like this again. Because you have some talent at getting people to do what you say, and you got lucky this time. You haven’t ever seen an operation go south in a major way, and you don’t understand how easily things could have gone wrong. You are young and overconfident and think you are invincible. You are not. And neither are the people with you.

“Do you understand? I am being hard on you here because I am disappointed in you. Because I thought you could be better. Because I know you can be better.”

I swallowed. “I… I understand,” I repeated. It hurt.

“I’m going to schedule a disciplinary review for you, and don’t expect it to be easy. I want to catch this behaviour early. There may be additional punishments, and until that review is carried out, you’re removed from all patrol schedules.” Piggot nodded to me. “You’re dismissed. Clean yourself up, get back into costume, and for God’s sake change out of that stupid toy Alexandria helmet. Oh, and send in Vista.”

My pen squeaked against the whiteboard. My cup of mushroom instant soup steamed.

“Leet said something about Boston,” I muttered to myself, adding the city’s name to my mind-map. “It was to do with the cloning vat-tank-thing. Did he say anything more?” I couldn’t remember. “Okay, okay, okay. Something for them to investigate. And-”

The mask-up alarm sounded, and I jammed my helmet back on my head. My helmet. The toy one was sitting - signed as promised - on the table.

“What are you doing in here?” Portent asked as the door unsealed.

“Jotting down everything I can remember. On Uber, Leet, Dox, their tech, what they said… everything.” I clenched my teeth. “Of course, because of you I’m not going to be able to help. Odds are, neither will Missy. We’re probably going to be banned from patrols until spring. At least.”

“You can’t get away with blaming this on me.”

I whirled on the tall black guy approaching my mindmap whiteboards with his gym bag thrown over one shoulder. He was in casuals, as he almost always was at base; grey domino mask, comfortable loose pants, a - tight - blue t-shirt. It was one of the things I’d noticed about Portent. He didn’t like his costume very much, and only wore it when he had to. “I don’t see why not,” I retorted.

He ran one hand through his cornrows. “I ordered you back. And you should thank me that I told Piggot that you got caught in a jamming field. Things would have gone bad for you if I hadn’t.”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“Yes, you do.” He stepped in, and I had to tilt my head back slightly. He knew what he was doing. Portent was a foot taller than me, and I was already five-and-a-half feet at fifteen. He loomed. “You need to stop pulling the ‘oh no my battery failed I’m out of communications’ trick.”

“But I didn’t.” I paused. “And even if I did, why would you cover for me?”

“‘Cause you’re on thin ice. You know Piggot is going to have you in front of a full-on disciplinary board if you push it and PR won’t save you.”

“Yeah? I know.” What did he think I was, a child? “What, have you come to warn me about the awful, terrible future that’s going to come because of that?”

He leaned against the wall, working his wrist. “You’re being an asshole, Taylor. Why?”

“Why?” I crossed my arms. “Because I was having a nice day today with my friend and then those gamer losers decided to fuck everything up. And then Piggot decided that the fact that I tracked those shitheads back to their lair and wrecked the clone-Lung-dragon thing they were growing for God-knows-what kind of dumbass stunt probably involving a castle and a princess or something… the fact that Piggot decided all of that wasn’t worth anything and just spent twenty minutes chewing me out and putting me in for review? Gee, I wonder if that’s why I’m pissed off!” I probably sounded like I was whining and I didn’t care. I’d had a bad day.

His lantern-jaw tightened. “I saw you die. Missy too.”

“That doesn’t…” I bit back what I was about to say.

“Do you want to die?”

“What was the chance of that happening, huh? Give me a percentage.”

“You know I don’t do probability like that. What I saw was you torn apart by something big. Bleeding out on the ground. So, yes. I went to Piggot. Because I see bad outcomes for you more than I do any of the others.” He paused, lips twisting. “You’re welcome. If you took fewer risks, I wouldn’t have to see you die so much.”

God! This was why it was such a pain in the ass trying to argue with a precognitive, and doubly so when his power always seemed to tell him about the absolute worst-case outcomes. Because even if he had a stick so far up his ass it was triggering his gag reflex, it must really suck to have his power. I huffed, shoulders slumping. “It was only Uber and Leet,” I tried, but I’d lost the argument and I knew it. And so did he.

“If ‘only Uber’ had grabbed a pistol, what would you have done?” He stepped up to the board, tapping by the man’s name. “Uber is a loser. A loser can still shoot you dead. Especially when he could suddenly be a master with a handgun. And you didn’t have your armour on.”

My face was red, a mixed blush of embarrassment and anger making itself known. “You’re doing it right now,” I mumbled. “Using your power on me to win this argument. So you don’t say anything that’s bad for you.”

“The important thing here is that we learn from this,” he said, not denying it. Asshole.

“You mean ‘I’ learn from this.”

“No, we. The PRT - and the Wards.” He nodded to the boards. “Getting down all the info you can remember about Half-A, that’s good. When they show back up again, we’re going to need to be ready.”

“If they show back up again.” I pointed at Leet’s bubble, tracing a line up to the ‘New Tech’ section and the ‘Teleporter - based off Oni Lee?’ thoughts. “It was… pretty gory how they teleported out.”

“I think we will.”

“Is that your power?” I demanded. “Or just your natural downer-ness?”

“We plan for them showing up again, and if they don’t, well, that’s two less villains in this town,” he said, not answering the question. “But there’s still one of them left. This ‘Dox’ girl - you have a lot less on her.”

“I only saw a little bit of her - one short talk when she was sending her image down a TV, and an overheard conversation.” I gritted my teeth. “She is probably the most annoying person I have ever talked to.”

“Even more annoying than me?” Oh goddamnit, now he was smiling and he was handsome when he smiled. It made a change from his normal neutral-to-frown face he had when looking at me. This was unfair.

“Yes, actually.” I searched for words to try to explain to him. “Imagine a Tinker sat down and decided to try to create the most annoying lifeform possible. Like, put a lot of effort into it. That’s Dox.”

Portent flashed that unfair smile of his at me. “Well, I guess I got to work harder if I’m not the most annoying being in existence to you anymore. I want to get everything written down that you can remember from those talks. And I’m going to go talk to Missy - and Radiant, too, if New Wave will let me. Please don’t talk to them about what you remember until I’ve done that. We need to work out what she can do. I have a feeling she’s more dangerous than the other two.”

“I get you,” I agreed. I didn’t mean to smile back. It just happened. It was good to move away from people going on about what I’d done wrong and onto this talk of powers and tactics. “Uber and Leet have got more dangerous with a smart girl on their team. I don’t think Uber likes her at all but he still listens to her.”

“You think they don’t get along?”

“Oh yeah, not at all.”

“And why would that be…”

We had a productive half-hour, and I really felt we’d got things cleared up more about Half-A by the end. Portent liked nice clear intel and to know what he was getting into, and he certainly wasn’t wrong. Everything was cleaner this way.

It was only after he left that I realised he’d left me embarrassed and humiliated, and then swiftly guided me away from that to a tactical discussion on Half-A. My knuckles whitened around the marker pen and I hurled it at the wall. Urgh! He made me so mad! Fucking Thinkers! And stupid handsome smiles! My hormones needed to sit down, shut up, and leave me alone. I was trying to be a professional superhero here!

I’d already been told that Mom was coming to pick me up. Just wonderful. She was probably going to shout at me more.

The drive back with Mom was quiet. I think it was because both of us suspected that there was going to be shouting, and neither of us wanted to do it in the car where people might hear us. It was pitch black outside, with the eyes of cars cutting sharp lines through the misty night. I raised the temperature in the car so it wasn’t so bitingly cold. Mom had to have noticed it, but she didn’t say a thing.

I should call Emma. I’d texted her to say I was fine, but I needed to talk to her. I just didn’t feel up to it. Our day out had been ruined and she’d been brought closer to my cape life than I ever wanted her. The carefree happiness that I’d had this morning had been replaced with a brooding cocktail of anger at how callously Half-A had terrorised people, soured triumph at how they’d spoilt our victory, and shame. I’d been having fun with her. Or I’d been trying to. In the moments when my work mindset hadn’t been intruding into my free time, it had been like being transported back to better, happier days. Emma had been doing her best to help me relax, had forgiven my slips, and... it had been fun. Simple, happy fun.

My PRT phone buzzed. My nostrils flared as I checked it. Was it some more bullshit from Portent? No, it was a text from Vicky. Well, that wasn’t quite as bad as it could have been, but I knew for a fact that I was about to experience a horror.

I winced. Great. Now Vicky was mad with me again. My thumbs danced over the screen as I answered, and her response was almost immediate. I didn’t need it so quickly. Maybe, just maybe, she could have used the time to clean up her spelling and grammar. Add some punctuation. Small things like that. But that was an old subject of argument - okay, bickering - between us. She claimed I texted like an old granny.

I am sorry we didn’t think to

I trailed off. No. This was my PRT phone, and that meant privacy was a myth. I deleted that line, and started again.

I leaned my head against the cold window as the Christmas lights streamed by. The lesser part of my mind was, as usual, wondering how a girl who was so smart could put no effort at all into making her texts readable. Because it wasn’t like Vicky was dumb. She just texted like she could barely string two words together. But the main part of my brain was wrapped up in running through the events of today again and again. Playing them before my eyes as we drove down streets lined with fat plastic Santas where every house was decked in gaudy lights.

Our place was a merciful island of darkness in our street. Mom didn’t believe in the commercialised corporate Christmas. Or indeed in any Christmas. Dad had been the religious one in our family, but Mom took a certain twisted delight in refusing to engage in the tasteless neighbourhood display of lights and garish colours. A delight which I did, incidentally, share. I was her daughter, after all.

We pulled into the garage and I trailed in after Mom. She went straight through the kitchen, beelined for the armchair by the living room window, and sat down in it. I hovered next to the kitchen island, fidgeting under her gaze.

After a long, oppressive moment, she closed her eyes tiredly and dropped her head into her hands.

Guilt unfurled its sickly-sweet petals in my stomach and throat, choking me with regrets. She wasn’t yelling or scolding or lecturing me. She was just sitting there, looking exhausted. Disappointed. Hurt.

“I-” I started, and then stopped. What could I say? “I... just wanted a day out with my friend.”

“I know, Taylor.” Mom’s voice was tired. Defeated. “You always just want a day out with your friend, or to help the fire department out a little, or take an easy patrol for one of your friends. And then something like this comes up, and you leap for it with both hands.”

I hated it when she got like this. When I got her like this. Because it always seemed to be me who pushed her past quiet disapproval into exhausted inability to cope. I didn’t think about it much, but Mom worried about me all the time. Every time I got caught near the edge of a firefight or wound up Mastered in an apartment block fire or had to fight a dragon, it wore on her. She was only forty one, but there were grey streaks in her hair that I didn’t remember being there before... before Dad had died. Before I’d triggered. Before she’d had to be a single mother to a young hero.

I edged closer, remorseful words curdling on my tongue, and settled gingerly on the edge of the couch. She had her eyes screwed shut and was breathing deeply, holding back tears. I hated it even more when she cried. It was rare, but it was always awful when it happened, and worse still when I was the cause.

After a few moments, she got up and walked jerkily back into the kitchen. I stayed on the couch as she clattered around making tea, running through things I could say in my head.

She came back with two mugs and set the Woodstock one down in front of me on the coffee table, then settled back into the armchair and took a long sip from her own. I picked mine up and sniffed. Camomile and orange. Not my favourite, but Mom liked it when she wanted to destress after a long day.

“What happened?” she said softly to her mug.

I took a deep breath, and began.

Explaining everything I was allowed to explain took us through two mugs of herbal tea each, and necessitated a few pauses as I worked out exactly where the lines were drawn for what I needed to explain, what I shouldn’t explain, and what the PRT probably wouldn’t want me to explain but which I was going to tell Mom anyway because she deserved to know what her daughter was doing without getting stonewalled behind a giant collage of CLASSIFIED stamps. I left out where Half-A’s base had been, obviously, and “Lung-lizard hybrid dragon mutant” became “big monster”. It had only been two weeks since I’d promised her I wouldn’t fight him, and I didn’t particularly want to see whether she’d take this as breaking my word on that score. Which it shouldn’t, because it wasn’t like I knew they had the thing when I tailed them there, and I couldn’t leave them alone to move it once we’d got there and found them getting ready to leave, and anyway Amy had been the one who fought it, but... well, it was just easier to leave that part out.

I didn’t tell her about Amy’s ‘refuelling’ from the mascots, either. Nobody knew about that except me and Vicky, not even the rest of New Wave. The lie that she could turn back before running out her clock and retain enough charge for a second transformation the same day was a well-practiced one, and I told it with a straight face and nothing to prove otherwise. After all, she usually clung to every second of Radiant-time she could; it wasn’t like she ever let go of her Breaker state early if she could help it. The rare occasions when she had to refuel for a second bout had only ever happened when she was with me or Vicky or both - and neither of us were going to rat her out.

Mom sat silently as I stuttered my way through the later bits, looking up at me between sips of tea and emanating quiet disapproval. I tailed off at Uber and Leet’s escape, mumbling that it had been an experimental teleport that had ‘looked nasty’ and not going into any more detail.

After a while, she sighed again.

“I’m proud of you for protecting people at the mall,” she said. “Taking charge, getting them out of there, helping everyone feel safe. You stepped up and acted like a real hero. But Taylor, why did you follow them, afterwards?”

I’d heard that refrain from half a dozen different people back at HQ. Piggot might have been more intimidating, but it hurt the most coming from Mom.

“They treated Emma like meat!” I screwed my hands into fists, glaring down at my feet - and there was the blush. Not of embarrassment, but of anger. “We were in the changing rooms at Venus when they showed up and-and-and I didn’t have my costume and they were going into the changing rooms, they had those monsters and those drones with cameras on and they thought it was funny and I heard someone scream and I had to help but that asshole Uber, he-he-he saw Emma over the feed and said things about her and then… and then when she was like ‘we’re fifteen’ he was just like ‘could’ve fooled me’ and laughed!”

I bit my lip, feeling so pathetic that now of all times I was getting weepy. “I wanted to blast that stupid drone so much but I couldn’t because I wasn’t in costume and the worst thing was… they kept on treating it all like it was a joke. That cat-thing clawed at me and it hurt - no, don’t worry, mom, I sucked down some electricity to fix it - but they were still making jokes and I couldn’t use my powers and I felt…

“... I felt helpless.”

Mom wrapped her long fingers around her mug, pursing that wide mouth of hers - so much like mine. It made her look… old. “Oh. Oh, Taylor.”

I blinked against the stinging in my eyes before it could turn into tears and sniffed. I didn’t want to cry. I wanted to scream and rant. “I couldn’t just do nothing,” I insisted. “I couldn’t. They didn’t deserve to get away with what they were doing. I was there and I forced them away from the mall, but they got away with everything they were there for. They needed to lose. To be shown that they can’t do that kind of sh- that kind of thing. That they couldn’t… that they couldn’t look at Emma like that and laugh like that and… and… and...”

“I understand.” She raised one finger. “I understand why. Trust me. I do. When the world seems unwilling to change, when people seem to get away with things because of a system that’s always rigged…”

“Exactly!”

“I hadn’t finished. Yes, that’s something that can be all so tempting, my dear. But violence has a habit of turning good intentions sour. I’m not saying that there’s never a place in the world for force, because when a game is set up so you’ll never win, sometimes it’s necessary to overturn the board. But it’s very easy to resort to violence, and it reinforces patterns of violent hegemony. Violence is a treacherous weapon, prone to turn in the hand of the wielder, and worse, it shapes patterns of thought.”

Mom seemed to be going off on a tangent, and I said as much.

“Maybe. Or maybe I want to ask you why you felt that attacking those two idiot boys was the only solution you had?”

“I wasn’t doing it just to attack them!” I protested. It... well, it wasn’t entirely a lie. “And I told you, they had monsters, they were cooking up something horrible! I had to follow up on the trail they were leaving, it was the only chance we had to tail them back to their base! It... it was about protecting people! Taking action!”

She pinned me with a sharp look. One of her ‘Professor Hebert’ looks, the one she used when she’d just found a crack in someone’s argument and was about to apply a chisel to it. “You just told me it was about them needing to lose,” she said, one eyebrow raised.

“It-” I struggled for words. “It was about... about not just rolling over for them! If everyone just rolled over for the gangs, they’d have free run of the city! What other way is there to stand up to them?”

“Didn’t you say that Director Piggot is angry at you for not informing the PRT?” She was just looking at me, with that disappointed air. She wasn’t raising her voice like I was. Every word was calm. “Doesn’t that suggest that something would have been done if you hadn’t decided to put yourself, Amy and Missy in danger? Missy who is, if I recall correctly, thirteen?”

“I... there wasn’t...” I squirmed. It wasn’t fair, how she could pin me in with words like this. “There wasn’t time, they’d have...” Cut me out of things? Not let me help? No, those wouldn’t go down well. What had I been thinking? What had my logic been? I tried to remember...

Mom sat there, watching me while I tried to find a response. A way to explain that yeah, Missy might be thirteen, but she was tough and smart and creative with her power and a better cape than half the parahumans in the city, and yeah, it’s not like I wanted to see her at risk, but she hadn’t been. Not when we’d had Radiant with us to take care of the dragon before it could wake up. And it wouldn’t have mattered if Velocity and Armsmaster had gone in and taken them down; that wouldn’t have taught them anything. Of course they’d lose to two adult heroes plus backup! But being beaten like that wouldn’t change their fucked-up capebro attitudes, they’d just make excuses and keep thinking the same way!

But if I said that, it would come out wrong and she wouldn’t get it like I did and then she’d find some way to pull it apart. I couldn’t verbalise what I knew to be true.

I gave up trying and hung my head, trembling with frustration.

Mom leaned over and wrapped her hands around mine, warm from her mug. “Taylor. You’re flailing. And you’re not being honest about your motives. Not with me, and perhaps worse, not with yourself. If you can’t be honest about why you’re doing something with yourself, then that risks leading you down a very dangerous path.” She gripped tighter. “Maybe, just maybe, you were angry and embarrassed because two petty man-children threatened you in a place you were meant to feel safe. You got mad.”

“But…”

“And it’s alright to be angry about things like that. Not just because you have every right to be, but because anger at male oppression and casual objectification can - and has - done great things.” I could feel the faint tremble in her hands. “But you have to be honest and accept that you’re angry - and channel that anger towards making things better. Rather than just wallow in it, denying that you’re even angry, and waving your claim of higher principles as your banner. When you really just wanted to kick them so hard in the balls they’d be hunched over for days.”

“Mom!” Missy swearing was something which didn’t sound right, but Mom talking like this was even more jarring.

“Stop trying to deflect. So. Mmm. Really, Taylor, why did you do it?”

I knew what she was talking about, behind the careful phrasing. But she was right; my temper was something that could get me in serious trouble if I let it run unchecked. I was a powerful flying Blaster, and if I started using that to solve my problems without thought of consequence... that would make me like her. Flinching at the thought, I hunched my shoulders, looked down at my empty mug and examined my actions again.

“I was angry,” I muttered. “I was humiliated. I hated them for perving on me and Emma even when they knew we were underage, and for scaring her and for hurting me. I wanted to shut them up and make them stop being such... such smug assholes.” I paused, warring with myself, but decided on honesty in the face of maternal disapproval. “And I... maybe I was a bit scared, too. Of what they might do if they got away with it - and of Dox. She’s not an idiot like them. She’s smart, Mom. Too smart. They’re way more dangerous with her helping them.”

Mom rolled her shoulders. “I don’t know what to do with you,” she said. “I… I don’t want you to just become a tool of the authorities. And given how often I hear about you pushing the rules, I don’t think you’re good at being a tool. But I worry about you, Taylor. I really do. You have Danny’s temper, and… well. I do understand where you’re coming from. But the Wards are meant to be keeping you safe, and I have issues with how well they’re doing that. And some of that lies on you. You,” she bit her lip, “you won’t let them keep you safe. And I got called up and they told me you’d gone off and gone after supervillains and…”

“Mom…”

“Taylor, I can’t lose you because of this.” Her words were ones I knew were coming, and they still hurt. “You’ve got every right to be angry but… but you can’t let the anger take over, and you can’t…” She swallowed thickly. “You just can’t.”

“Mom!” I threw myself forward, jostling the coffee table with my hip, and flung my arms around her waist in a tight hug. “It’s okay,” I said into her side. “It’s okay, please don’t get upset. I’m sorry. I’ll do better, I promise.”

I felt her breath hitch a little, and her arms came down and settled around me.

“Do you mean that, though, Taylor? Or will you just forget the next time you see an injustice and get frustrated?”

“I will.” I looked up at her, kneeling awkwardly by the armchair and leaning awkwardly across her lap. From this angle I could see the lines around her eyes, and the streaks of grey in her hair that losing Dad and worrying about me had put there. “I will, I promise, mom. I’ll take my Console duty and play by the rules and make friends with the new girl and do better from now on. I will. I don’t want you to lose me either.”

She brushed my hair back, judging my sincerity just like she had when I was a kid promising to go to bed after ‘just one more chapter’ instead of staying up reading all night. Whatever it was she looked for to tell whether I was being honest, she found it. A slight smile replaced the terse look of worry and disappointment.

“You’re still grounded for the next week,” she said. “No reading until all your homework is done - and you do it down here, not up in your room.”

... that was fair, I guessed. At least I’d be out for the winter break. I nodded without complaint, and she stroked my hair again before dislodging my awkward hug.

“And you can help me make dinner, too.”

I nodded again and got up. I wouldn’t complain, I wouldn’t object, and I’d be a perfectly behaved Ward and daughter for as long as my punishment lasted. I’d keep my temper in check and get to know Megumi and obey all the rules.

And the next time I ran into Half-A in the line of duty, I would follow all of the guidelines and all of my orders and be the model of professionalism as I wrecked their fucking faces.

Chapter Text

The first step in being a better daughter was pulling my grades up. Not that they were low - I got mostly As and Bs, and the occasional C was down to Ward stuff getting in the way of my weaker subjects. But I’d promised mom I would try harder, and that meant making more of an effort.

Unfortunately, that meant paying attention in class even when it was kind of boring and I knew the material already.

I had English first period with Mrs Orde. She was kind of a hardass, but English was one of my better classes, so she never gave me trouble. Unfortunately, she was the kind of hardass who didn’t let anyone slack off even on the last day of classes before winter break. I dropped into my seat between Sam and Leah, interrupting a whispered conversation before the bell rang, and gave them both friendly nods.

“Hey. Last day, huh?”

“And none too soon,” agreed Leah with a flick of blonde hair. “I’ve been sitting on the fifth book of the Wind and Earth Saga since November. Starting tonight I’m gonna reread the whole series from the start to catch up before I get into it.”

Sam and I traded dubious looks. Both of us were bookish, but Leah took bibliophilia to another level.

“Just don’t forget to eat,” Sam cautioned. “And, you know, charge your phone so you don’t drop off the face of the earth for a solid week while we try to get in touch with you.”

“Yeah yeah.” Leah waved her off dismissively, which I personally felt was rich given she’d done both before. I looked her up and down out of the corner of my eye while I laid my books out, as was my habit. Leah needed looking out for. She was still too thin, but she’d improved since summer. If she took better care of herself and wasn’t so neurotic about her weight, she’d be really pretty. If only she believed it when Sam and I told her that.

“What about you, Taylor? Any big plans?”

I had plenty of plans, but not many I could tell civilians. Keep struggling to follow all the Ward regulations even when they felt like a cage. Redouble my firefighter volunteering. Try to get back on patrol duty. Beat the shit out of Half-A when they inevitably made some kind of lame holiday-game themed robbery. Help Megumi get a handle on her powers and try to make up for my terrible first impression. Argue with Portent. Go to the dull, uncomfortable PR events the Wards put on at the local malls.

“Not much,” I lied. “You know, stay at home, spend time with mom. Maybe hang out with Amy a bit. Go out somewhere with you guys, if we can drag Leah out of her fantasy doorstoppers.”

Sam made a sheepish face, running a hand through her short-cut brown hair. “Ah. Uh. About that.”

I sighed. Sam didn’t exactly scream ‘rich’ - tomboyish, puckish, usually wearing vintage clothes from thrift stores. It made it easy to forget that her mom owned a biotech company and her dad worked in DC. “You’re not going to be here,” I said, already resigned to it.

She grimaced and shrugged. “Vacation over in Cali. Sorry. I’d have asked if you wanted to come along, but you always say no.”

Wards were in theory free to take vacation time whenever we wanted. Subject to approval. In practice, you’d get vacation time over Christmas, but for ‘security reasons’ you wouldn’t get permission to go out of state. And since you were around, well, you wouldn’t mind showing up for some PR displays at the busiest time of the year, would you? I pasted on a carefree smile and shrugged. “Looks like we’ll all be doing our own thing, then. I’ll try to dig Leah out at some point and make sure she’s not fallen into Narnia.”

“Hey! I’d wind up in a better fantasy world! And-”

Her rebuttal was cut off as Mrs Orde came in, and then it was the cavalcade of fun that was The Catcher in the Rye. ‘Fun’, to rhyme with ‘impromptu dental surgery’. I didn’t think much of Salinger’s writing. Though we’d done Fahrenheit 451 last semester, and that had held my attention better, if not always in a positive way. Mom was a literature professor. I knew good books, and these were at best terminally overrated.

Regardless, I suffered through the drudgery of 1950s english literature and a slightly more interesting math class, where Mr Jones at least let us mess around with backgammon boards under the pretence of teaching us probability. Then I caught up with Amy in study hall. She’d just come from Biology, and was bent over a textbook and scowling, which was pretty standard for Amy in study hall.

I didn’t want to sound arrogant, but I was generally a pretty good student. Creative stuff like art and bits of english came naturally to me, and I never had much trouble with logical subjects like math or science. And while I’d have hated PE as a kid, I was a Ward now. The gym was a regular environment for me. When I struggled with classwork, it was with the rote memorisation stuff like history or languages; stuff I couldn’t work out for myself.

But that was kind of what Amy was like with... well, most of her subjects. She wasn’t stupid; she was passing all her classes, but she had to work hard to do stuff I did easily. With all the winter break homework we were getting assigned on top of whatever punishment she’d got for the whole Half-A mess, I was fully expecting to sit down next to a simmering volcano and have to offer up some hasty sacrifices to placate its wrath.

Surprisingly, though, she seemed pretty relaxed. I mean, she wasn’t all smiles and sunshine - this was Amy. But she’d calmed down a lot since I’d last seen her yesterday morning.

“You look chipper,” I commented as I sat down next to her. “Did you get out of Bio without any homework for the break or something?”

“Nah, Sheldon assigned us a ton, as usual.” She looked up from the notes. It looked like ecology stuff, so no wonder she was scowling at them. “But Mark had a good day yesterday. Like, a really good day. Good enough that he got mom to chill out and ease up on us. We actually had a family dinner without any sniping or lectures for once.”

“Even from you?” I put on an overblown expression of profound shock. “Geez, Amy, are you sure you’re feeling well? Maybe you should- ow!”

She punched me in the arm again for whining. But she was smiling playfully. “Cut it out or I’ll start sniping at you, bitch. Also, scoot over here and make yourself useful. This stuff is giving me a headache.”

“Whatever you say, your majesty.” I shunted my chair along the desk until we were side to side, and leaned over to look. “Okay, yeah, so this is all food chains stuff. Organisms that need to get food from outside sources are heterotrophs - because ‘hetero-’ means different, yeah? Autotrophs are things like plants; stuff that make their own sugars internally by absorbing light and stuff.”

She caught my eye and smirked. I was confused for a moment until I realised what she was thinking, and elbowed her.

“Starlight does not count as a vegetable. Stop grinning at me like that.”

“She has to be a vegetable. After all, she’s not a fungi.”

I just looked at Amy. I was very disappointed in her.

“Fungi.”

“Please stop.”

“Fun. Guy.”

“Just... shut up and pay attention to the worksheet.”

Snickering quietly to herself, she obeyed, and we occupied ourselves getting as much work done as we could. After all, the more we did now, the more time we had free over the next two weeks.

“Uh, Taylor?”

I looked up. Dean was hovering over us, looking awkwardly concerned and holding a math textbook. I raised a slow eyebrow, conscious of Amy giving him her best unimpressed look.

“Can I get your help with the calc stuff?” he asked. And Dean was a great guy and a good hero, but he shouldn’t ever try to lie. It was embarrassing to watch. I almost got up and went somewhere private with him to see what he really wanted, just out of pity.

“Sure, pull up a chair,” said Amy, to whom pity and mercy were foreign concepts in the context of her sister’s boyfriend. It wasn’t that she hated him, exactly, but in the grand venn diagram of things Amy held a low-key simmering contempt for in the world, Dean managed to slot in pretty close to the common centre.

... the way his expression crumpled was kind of funny, though.

“Yeah, by all means,” I said, nudging her a little with my knee under the table. “Sit down, Mr Senior, and I’ll apply my sophomore talents to the scary math two grades above mine.” Was I being mean? Probably. Was I going to stop making fun of his terrible cover story? No. No I was not.

He grimaced, but a couple of people were looking over, so he was caught. He took a seat next to me and spread his books out, clearing his throat while Amy looked on with unabashed glee from my other side. She was totally immune to his charms - and yes, I might enjoy our verbal fencing, but he was cute. But that was it; cute, rather than handsome. Shaggy blond hair, slim. Vicky bait, in other words.

“Look... how are you doing?” he murmured as quietly as he could. He couldn’t be much more conspicuous if he tried, but given he was talking to me and Amy, I was pretty sure anyone watching him very badly pretend to be asking me about homework would just figure he was looking for advice on Vicky. Which let me ignore his humiliating attempts at subtlety and focus on what the hell he was talking about.

“I’m... fine?” I said, throwing a baffled look at Amy and getting a shrug in response. “You couldn’t have asked this at lunch?”

“You’ve been looking... upset, all week,” he insisted. “Since the thing at the mall. It seemed like you were still mad about it, so I wanted to check up.”

My expression slowly shifted from confused to annoyed as he explained, and by the time he was finished I was wearing a scowl to match the one Amy had been sporting when I’d sat down. “I’m fine,” I said shortly.

“You’re really not,” he said. “Look, Taylor, I’m not judging. Just...” He looked around and lowered his voice further, “you’re mad even now-”

“Gee, I wonder why?” Amy put in, and he shot her a frustrated look.

“Even before I walked up, joking around with your friend, you’ve got this whole simmering core of,” he looked for the right words, “of anger and frustration and something else crammed down tight underneath. I know you’ve been good and following the rules lately, and I’m not going to pry, but... if you need to talk, or just vent, I’m always willing to listen, okay?”

My jaw was clenched to hold back what I wanted to say. Even if he was right - and okay, yeah, maybe it had been hard keeping a lid on my temper over the past week and maybe I was still mad about getting punished for taking on Half-A after what they’d done - but even if he was right, I had every right to be pissed. And he was prying. I’d half-forgotten that angry bubbling tension while I was talking to Amy. Pushed it away to the back of my mind. Now Dean had forced it back up by sticking his oar in and reminding me.

“I’d say you should quit sharing secrets that aren’t yours to share, then,” I said. Loudly. The entire crowd of less-than-subtle eavesdroppers inhaled in glee, and I knew gossip about what might be up between him and Vicky would be all over the school by lunchtime.

He knew it too, and gave me a half-pained, half-disappointed look. I glared back. If I wanted to vent, I had people to do that to. He might mean well, but this was a situation where his help wasn’t wanted, and I wasn’t going to pretend I appreciated the attempt.

“Bye, Dean,” I said pointedly, and turned back to Bio with Amy. He could go occupy himself dealing with the fallout of that little rumour bomb, if he wanted something to fix.

The hallways were packed as a tidal wave of students grabbed their bags and stuff from their lockers and got the hell out of here for the Christmas vacation. I was one of them. Yes, I was looking for a break. It wouldn’t be as good as usual because I couldn’t take more patrols - bluh - but I needed a rest.

“... homework, homework,” I muttered to myself, flipping through my notebook to make sure I had everything that I’d need crammed into my overstuffed bag. Yes. That looked like everything. And it was enough that I could barely lift my backpack in one hand. Yuck. I had no idea what cruel, vindictive, malignant evil meant they decided to give us so much work over the vacations. It was probably an Arcadia thing. Emma got way less homework than me. Lucky her.

I decided to give my locker a once over just to make sure I hadn’t left anything behind. As I dug down the back, I made an unpleasant discovery. Oh crap, that’s where that tupperware container of pasta salad had got to. I thought I’d left it in the lunchroom. I cracked open the lid, and really wished I hadn’t. Eww. It was only from Monday, but it was already going bad.

Well, good thing I’d caught that. It would really have sucked to come back after the winter break to find that waiting for me in my locker. I emptied it out into the nearest trash can, and jammed it into the exterior pocket of my bag. Peering at myself in the little mirror I’d hung from the inside of my locker door, I adjusted my hairband and pushed my glasses back up, then grabbed my snow goggles. If the wind was as bad as it had been this morning, icy and rolling down from the north, I’d need them.

“Woo! Christmas vacation!” a bubbly Victoria cheered, a hardlight santa-hat sitting on her head and her blonde hair poking out from under it. With a glance, one of her orbs floated over to me and formed another hat. “C’mon, don’t glare at me. Get in the festive spirit.” She was wearing a shiny silver puffer jacket that reached to the knee, and boots that gave her another unearned two inches of height over me. “Merry Christmas!”

“Happy Holidays,” I retorted. “It’s cold and dark and winter.”

“Well, aren’t you the Grinch’s apprentice?”

“Apprentice?”

“You’re about, oh,” she wobbled her hand, “about forty percent less Grinch-y than Amy.”

She wasn’t exactly wrong. “Yeah, I’m just,” I patted my bag, “not looking forward to lugging this home. In the cold. And it’ll probably start snowing again. If it hasn’t already started. It probably has.”

Vicky gave me the kind of look that only my official unofficial friendly rival could give me. I wasn’t rubbing in that I didn’t get cold! Not really! It’s just a way to keep up my secret identity by complaining about how cold it was! “Whatever. So. What happened with you and Dean at lunchtime?”

“That gossipy bitch.”

“He is, isn’t he?” She smiled at me, flashing perfect white teeth. “Doesn’t answer my question, though.”

I sighed, tugging on the straps of my bag. “It’s about charity stuff. Volunteer work.”

“Oh.” Vicky crossed her arms. “You wanna talk about it?”

“No.”

“Okay, but you probably should talk about it.”

“No I shouldn’t.”

“Yeah, but you’re going to.” She flashed me her killer smile, patting my hand. “C’mon. At the very least, come back with me. I’ll carry you, it’s closer than your place, and if the weather clears up you can dodge the snow.”

I glanced up at one of the small windows above the lockers - already dark, and snowing. And she was asking. And I was trying to be good. And it wasn’t like I disliked her - actually I liked her. It was just that only one of us could be the best rising star new hero in the city, and I’m just saying, everyone knew it was going to be the one with ‘Star’ in her name. “Let me call my mom,” I said. “I am… still technically grounded.”

“Lol,” Vicky said. As in, the word. Out loud. In public. Where people could actually hear her. Without any shame. “When does it expire?”

“Uh…” I paused midway through dialling Mom’s number. “It was a week, so technically… about six PM tomorrow. But I’m going to see if I can argue her down.”

“If it helps, tell her I promise to take you down hard if you look like you’re going to be bad,” Vicky said unhelpfully.

“Like you could take me down,” I muttered.

“Totally could.”

“In your dreams.” Because I had clearly won the argument and the phone was dialling, I shushed her. It took some talking, but Mom was willing to make an exception as long as I went straight to the Dallon place, and then went straight home. And was back before dinner at seven.

“Yeah?”

I gave her a thumbs-up. “Yeah.” I wound my scarf around my mouth. “Let’s go, then.”

The two of us made our way through the crowds, pausing occasionally to let Vicky say goodbye to one of her friends. My presence went largely unnoticed; not so much in a negative sense but more that they vaguely knew me as one of Vicky’s sister’s friends from the year below. It was below freezing outside. The thermometer by the door was saying it was just over twenty-five degrees, and God, it felt it. Snow drifted down, turning to slush on the salted parking lot out front and piling up on the basketball court. Almost without a thought, I brought the temperature around my body up to a pleasant sixty. The trick with that was always to confine the heat to a narrow layer surrounding me so no one else noticed.

“You got plans for Christmas?” Vicky asked as we headed out of the grounds. “Seeing family?”

“My grandparents are coming over for New Year,” I said. “Otherwise, it’s gonna be pretty quiet. Probably going to go to the Christmas Market in Lincoln Square with Mom at some point.”

“Oh yeah, there’s some mega cute stuff there. It’s pretty cool how the Japanese are so into Christmas.” She rubbed her gloved hands together. “Big family stuff for us as usual for Christmas Day. So, uh. You know, if Amy wants to do something with you on, like, the twenty-seventh or something…”

Yeah, I got her meaning. “I’ll keep my calendar clear, if I can. We still haven’t properly sorted the, uh, the Christmas dinner thing for my team for my volunteering, ‘cause of… the team lead being an asshole about things, but it’s probably going to either be Christmas Eve or the twenty sixth.”

“Oh yeah, Dean mentioned that. I might be there as his plus-one.” She nudged me in the side. “How about you invite Amy as your plus-one?”

I snorted. “I’m not sure she would want to go.”

“It’s good for her. And I think she’ll probably just be wanting to get away after Christmas Day.” By that point we’d got away from the main body of the kids being picked up or the seniors and their cars on the icy roads, and stepped into the parking lot behind the 7-11 that people tended to grab stuff from on their lunch break. The Santa hat orb drifted off my head, sinking to the ground and flattening out into a broad disk. “Hop on,” she said. “And hold on.”

“We’re not waiting for Amy?”

Vicky paused where she was tying her hair back into a rough ponytail. “It’s Friday, remember? She’s got swimming.”

“Oh yeah.” I checked my hairband again, then pulled my hat down over it. Without the hardlight Santa hat, my hair was getting wet as snowflakes melted in it.

Vicky wrapped her arms around me. “Oh wow, you bitch. That’s what you’re up to. Hoarding the heat!” she said, resting her chin on my shoulder. “Share it!”

“I d-don’t know what you mean!” I had to crank up my body heat because she was stealing it with her closeness, which left me red in the face and short of breath.

“Like hell you don’t! I’m giving you a ride, so give me your heat! Urgh! No wonder you always look comfortable no matter how cold it gets!”

The Dallon house was... nice, I guess. Nicer than our place, anyway. But to me it always felt a bit sterile. I couldn’t tell you exactly how, but it felt more like Carol and less like Mark, Vicky or Amy. Like superficial niceness was all it had, straight out of a furniture catalogue.

“I’m back!” Vicky hollered. “Got a friend with me! Not a boy!”

The weird thing was that I’d vaguely known Amy and Vicky’s mom before all this started. Like, not known-known, but I’d known she existed and I’d seen her once or twice at the parties Emma’s dad held. She worked with him as some kind of attorney, so she got invited. She’d never brought her kids to those parties, though. I’d never wondered why, back then. These days, I still didn’t wonder, but for entirely different reasons.

Still, I didn’t want to cause a scene, so I struggled out of my coat and hung it by the door with Vicky’s jacket and headed upstairs before her mom could come out and realise it was me. Carol more or less approved of me being friends with Amy and Vicky, and Amy had said she was in a good mood today, but I still didn’t feel like testing her tolerance in the immediate aftermath of the mall debacle.

Vicky dragged me up to her room, pushed me in and slammed the door shut. It was, and I’m putting it kindly, a trash heap. There were clothes flung idly over her open closet doors and the back of chairs, her desk was cluttered with tubes of concealer and bottles of nail polish - some of them left open - and her bed was unmade with a half-disassembled super soaker lying on it on the point of falling off the side. If I’d left my room like this, mom would have locked me inside until it was restored to pristine order. Vicky kicked the door shut and sauntered over to her desk, pulling her hair out of the scrunchie with a sigh of relief and vigorously rubbing out the ponytail headache.

It was vaguely unfair that I took pretty good care of my hair and still had to deal with it frizzing up, turning into a tangled mess in my sleep, exploding whenever I took my helmet off, eating combs and just generally being a pain. It was the main reason I’d cut it shorter than mom’s. Meanwhile, Vicky could fly at top speed through a rainstorm and then mess her hair up with her fingers, and come out of it with the kind of bed hair people usually have to go to salons for.

Some people get all the luck.

“So,” she said slyly, clapping her hands and looking far too eager and cheerful for the upcoming interrogation. “Lunchtime. Dean. The gossipy bitching. What exactly happened?”

“It... wasn’t much of anything.”

“Uh huh.” She ran her hands down the Christmas sweater she’d had under the jacket, made a face. “Why do I fly in the snow without a shield?”

“That bad?”

“Yeah.” She pulled it off in one smooth motion, along with her soaked t-shirt. I choked as she managed to flawlessly shot-put the damp pair into her overflowing laundry basket.

“Vicky!”

“What? This is way worse than usual. I bet you were melting it - whatever, this is soaked. You should probably change too. You look like a drowned rat. Urgh. Amy was the one who was meant to go swimming, not us.”

I averted my eyes from her half-naked form, and gingerly felt my hoodie. Damn. She was right; it was drenched. And drying stuff with my aura while I was wearing it was never a good idea if I wanted to keep my clothes in good condition. Or intact.

Grumbling, I yanked it off. At least my t-shirt was only damp, and I could handle that.

“Hey, don’t think I’m letting you get out of telling me what happened! ‘Fess up, what did he say? You know Ames will tell me if you don’t.”

... she wasn’t wrong there. “Are you decent?” I asked, trying to put it off a little longer anyway.

“I’m fine, you prude. Quit dodging the question and talk.”

I risked a glance at her. She’d taken her jeans off as well and changed into a formless t-shirt that she’d probably stolen from Dean. With her hair down and her slightly-too-thick layer of makeup removed, she looked a lot less perfect and flawless. She still had a figure I couldn’t hope to compete with, of course. But she also had a light case of acne that she covered up at school, and the old band shirt was a far cry from her usual stylish clothes. She looked almost like a normal girl.

Except for her power. Except for those five golden spheres floating around her head like a crown. Those were an ever-present reminder that it was Orbital talking to me, and not just Vicky. Not for the first time, I wondered what she’d be like if she could separate her identities completely, instead of just drawing lines between them. One of her orbs drifted in from the crown as I watched, turning itself inside out into a porcupine-ball of needlepoint spikes. It spread out and flattered over her head, hundreds of fine points working like an articulating comb to tease out and straighten every strand of her hair in one pass.

Seriously, it wasn’t remotely fair that she got to do that.

“Taylor...” Her tone was warning now. But it was a lot less threatening being interrogated by her like this. I shrugged.

“I’ve been down since the Half-A thing at the mall. Dean’s just a worrywart, don’t lose sleep over it.”

“Hey.” She stepped closer, into my personal space, and when I took an automatic step back, I stumbled on a discarded hairbrush and landed heavily on her bed. She let the clumsiness go without mockery and sat next to me, taking my hand in one of hers and cupping my cheek with the other so she could turn my head to meet her gaze. “Bull. If he went out of his way to talk to you about it, it’s bothering you. You can tell me anything, okay? I’m here to listen to whatever you want to say.”

I responded pretty understandably to that, I felt, by rearing back and stuttering unintelligibly. Vicky was way touchier than Amy and I were; she didn’t see anything odd about that kind of casual intimacy. Sometimes the difference in personal space and general exuberance was just quirky, other times it could be uncomfortable. And whenever it got awkward like this, she’d just look at me cluelessly, like she had no idea what I was stammering and backing away for. I half expected her constructs to turn into little question marks floating around her head.

But the thing is, the people who looked at Vicky’s blonde hair and pretty face and atrocious texting and assumed she was a bimbo were idiots. There was definitely a brain under there, and not an average one. She was about as smart as me. Okay, maybe smarter if I was forced to be honest in a way I’d never admit out loud. And she put enough effort into her classes that her grades were kind of disgustingly good. She was even taking college classes early, which was BS. Of course, she didn’t have Ward duties getting in the way.

She put the same kind of effort into her friendships, too. Which was why Vicky was annoyingly good at seeing through deflections and evasions when she latched onto a problem she thought she could fix. She was also as tenacious as a bulldog once she figured out something was wrong.

I wasn’t going to be able to get out of this.

“... I went after them because of what they said about Emma,” I started tiredly, and recounted the whole sorry affair.

“I wish I’d been there,” she interjected fiercely as I went over Uber hitting Missy. “Cheap shots and beating on mini-V. I’d’ve kicked him in the balls so hard he’d have to learn to walk straight again.” One of her orbs formed a fist and slammed into another. “God, those two losers. What a waste of a pair of powers. And a waste of skin. But tell me more about that dragon thing! A discount Lung, huh?”

“It wasn’t, exactly. It looked more like they were just splicing a couple of bits from his dragon state onto an overgrown lizard. But yeah.”

“And now you’ve basically been trying to play the perfect Ward for everyone, but you’ve been brooding and grouchy under the surface?” she asked, which was technically a good summary, but I felt vaguely offended at how she’d phrased it.

“I do not,” I said, with great dignity, “brood.”

“You really do. When you and Ames hang out together it’s like two broody little crows competing for who can have the darkest and grumpiest inner monologue. She always wins, by the way. But you are putting effort in, don’t worry!” She cleared her throat and slung an arm around my shoulders, putting her head cheek-to-cheek with mine. “‘Oh, look at me, crouched up on this streetlight, looking for fires that threaten the city to put out’,” she said in a gravelly voice. “‘And also for other people’s light orbs. I put them out too. Probably because I’m secretly a supervillain in the making’.”

“Oh, ha ha,” I said, pushing her away. “I am not a supervillain and I hardly ever eat your light orbs.”

“Do you know how long it takes me to regenerate these things? Yes, you are.” She put on the stupid voice again. “‘I’m Starlight. They call me that because after I eat all your streetlights, that’s all you’ll have to see by!’”

“This is stupid. You’re stupid. I don’t even perch on streetlights that often!” I pulled away, my cheeks turning pink from embarrassment. I didn’t like being mocked like this.

“Ah ha! So you admit you perch,” she teased. “But okay, sure. For serious... look.” She tugged me back onto the bed and slung her arm back around my shoulders. “I get where you’re coming from. And, like, you’re right. I’m not a Ward, thank God, but Dean says all your rules can get super annoying. You can’t just give up on doing what you’re supposed to be doing, so you gotta blow off some steam!”

“I’m not going shopping with you,” I said quickly. Emma was bad enough.

“What’s wrong with going shopping with me?” Damn. She sounded hurt. I had to retreat somehow.

“My allowance is all spent,” I covered hastily. “Shopping with Emma and, well... I got grounded for the mall thing, so I’m probably getting an allowance cut as well. Maybe some other time?”

She huffed. “Well, we can still go window shopping.” Damn. “And you can give me the details on Half-A’s base, too! Amy said something about a laser gun Leet tried to use on you, and I got some ideas, but she didn’t see enough of it to tell me anything useful.”

“Yeah, I saw the… thing.” I nodded to the cannibalised water pistol. “Is that what that is?”

“I’m feeling it’s a two-orber. I just need to… to get all the bits in the right positions. Y’know?”

“No.”

“Yeah, no one ever does. But a two-orber is… kind of a big investment and if I screw it up… I dunno. Here, take a look at what I’ve got so far. I’ve actually got a question for you.”

She reached back and grabbed the largest bit of the super soaker. Two orbs became clamps to hold it together, and another pair darted inside as the last hovered up to her face as a lens. I heard complicated noises of metal and plastic and wiring being assembled, and a flicker of irritation passed across her face before one of the clamps detached and joined the ones inside. I didn’t know what she’d added to its internals, but I could see the translucent water tank had been filled by a mad jumble of cannibalised battery packs.

I sat there, waiting for her question. After nearly a minute, I realised that it wasn’t coming, and that maybe she’d forgotten I was here. “Uh. Vicky? A question?”

“Oh? Oh! Yes… what is it?”

“No, you said you had a question for me.”

“I did?” She blinked at me, the lens-orb making one eye appear gigantic. “I… don’t remember what I was going to ask. Hmm. Anyway, it’s… yeah, I mean, you can see it’s a laser gun, right? I think I can get a better beam weapon out of it if I try, something with more punch than Aunt Sarah. But I can’t get it to accept two orbs. Just one. And they shatter too quick. So I was thinking you might be able to taste something that would help.”

“You know I barely got a better look at Leet’s than Amy, right?” Talking to Tinkers made my head hurt sometimes.

“You still ate a shot from it!” One of her orbs sank into the gun, infusing it with glowing lines that ran through the body before congregating into the battery tank. They left a lustrous sheen in their wake, dulling the garish plastic into more metallic tones, and lit up the tank with a golden glow. “You can tell me how close I am! And give me all the deets, anything might work! I won’t even complain if you break one of my orbs in testing!”

“Okay, but later,” I compromised, no more thrilled at the prospect of a round of Describe The Tinkertech than at a day being dragged around window-shopping until my feet fell off. “And we make it into training that’ll help me, too, not just standing still and letting you shoot me in the face. I want to get some evasion drills out of it.”

“Fine by me! If you get too wound up and really need to let it out, I’m always up for proper sparring.” She winked at me, friendly on the surface but with a challenge underneath. “Gotta give you a chance to get on my level, right?”

“Oh you wish.” I felt myself smile back, though. A good spar with Orbital did sound fun, and could help me work off some steam. “But sure. I’ll be happy to remind you who’s the better hero.”

We locked gazes, teeth bared in faux-friendly smiles, competitive spirit crackling between us. It was all in good fun. Except it wasn’t, entirely. We were friendly, after all, but we were still rivals.

“Now! Go plug in the hair drier. I’ll do yours if you do mine!”

Talking to Vicky didn’t change anything. I was still determined to fit in and follow the rules. I was still frustrated at the drudgery of constantly checking my first response, doing things as perfectly as possible, thinking about the spirit of the rules as well as the letter. Spending time with her hadn’t made me any less irritated at Dean for sticking his nose in, or any more enthused about Portent’s leadership.

But venting took the edge off. That was mostly what I’d needed - a chance to complain about the petty little annoyances and hassles of my new vow. I mean, I hadn’t really changed that much, objectively. It’s not like I was flouting the Wards rules every other day before the Half-A thing, and there had been no major changes in what I was doing over the past week. It was my attitude that had shifted. I’d promised mom that I’d try harder, and I’d meant it, and that meant I had to watch myself all the time for ideas that would lead to trouble. It wasn’t just a matter of not chasing supervillains back to their lairs, it was about spotting the kind of loose-cannon behaviour she’d criticised and stomping on it before it bloomed into temptation.

And that was exhausting. And boring. And didn’t feel good, because it meant telling myself off, over and over and over. It meant doubting myself, but trying to keep that doubt running at the level of healthy skepticism without losing faith in my abilities.

It was a tiring mental balancing act, is what I’m saying. And while Vicky was a pain, her well-practiced methods for getting Amy to lighten up worked on me enough that I felt much better after an hour or so of goofing around and lighthearted arguing.

All good things come to an end, of course, and the sound of the front door slamming closed downstairs put paid to our verbal jousting over which season of PRT: Los Angeles was best. A debate I’d been winning, of course.

“Amy?” Carol’s voice floated up from downstairs. “I’ve told you about slamming the door!”

“Yeah yeah, sorry!”

A glance at my watch made me wrinkle my nose. “Crap, it’s half six. I need to get going.”

“Oh yeah, you still have a cur-few,” Vicky singsonged. “Alright, you head home to get tucked in for your ickle wickle beddy-byes. I’ll marathon the end of season 5 again just to remember how right I am.”

I flipped her off good-naturedly, and she followed me downstairs to see me off. Amy was in the front hall, her swimming bag slung over her shoulder and her hair still damp and smelling of chlorine. I could see the faint sheen of frost from how cold it was out, and winced. That must have been a fun trip back home, even with part of it spent in a heated bus. Carol was with her, holding a cell in one hand and a mug of coffee in the other. The difference between them was as obvious as ever - Carol and Vicky and the rest of New Wave were all kind of cast in the same tall blonde gorgeous mould, even if Carol was colder and more imposing than Vicky’s smiles and cheer. Amy... wasn’t. Her brown hair and freckles and shorter stature stood out from the rest of the family like a sore thumb when she was right next to them like this.

“Hey Amy,” I greeted her with a half-hearted wave. “Good swim?”

“Yeah. You headed home?”

“Curfew. Sorry.”

She shrugged, but the way her shoulders slumped a little told me she was disappointed. “Whatever. Stay safe and text me when you get back. Maybe some other time.”

“Hey!” Vicky suggested, her constructs spinning around her head in a brief blur as an idea hit her. “Taylor, if you’re still wound up next week, you should come round again! We could get some sparring in, have a movie night, the works. Right, mom?”

Carol glanced between us. “I suppose,” she said neutrally. “As long as your homework is finished first. And assuming it stays quiet.”

Amy visibly perked up from the coat rack where she was peeling off her outer layers, and I shot a questioning look at Vicky.

“Mom says there’ll probably be villain activity around the Christmas sales,” she said with a wry smile. “Like the armoured van heist last year by those loser druggies. Or the warehouse raids the year before.”

“It always happens,” Carol filled in. “Supercrime rises around any major holiday - more cash flow means more tempting targets. I suppose you wouldn’t have noticed yet, you’ve only been operating for a couple of years.”

“Y’know, I bet Half-A will do something dumb and holiday-themed,” Vicky added, looking significantly at me. “They’re too dumb to take the hint.” Well, that explained why Amy looked cheerful. Honestly, I was feeling pretty good about it too. A chance to pummel those assholes in the next couple of weeks? Just what the doctor ordered.

“We should be hoping they don’t,” Carol snapped, and all three of us wilted. She frowned, and I thought maybe she looked a little guilty for a second. But then it was gone behind the stiffly controlled lawyer face that seemed to be her default state. Or maybe it was just her reaction to things she didn’t like. I’d called her ‘Brandish’ once when she was in her civilian identity and that had been a mistake. She reminded me of Armsmaster in an odd way. They had the same sort of emotional constipation going on, and they were both scarily intense when they were angry.

And it wasn’t hypocritical of me to think that. I know how to relax. Even if it did sometimes take my friends to force me into it.

I watched Amy ask about who might try something as I put my coat and bag back on, feeling vaguely uncomfortable as an onlooker. They weren’t arguing - Amy was calling her “mom” and what she’d said at school about it being a good day seemed true. But there was distance between mother and daughter even when Carol was being nice. Vicky could sense it too, she was hovering, keeping an eye on the interaction. Watching Amy turn surly and short with her replies. It was something I’d seen before - Amy took things personally, and responded to things like ignored text messages with grumpy hour-long silences.

I’d seen this pattern time and time again. Carol either wouldn’t or couldn’t reach out. Amy took it personally and acted out in ways my mom would ground me for if I tried them. And Vicky dithered helplessly in the middle, trying to pull her family together by sheer force of optimism.

I made my goodbyes, stepped outside, and wrapped my scarf around my mouth. God. I was so lucky to have Mom. Even if she was going to turn into a raging bitch if I wasn’t home by 7pm and would probably go and extend my curfew until Christmas. But even when me and Mom fought, it didn’t look like that. There was something rotten in the Dallon household. Something festering, like maggots in the meat in the trash cans out the back of a suspect fast food place. Something that never made the press where New Wave was always a perfect extended family.

I hugged myself, though I wasn’t cold. This wasn’t my family and this wasn’t something I could fix. What I had to do was focus on getting home on time so Mom didn’t throw a fit.

Chapter Text

The weekend passed quietly. I went out to the movies with Emma to make up for the previous weekend, and a grand total of zero supervillains showed up when we were watching Shell Games. Well, maybe there were some supervillains in the audience with us, but if there were they were all off-duty too and didn’t make trouble. And that suited me just fine.

I had a day in the office on Monday morning, and showed up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. And also bushy-haired, because the snow made everything frizzy. Curly hair was such a pain. I really needed to get a trim, but I’d have to book it for after Christmas. My usual hairdresser was shut for the vacation.

As a result, I was sitting in the conference room wearing a domino mask and a neat white blouse and black skirt. I normally showed up in more casual wear, but I was trying to be good and I’d noticed quite a while ago that Director Piggot liked to see her subordinates dressed professionally. I’d even put on makeup, although that was mostly because there were pimples on my brow and I didn’t want to look like a spotty teenager. Even if in the most literal sense I was one.

“All right, everyone. Glad to see nearly everyone is on time.” Armsmaster looked around the table, his midnight-blue power armour whining slightly as he stroked his beard. He was the head of the local Protectorate team. I didn’t interact with him much and I got the feeling he didn’t exactly like me. Maybe I was just taking it poorly; he was a terse asshole with everyone. “Has anyone seen Mister Crypsis?” There were chuckles from around the room, which only prompted a sigh. “Seriously, has anyone seen him this morning?”

“I saw his car in the parking lot,” Miss Militia, his second-in-command, offered. She sipped her coffee. It was just for show, though; I’d never seen her anything less than disgustingly awake. The fact that her uniform was just military fatigues probably helped a lot with regards to comfort. “He’s probably in his workroom.”

“Ah. He’s just late again. Of course.”

Briefings were one of those things that made government hero work lose some of its allure when seen up close. Oh, the heroics and glory of fighting the good fight and protecting the innocent were all very well and good, but the fun sort of wore off at 9:30am on a Monday morning when you were sitting in a bland beige room around a glossy conference table. On an uncomfortable chair, to boot. And I couldn’t hover comfortably above it without drawing on enough power that my veins and eyes would light up.

But I was trying to be better. So I was just going to put up with it.

“Attendance at these meetings is optional for Wards,” Miss Militia said to me softly. “If you want to leave, you should go before we get started.”

“I’m fine. I want to hear the updates.”

“If you say so.”

I glanced around the room. As the only Ward here, I felt a bit like a kid playing grown-up. Armsmaster and Miss Militia were at one end of the table, and I was to their right. Triumph looked annoyingly motivated for a Monday morning opposite me, while Dauntless and Velocity looked like they were in the much more reasonable start-of-the-week slump. And Battery was to my right, staring mournfully into an empty coffee cup that she’d drained as she was sitting down.

“All right. We’re just going to get started without Mister Crypsis.” Armsmaster cleared his throat. “So let’s get started with the Monday morning briefing. First off, we have a few administrative issues. Once again, some of you - and I’m not naming names - didn’t submit your weekly timesheets or your expenses.”

“Ooops,” Battery muttered, sucking in a breath through her teeth.

“They’ve asked me to remind you that in addition, under normal circumstances all expenses claims must be approved beforehand. That includes travel expenses for out-of-city operations, or any use of your own vehicles. Again, in the emails I’ve sent to all of you, there’s a link on how to submit a pre-approval expenses form. Get it done ahead of time, and it’s a one step check for me or Miss Militia to get the approval done. If you don’t have a pre-approval, I have to hand it up the chain. And that slows the process of you getting paid back.

“Another point; Christmas is this Saturday coming, and some of you have booked leave off. Even if you have leave, make sure your official phones are on, and you are able to be contacted during this period. Remember to keep them charged.” I could hear the groans from the others in the room. It didn’t affect me. Wards weren’t on-call all th- “And Starlight, since you are here, while you are not obliged to do this, we would like you to be available in case of emergencies.”

“Why?”

“The fire department has requested it. There have been multiple cases of arson working their way up the New England coast, and they’ve reached Maine. The fire department wants to be able to call you up just in case this criminal hits Brockton Bay during the holiday season.”

“Oh.” I cleared my throat, fighting back the scowl that the thought of arson always brought. “I’ll talk to Mom about it and see what she says.”

“Thank you. I’ll send an email on the matter, and a second one to your mother for approval. Next, the public relations department has asked me to ensure that everyone arrives at least fifteen minutes ahead of time for signing events around Christmas. Yes, that means you too, Velocity.”

“I’m hardly ever late!”

“Not that you have an excuse,” Triumph muttered, leaning back in his chair with his arms crossed.

Armsmaster glared at them until they shut up. “Before we get started on the city-wide briefing, first, I have something to say. Last Friday, I was at a meeting of the US Maine Protectorate leads with senior members of the PRT and the DOJ. The good news is, the Brockton Bay team has managed to maintain its Yellow performance rating. The bad news is that they consider us borderline Red, with issues particularly noted in terms of our hero retention rates and the number of prisoner escapes. One issue that was prominently raised was the incident back in August and the death of a Protectorate member in the line of duty.”

Battery shrank back, and I glanced sympathetically at her. That had been her husband, Assault. I hadn’t liked him. There had been something slightly greasy about him that had rubbed me the wrong way. But he hadn’t deserved to die. Especially not like that.

“C’mon, what could we have done different?” Dauntless protested, having thoughts along the same path. “The Halogenerator was gunning for him.”

“I’m not happy about it either,” Armsmaster said. He folded his hands behind his back. “But our funding falls if we wind up a Red-rated team, and then we’ll have to work even harder. So in the new year, we’ll be implementing new prisoner transfer routines, and in addition I’ve been talking with the mayor to see if we can get a radar grid set up over the city to track fliers.”

It felt bad to have to talk about these things like what we cared about was the team rating. But it really wasn’t fair that the other teams gave us shit. It had taken me until I’d spent a few days on a team-building course with the Portland Wards to realise that there were way more capes in Brockton Bay than normal for a city this size. Me and Vista had been weirded out by the idea that the Portland kids hadn’t ever had to back up the local Protectorate when two big supervillain mafias were brawling.

Armsmaster cleared his throat. “If anyone wants to talk about this or has any suggestions which can help us avoid losing our Yellow rating, schedule a meeting with me or Miss Militia,” he said stiffly. He wasn’t taking the prospect any better than the rest of us.

“Probably me,” Miss Militia said. She smiled behind her stars-and-stripes bandana. “At least if you don’t mind a late night or early morning meeting. I have a lot more free time on my schedule than he does.”

“Yes. Let us continue. Projector on.” The ceiling-mounted projector turned on. “Now, let’s review last week. Firstly, at a meeting with the FBI, they thanked me and you all for our cooperation in their investigations into the growing influence of the Patriarca family in north-eastern coastal cities. Thanks to that, they’ve made several key arrests in New Hampshire based on intel that we helped them recover. So, congratulations, everyone. We’re probably going to have more to do next year, but that’s a step closer to breaking their influence.”

That produced some affable cheers from around the table, and Velocity gave everyone a quick round of applause. The mob were moving into Brockton Bay’s docks, and while they didn’t have many capes, a lot of villains would take mob money. Back in March the Patriarca family had hired the supervillain mercenaries led by Faultline, and together with their own capes they’d crushed the Archer’s Bridge Merchants, who had been a bunch of no-name losers who’d made the mistake of putting pressure on a mafia operation. I’d heard rumours that many businesses around the docks only stayed open because they were laundering mob money and they were moving into the unions.

“Settle down. We have a lot to get through. Next slide.” The display changed. “So, here are the cape deltas and activity summary for Brockton Bay. HUMINT says that Hookwolf, Cricket and Stormtiger are currently out of town, possibly around Redmill upstate. Given what we know, odds are that they’re protecting the meth pipeline from White American Strength, who are making moves on their pill mills. As a result, we’re not expecting the Empire-88 to make any big moves until they’re back. However, the BBPD are requesting more support for anti-Empire operations, in light of further proliferation of Doctor Holistic’s enhancements among their foot soldiers. So don’t overlook them if you wind up in a clash with skinheads.

“For the Azn Bad Boys, we have a possible positive delta of plus-one, taking them to four. Multiple gang members have made threats along those lines to the police. We don’t have any concrete evidence, but all members should take care in Little Tokyo and surrounding neighbourhoods.”

“No physical description?” Triumph asked.

“No. Nothing. Just keep your eyes open and watch out for surprises. In slightly more positive news, we still haven’t seen any response to the Park Place fire from them, so it’s likely that they have accepted it was an accident. No intel that they’re planning anything this week, either.”

“Maybe Lung’s not wanting to start shit because he doesn’t want to tear his Christmas sweater,” Velocity joked.

“God, now I’m imagining that damn dragon form in an ugly dad sweater,” Battery said. “I hate you.”

“Could be worse. Could be dressed up as Santa. And Oni Lee in red and green as one of his elves.”

“Urgh. That’s… no. Just no.”

“Ahem. Next slide. We discovered last week that Faultline’s crew hit the DynaFactoring plant around the time of the attack on the Gull Mall. This wasn’t noticed at the time, because the building was closed, so this was only discovered on Monday morning. Given this is Faultline’s crew, someone paid them to do this, but investigations are continuing. The BBPD is taking the lead on this.

“And speaking of the Gull Mall…” he glanced at me again, “... Half-A has a possible minus-two delta. No one has seen Uber or Leet since then, so given the reported use of experimental teleportation technology to escape, we will be considering the two of them as possibly deceased. PRT assets are monitoring their known internet presences to see if they are active. Half-A’s websites have been updated, but only by Dox who gave one of her,” he made a disgusted noise, “AMQ sessions. She claims Uber and Leet are just taking a Christmas vacation…”

“But she can’t be trusted,” I said, nose wrinkling up.

“Yes, in effect.” Armsmaster cleared his throat. “No activity from Independents, no known arrivals in the city. The Jefferson Street Killer struck again last week.”

“Where was the body left this time?” Velocity asked, his previous jokes gone.

“The victim was left in Ormswood, tied to a street light with electrical cables. A member of the Hoover Street Fists. We’re going to schedule more patrols of that neighbourhood this week, but the BBPD have the lead on this investigation and I don’t expect them to get much done on the case until the new year.”

“How the hell do they keep getting away with this?” Dauntless groaned. “You’d think someone would see something.”

“In Ormswood?” Triumph said, with an audible yawn in his voice. “Do you think they care enough to speak to the cops?”

“This has to be some kind of Stranger!”

“The BBPD has requested a specialist investigative team from the PRT.” Yeah, but all of us knew how long the waiting list was to get access to postcogs or other people with those kinds of powers. Nothing was going to get done. Not when the killer was only killing gang members. It wasn’t fair, but that was how the system worked. “Next slide. Now, we can begin a summary of this week’s assignments…”

The interesting part of the presentation was over. Five minutes of update on the state of the city was usually worth sitting through. What followed was twenty five minutes of scheduling reviews and deeply, soul-scarringly dull bickering over operational details.

Propping my chin up on my palm, I let myself zone out. I’d talked to Mom about these meetings once, and she’d laughed and laughed and laughed at the discovery that superheros had management meetings just as boring as people with - and I quote - ‘real jobs’.

I stifled a yawn, and grinned as my yawn prompted the same from Battery. I should have brought coffee. I hadn’t liked it before I became a superhero.

“Starlight? A word.”

I paused at the door. “Right now?”

Miss Militia’s green eyes met mine. “Yes.”

Triumph snorted. I wanted to kick him, but instead I smiled. “Of course.”

The others filed out, and I was left standing at attention. “Take a seat.”

Was that a bad sign? I wasn’t sure. The chair groaned as I lowered myself into it.

“So, I got the reports of your most recent public relations outing. The one on the Boardwalk.” I pursed my lips as I tried to guess what this was about. Was it shooting a blast into the air? No, no, I was allowed to do that. Then what? Some of my inner debate must have shown, because she shook her head, smiling. “No, it’s not bad, Starlight. I just wanted to say that we got some great feedback from the organisers afterwards. I have the anonymous feedback here.” She passed me a print-out. “It’s all very good.”

“Oh. Oh!” I skimmed down it. “So they liked me chasing down that balloon for that kid.” She had been a little snotty-nosed five year old with a balloon shaped like a cat head. Her eyes had been as big as dinner plates when I’d landed in front of her and handed it back.

“They did, yes. Well done.”

I massaged my wrist. “My hand was hurting after all the autographs,” I said wryly.

“I’m afraid that always happens. You’ll have to get used to it.”

That was true. “Is that all?”

“You’re on console duties from 10:30 to 12:30 today?” I nodded. “Then before you head down to that, I want you to poke your head into Mister Crypsis’s workshop and check that he’s okay.”

“You know he’s just forgotten the time because he’s busy Tinkering again,” I pointed out. One of the less good parts of being a Ward was the way I’d often get used as an intern. At least she didn’t want me to deliver more coffee to a Protectorate meeting.

“I don’t, and that means I want you to check in on him. Ping me a message - I’ve got a meeting right after this one, but I’ll check when I get out. Then also make sure that Portent and Gallant leave on time for their patrol.”

I rolled my eyes. “Please tell me that you get a bonus once you get to the Protectorate for all the running around making sure men are in the right place at the right time.”

“Allah, were it so.” She smiled wearily. I was pretty sure I’d prodded a sore point there. “By the way, the Wards Christmas party has been rescheduled. It’s now on the twenty-seventh.”

“Where?”

“Still at the Prestigio. We just had to move the date.”

“Oh.” I nodded. “Okay. Yeah. Should be,” I forced myself to smile, “fun.” I was lying. Forced bonding with the team wasn’t what I was looking for after Christmas. If I wanted to spend time with Missy, I could spend time with Missy. “Did you get my email about whether we get to invite guests?”

“Yes. And also Gallant’s. They’ll have to be someone in the know, but I suspect you knew that.” I nodded. “Mmm. That’s all, Starlight. Again, congratulations on the good feedback.”

“Thank you,” I said with a nod, clutching the reports to my chest. Yes! It was paying off! It made the early morning start and showing up to the adult meetings worth it. Miss Militia was tough, and way too fond of the rules-as-written for my liking. But she was honest. She wouldn’t congratulate me unless she meant it. And so it meant something, just like one of the very rare occasions I got a compliment from Director Piggot. People like Velocity tossed out easy words like clouds dropped rain. Not them.

I liked it when people recognised how good I could be. And having a great rep when you were in the Wards was the second best way to being a big name in the Protectorate. I didn’t have the raw power to be someone in the first tier like the Triumvirate, but being a city-level leader? If Armsmaster could do it, I could easily do it.

That hot little thought carried me all the way down the green-lined corridor to the workroom area. I didn’t need the green line on the wall to find it, though. The power draw to the place and the spicy tang of Tinkertech was clue enough. I swiped my access card to get into the airlock, and again to get out the other side. The ground was slightly tacky with grease, and when I sniffed I got the acrid aftertaste of burning plastic. I was wearing flats, but I still needed to take care in here. The last thing I wanted was to slip on oil and wind up ruining my clothes.

Only locked doors presented themselves to me in the first part of the workrooms. There were little more specialised rooms in there, which Armsmaster didn’t want anyone going into. But the lights were on in the main hall, and I headed over there. The larger room was a big empty space, full of machining tools and overlooked by banks of computers behind a glass wall. There was a boat in here, up on a trailer. That was new. It smelled strongly of paint, and as I peered at it, its metallic green hull gleamed like it was wet. But there was something else behind it. Mister Crypsis’s power was a subtle thing; a hint of lemon zest and salt, easily lost among other flavours.

“Excuse me! Hello?” I called out. “Mister Crypsis? Are you here!” There was no response. Without thinking, my hands curled into fists. Because, yes, it was likely he was just playing another stupid prank with a cloaking suit or something, but… “Hello? Are you in the computer room?”

The metal staircase up to the computers creaked underfoot. The security door was shut, and when I tried to swipe it, it rejected my card. I didn’t have clearance. I peered through the little glass window. Oh. I crossed my arms. Asleep at the keyboard. That would explain why he missed the meeting. But I wouldn’t be doing my task if I just assumed he was fine. With a certain amount of pleasure, I pressed the buzzer and held it down.

The noise roused him, and he pulled himself upright, looking around blearily. He scratched his unshaven chin, and caught sight of me. He flapped his hand at me as he pulled himself upright, taking a sip of his canned coffee.

I didn’t let go of the button.

He staggered over and buzzed me in. Mister Crypsis was an African-American man with some Native heritage, round-faced, with dark hair which right now had some dried paint in it. He was shorter than me for all that he had to be past thirty, and always looked like he was mid-way through an unpleasant realisation. I glanced over at his hands; his nails were bitten short, and stained with the same paint that was in his hair and on his overalls.

“What do you want?” he demanded.

“I was sent by Miss Militia to see where you were and why you missed the morning meeting.”

“Urgh. What time is it… huh.” He shook his head. “Fell asleep. Camera adapters weren’t working. Had to write better ones. Wish there was better off-the-shelf, but had to break out the assembly. For the Cuttlefish. Mmm. Think it’s done. So tell her...” he yawned, blinking owlishly, “... tell her I’ll just read the minutes. Mmm. Later. Do you want to see? Tell her I’ve actually been doing things. Not wasting my time with meetings.”

I still had some time before I had to start my console shift. “So, what have you been working on?” I asked.

I got an answer, even if I didn’t understand what he was saying. I just sort of stood there and let the long polysyllabic neologisms wash over me. There were a few words that I recognised, but they had been crudely stitched into horrifying Frankenwords like “object-aligned real time mimetic quasi-garbage polysynthesis” and “chromatophore emulsion with polymerase nanocomposite conductive layer” and “hydrophobic protective layer that can be used in a salt-rich environment”.

Nodding along, I hazarded a guess at what he’d been doing. “The boat looks really good like that,” I said. “I bet it wasn’t easy to write all the software to get that working out on the sea.”

Tinkers were easy to handle. He beamed, as if I’d understood every word rather than cold-read him because there was a new boat in the workroom and he’d fallen asleep in front of the computer. “Exactly! This will show them!”

“Sorry, what?”

He waved over towards the computers. “I’m just compiling, but when this is done, I’ll have a stealth boat! Completely invisible! The assholes back in Charleston can suck it!”

“I… oh, I guess it’s for catching smugglers? The Patriarca dock influence and so on. That’s pretty clever.”

“... yeah, you could use it for that.” He blinked at me owlishly. “I’ll tell Emily she can do that!”

“Oh? Why did you build it, then?”

He scratched the back of his neck. “I just wanted a change. I was sick of making stealth drones. Everyone always wants stealth drones. They wanted them back in Charleston and they want them here. But a stealth boat, in a saltwater environment - it was a lot more challenging, you know?”

“Not really. I just fly,” I said, self-effacingly. I didn’t know the man very well as he’d only transferred in two months ago as a replacement for Assault, and this was the most words I’d exchanged with him. He just vanished into his lab, and missed the team meetings whenever he could. I had my suspicions that the Charleston Protectorate might have handed him off to us because he ‘wasn’t a team player’. “Fly, and shoot things.”

“Nah, don’t be like that.” He took another swig of coffee. “I’m already putting together things for a brilliant new design of radar baffles based on you.”

“Radar baffles?”

“Yes! Your electromagnetic absorption - it’s multi-frequency null-shielding. You cover basically the entire non-visual spectrum. I saw some of the footage from you in the Gull Mall. It’s inspirational!”

Huh. “I mean, I know I screw up cell phone reception - and headset radios - when I use my power and don’t control it…”

“Exactly!” He beamed at me. “If Emily just gives me the funding, I can probably make a new line of stealth shielding for her drones that recharges from ambient electromagnetism!”

I inhaled. “If you want that,” I suggested, “it’s probably safer to call her Director Piggot.”

He snorted. “Why? She’s not here.”

“Just a word of advice. She can be… prickly.”

“I’ll take that into account. But actually, while you’re here, can I take some readings from you? I want to see if you re-radiate any level of infra-visual electromagnetic radiation - because you have to be able to let some through on the carrier frequencies of cellphones and so on - but I think maybe I could adjust the design to…”

Raising my hand, I fended him off. “I have console duty in… soon. I really don’t have time.” I decided to not make it too easy for him, because I didn’t want to be used as an ‘inspiration’. It sounded a bit weird. “But you can ask Miss Militia if I can help you.”

“Oh, right, right.” He blinked. “Yes. I’ll send her an email that I fell asleep at my desk. Apologise. It doesn’t mean anything, but you have to say those words.” He sighed. “And then I just need to wait for the top layer to dry, but I’m behind on those snooper refits. I don’t suppose you’re willing to run out and grab me another can of coffee?”

“I have console duty, remember?”

“Yes, yes, but…” he sighed. “Need to stretch my legs anyway.”

We headed out together, but his mind wasn’t on me as a fellow human being. Every few steps he glanced back at the workroom, while he went on about the idea he was having.

I made my escape once we got past the nearest vending machine, and hands in my pockets headed towards the Wards room. Tinkers, eh? They were all the same. Even Vicky got like that sometimes. I wondered what it felt like to be one of them when they went off on one of their tangents. And why they felt the compulsion to talk to me like I understood what they were talking about. Armsmaster only seemed to be able to hold back his explanations sometimes with his scowly-faced ‘you wouldn’t understand’ attitude.

People tended to mythologise Tinkers. As someone who knew three, I didn’t buy into the hype. Sure, a good Tinker with time to prepare could be a pain to fight, but so could any parahuman with a working brain. There was nothing special about Tinkers there. I wouldn’t want to go up against Missy if she really had reason to get creative. But oh, no, it’s Tinkers who are the super special ones. I blamed movies and video games for giving the gullible ideas about how amazing they were. Gullible people like Uber and Leet. Except, you know, those two chucklefucks couldn’t even use their own powers right.

I took the elevator down, and waited for the Wards door to open. What I came across inside was Dean, not even changed into his power armour undersuit yet. I crossed my arms and glared at him, tapping my foot.

“What?”

“Don’t you have somewhere to be?” I asked, meaningfully.

“Oh, right, I just… I was waiting for Portent because…”

I felt a surge of glee. Was Portent late? Was he really late? Oh, I was going to rub it in his face and-

“... he’s probably waiting for you in the armoury,” I said, shoulders slumping.

“Oh, right, he probably is.” Dean scratched his head. “Yeah. Should’ve thought of that. How are you feeling? You look a bit bett-”

“Are we really doing this now? Yes, you set your girlfriend on me. Yes, we had girl-talk. No, I’m not telling you what it was about.”

He grinned at me. “Was it about lasers?”

“Lasers are a very girly thing,” I said. It wasn’t wrong. Just look at the composition of the hero teams in the city. “So, shoo. Go on. If you’re late, we’ll all get yelled at by Piggot.”

“It’s team bonding.”

“Yeah. And I don’t wanna get tied up.” I paused. “But… thanks, Dean.”

He waved at me in passing, and I flopped down into the nearest chair. My stomach grumbled. Urgh. Two hours until lunch, at least. I hated console duty that finished after noon. Stretching, I went to get myself a Coke from the fridge, and prepared for another dull, dull morning.

Chapter Text

Stretched out on the console chair, I flicked through my emails on my phone while I briefed the boys. Or at least did something proximate to that. It was kind of a briefing, even if some people might have called it gossiping.

Fortunately, as previously imparted, Gallant was a gossipy bitch.

“He really said that?”

“Yeah,” I said. I was in the PRT base, but he and Portent were out on patrol. “Apparently I’m a ‘sensor black hole’.”

“Ironic, given that you’re Starlight’.”

“That’s not what irony means. I’m pretty sure at this point you’re just refusing to learn it no matter how many times I correct you.”

“Hey, I’m pretty sure I’m using it right! It’s ironic because starlight is light, but black holes don’t give off light.”

“But black holes used to be stars.”

“It’s still ironic!”

I had a worrying suspicion he might be right, so I changed the topic. “Anyway, that came up. Also, like I said, I was at the morning meeting. Pretty much all the interesting things happened in the first five minutes. As usual.”

“I’m still….” Gallant had to pause, while an ambulance passed by, sirens blaring. “I’m still, like, not exactly liking the sound of the Red rating.”

“It just sounded like boring managementese.” I crossed my legs, spinning on the chair. “They go on like that all the time. If it was something really bad, they’d tell us properly.”

“Yeah, but… I dunno. It sounds bad.”

“They’d tell us if it mattered. Not just slip it in when - hah, Battery’s getting told off for forgetting to do her timesheet again. And they’re talking about leave over Christmas.” I fake-yawned. “Boooo-ring.”

“Hey, you’re the one who went to the boring adult meetings when you didn’t have to.”

“Those ‘boring adult meetings’,” I clicked my tongue, “are what we’re going to have to do in a few years. I’m just getting prepared, Gallant.”

“You’re just showing off your enthusiasm.”

“Shouldn’t we all be enthused about being heroes, protecting innocents and all that?” I mimicked the tone of the latest motivational video we’d been shown.

“Are you trying to get hired to do the voice over for the next one of those stupid videos?”

“Well, I’m having to cover for you. It’s not like I like doing this.”

“That’s bullshit and you know it. Come on. Let’s not kid each other.” I could hear the amusement in his voice. “Even if I started going to those boring meetings, you’d show up early so you could sit at the front.”

“Nah.” I didn’t bother to hide my smile, because he couldn’t see me. “You’d do it too, but you’re bad at early mornings.”

“Stop the chatter on the Console line,” Portent ordered, his patience clearly having worn thin. “Important info only.”

“I was getting to that,” I lied. “Anyway, it came up in the meeting, but Hookwolf and his two flunkies are out of town. Not much chance of anything Empire coming up. There are some rumours going around about a new ABB cape, though. No details, so I guess just keep your eyes out for anything weird.”

Today’s patrol was the boys out together, which meant it was going to be dull. Portent was kind of a stickler for radio discipline. They were headed along the docks and around the edge of Little Tokyo. The reason people tended to chatter on Console duty was that it was dull as dishwater, and Missy wasn’t in to give me a distraction. Fortunately, I always kept a book close to hand. I let them walk around the streets, helping old ladies over roads and giving people directions for a while, until the clock in front of me chimed.

“Hey, so, 11am check in,” I said. “How’s everything going?”

“Same as usual,” Portent said. “Nothing really happening. We’re into Little Tokyo now - just walking down Beagle Street.”

Beagle Street wasn’t too far from the burned-out apartment block. “How’s the area?” I asked. “How are people coping with things there after the fire, I mean?”

“It’s...” Gallant sounded hesitant. He probably didn’t want to talk too much about the fire with me, which meant it had to be bad news. “It’s better than it was, but there’s still a lot of stress floating around. I think the neighbourhood is still in shock.”

Still in shock. Still scarred. Scarred and scared. Still hurt from the lingering trauma of fifty deaths in a single night. And there wasn’t anything I could do to help. To change that. Even if the people who lived there trusted me - and a lot of Little Tokyo didn’t trust the Protectorate - my powers were only good for fighting fires while they were burning. They didn’t do jack shit to help me clean up the damage they left behind.

Gallant’s voice pulled me back to the screens. “Console?” The tone of his voice had changed.

I shook my head, dragging my attention back to what I was meant to be doing. “What’s the matter, Gallant?”

“That sounded like an explosion. You didn’t catch that?”

“Wait a moment…” My fingers clattered on the keyboard, bringing up the emergency services coordination program, scanning down the open reports list. “I’ve got ESC open. Nothing… nothing yet about an explosion. Do you have an address?”

“Uh… block or two west of us? Hey, Portent, do you know the street names around here?”

“We’re at the Green and Beagle intersection,” Portent said, radioing me directly. “We’re going to see if we can help.”

“Do you need me to suit up?” My response came out instantly.

“No. But get on the hotline so they know there’s a situation. We gotta play it safe. I have a bad feeling about this.”

Damnit. I should be there if there’d been an explosion. But I was trying to be good. I thought for a moment. Gallant had his power armour, and Portent’s precog made him basically impossible to hit except through sheer volume of fire. If he had a bad feeling… “You think this is a villain?”

“I’m pre-seeing more explosions. So. Yeah, I do.”

“All right.” I went to push my glasses back up, forgetting I had my contacts in. “Stay safe, you two.” I clicked the big red button on the screen that connected us to Hotseat, the link to the Brockton Bay emergency dispatch office. We weren’t meant to call it ‘911’, but Gallant usually did. “Wards member Starlight here. Reporting an incident.”

“Copy, Starlight.” Not one of the women whose voices I recognised. “What’s the incident?”

I glanced over at the post-it note that I’d put up to remind the others about the points any call had to mention. “Possible situation in Little Tokyo, in the area around Green Street and,” I looked up at the big map, checking it for myself, “Beagle Street intersection. Break.”

“Go ahead.”

“Wards Patrol reports an explosion. Precog Portent warns of possible parahuman villain involvement.”

A short pause. “Explosions reported in Little Tokyo, close to Green and Beagle intersection. Potential hostile parahuman presence. Can you confirm?”

“Affirmative.” I wetted my lips. “Wards patrol is en route to investigate.”

“Copy, Wards Console. Any more information?”

“No.”

“Copy, no more information at present. Please keep us up to date.”

I muted the dispatch, glancing back over to the map. Who was the agent-in-charge today… ah, yes. Agent Fitzjohn. I buzzed over to the PRT desk. “Starlight here. Portent and Gallant are reporting hearing an explosion in Little Tokyo. As ordered by Portent, I’ve alerted Hotseat.”

“Are they hurt?” Fitzjohn asked, his burr thick.

“Negative. They are moving to see if they can observe the source. Sir, requesting permission to suit up and-”

“Denied - you’re not on active duty, Starlight.” Dammit. “Inform them that they are not to engage without prior authorisation. Repeat, not to engage. Alert me if there’s any change.”

“Yessir.” I screwed my eyes shut, releasing the button, and let out a breath. Then I was back to work. “Gallant, any change?”

“Nothing ye- oh, that’s gunfire, that’s definitely gunfire.”

“From the same place?”

“Yeah, sounds like it. I think-” Even I heard that explosion down the line. “And another blast. People are running now. And-”

“Get behind the truck!” That was Portent being picked up on Gallant’s line. “Tell her it’s coming from Ginger Street.”

“It’s coming from Ginger Street!”

“Copy that, Gallant. Order from Agent Fitzjohn - Wards patrol is not, I repeat not, to engage.”

“Right! People are freaking out over here!”

Cold lights shone down at me, nice and safe behind my desk. My stomach churned, and my left leg was bouncing up and down under the table. I should be there. Not hidden away out of sight, doing something any PRT agent could have been doing - and probably better than me. But I did what I needed to, and relayed that there were shots fired to 911 and to Fitzjohn. I could see it now on the ESC - reports lighting up. Ginger Street, Ginger Street… it was familiar. I pulled up the Little Tokyo reports and scanned down the list of sites linked to gangs. Which meant the ABB, or one of their little subordinate offshoots. And yes, there it was - Oshima Motors. A vehicle repair shop - and widely known to be an ABB chop shop.

“Portent, I’ve found a possible target in the reports. Oshima Motors - it’s ABB-linked.”

“Got it.” He was breathing heavily. “Thanks, Starlight. And… crap!” Another boom. “OK, it’s Purity! She’s up in the sky!”

Purity! An unseen fist grabbed my heart. I couldn’t breathe. “Can you confirm that-”

“It isn’t you, and someone’s up in the sky glowing like the sun and throwing blasts around! Yeah it’s her! So much for nothing Empire, Star!”

“Look I just said what I heard at the meeting.” I took a deep breath, and tried to open an incident report when my hands were shaking. “Has she seen you?”

“I don’t think s-” A pause. “Crap!”

“What? Has she seen you?”

“Lung is coming!”

“Can you see him?”

“Precog. He’s coming. Soon.”

... yeah, okay. ‘Crap’ was the right response. They needed me out there. Gallant had no defence against Purity or Lung, and both of them were monsters who would kill kids. Portent only had his precog to try to keep them out of danger. And, sure, that helped, but if only I was there I could make sure they got out of there. Uselessly, my hands clenched and unclenched. I wasn’t on duty. I wasn’t even suited up. Like an idiot, I’d assumed that nothing bad would happen when Brandish had said there was often a surge of criminal activity around Christmas! I glared at the screens, the useless screens that were trapping me here, and the glare from my eyes reflected from the monitors.

I had to do what I had to do. “I have… have an update from Portent,” I told Agent Fitzjohn. “He has visual confirmation on Purity - I repeat, Purity is present, and appears to be the attacker.”

“Oh hell. Tell Portent to pull back. Velocity is on the way and-”

“Let me finish! That’s not all! Portent pre-cog’d that Lung is showing up soon!”

Agent Fitzjohn let out an inarticulate groan. “Okay. Okay… Starlight… you’ve done a good job, but this is escalating too far. I’ve already sent Triumph down to take over from you. I need someone more senior handling this.”

Urgh, Triumph. But yes! Finally! Sanity had broken out. I was going to get reactivated. “I’ll go suit up!”

“Starlight, you have not - I repeat, have not - been approved for field deployment. You are to follow Triumph’s lead, and assist him in any way he needs in overseeing this incident.”

“But-” I bit off what I was going to say. I wasn’t going to ruin my relationship with one of the frequent operations commanders. “Yes, sir.”

The mask-up alarm sounded on the door behind me, and rather than wait thirty seconds Triumph overrode the delay and marched straight in. He was half-way into costume, missing his usual shoulderpads and gloves. He still had on his ridiculously gaudy golden lion helmet - the one that made it look like a big cat had tried to swallow his head and choked on it.

“Starlight…” he caught sight of my eyes, and his tone clicked back to Wards Team lead mode. “Get yourself under control. Your eyes are glowing.”

“I know,” I said, trying to resist the urge to tell him to stick his head in a toilet. “Purity is there. And-”

“So get yourself under control.”

“And Lung is coming. Portent pre-cog’d it.”

He bit his lip. “Damn.” He marched over. “Move. I need the console.”

“Portent, Triumph is taking over Console duties,” I said, not moving. I wasn’t being passive-aggressive. I was just doing things to the letter of the book. “Are you two safe right now for us to do handover?”

“Yeah, we’re clear right now. We’re pulling back away from the street. And-” another boom. “And I want to be well out of the blast radius when Lung shows up.”

Having made my point, I slipped off my headset, switching to loudspeakers while Triumph looked for cables. “I was about to update Hotseat on this, so you’re going to have to-”

“I know, Taylor.”

“Just making the point that-”

“I know.”

“What do you need me to do?” I tried.

“Go get a drink. You sound croaky.”

Get out of the way, he meant. For all that Portent had a stick so far up his ass that it was tickling his tonsils, he could at least listen and acknowledge that I knew what I was doing. Triumph treated me like a child. Our relationship when he had been leading the Wards had been tense. And it hadn’t improved since he’d graduated.

“Hotseat, this is Triumph, taking over duties from Starlight. Purity has been identified as being on-location, and is likely attacking ABB holdings. We have cape-sourced intel that Lung is on route. Please notify EMS and have them standing by. But as it stands the location is not - I repeat, is not safe for EMS or Fire.”

Now? Now I was really useless. Not allowed out to fight. Not even able to be a secretary. Hoping that they’d relent because my friends were in danger out there and I could help them. But I wasn’t being allowed to.

“Console, we… oh God.” That was Portent. I could hear the fear in his voice. No, not fear. And not terror, either. Horror. “Gallant, run! You! Over there! Run! C’mon! Everyone run! Get away from here! Console, get the hospitals ready!”

“Portent! Portent! What do you see?”

I turned and dashed to my room to get changed. To get Portent freaked out like that it had to be bad. They would need me in costume. Even if I was off the active duty roster.

They sent me out.

But only after they’d confirmed that the villains weren’t around. I wasn’t going to be part of a PRT task force to take down these criminals. Purity had gotten away. No one had stopped her leaving. No, I was going in with the firefighters to pick up the pieces. To put out the fires. With Triumph ordering me around over my helmet and Dauntless there to babysit me, just in case someone used the chance to go after heroes doing clean-up.

The chop shop had been based in a cluster of low-slung brick buildings arranged around a dead-end offshoot from a main road. The structures were plain, with angled asphalt roll roofing painted white with snow and no windows. The place had probably once been a factory, before all the front facades had been replaced with corrugated garage doors and the insides converted to vehicle bays. There were cars dotted all around the lot in various states of repair - or at least there had been. Seven were burning husks, and a dozen more were wrecked beyond repair by bullet holes and precision blasts. There were fleets of ambulances here, sirens wailing and their blue lights contrasting to the orange of the fires. The snow on the ground was melting. That’d freeze over again as black ice soon. And the worst thing was the people. The people in winter coats, hobbling across the churned up ground, being escorted out away from the fires by the emergency services. Some of them crying, others huddled miserably on the pitted sidewalks wrapped in thermal blankets.

As for the buildings...

Purity was the strongest Blaster in the city. Maybe one of the strongest on the east coast. She hadn’t been gentle here. Maybe she’d held back against the gang members. But when Lung had showed up? That had changed. I followed the trajectory. She must have been flying, and angled it down. What was left looked like a pit into Hell, spitting out thick black fumes.

“God,” Dauntless said, looking down.

“Yeah,” I said, mouth dry. It wasn’t from the heat. I’d sealed my helmet so I didn’t have to breathe in the fumes of the melted asphalt. And more than asphalt.

Purity had carved downward through half a block of warehouses and old factories, collapsing walls and floors and ceilings indiscriminately. A butcher working on a brick-and-concrete carcass. But this cleaver hadn’t revealed layers of muscle and fat and bone when it had slammed down. The edges of the hole were smooth and glassy where the brick had melted, and I could taste the heat still lingering in them. Cooling ceramics made little plinks and chimes. Disemboweled buildings spilled out trails of brick and concrete, snarled up in bare ribcages of rebar and rubble. Sheared floors and ceilings sagged out of charred back walls that were their only remaining anchor point.

Nothing was whole. The lines between this and that were blurred. There, a broken pipe protruded from congealed and burned plastic. There, wires sprouted from a torn-apart drywall like some kind of weird metal lichen. Hollow windows gaped at the destruction from the other side of the street where the glass had been caved inward by the force of the blast, and the burning wreckage belched pillars of dark smoke up into the cold winter’s sky, trailing off in the direction of the Bay and Boardwalk. I could hear the hungry crackling of flames from ruptured gas pipes, the shouts of the fire department, the spray of hoses, the crunch of broken glass and debris under feet. At the heart of it all was the hole the beam had dug into the ground, a frothing cauldron of oil and water and black smoke. There must have been some kind of underground gas tank or fuel storage or something down there. I could taste the burning hydrocarbons at the heart of the inferno.

This was Little Tokyo. How many people had been living in these old factories? I prayed under my breath that - God - the fact that it had been just before lunch time meant there weren’t too many people home.

I wish I’d been angry. It would have been a lot easier to deal with it with the comforting roar of rage. But I felt cold. And ashen. All this. All this, in less than five minutes. One supervillain had done this. She’d come here and started destroying and killing. Because that was what she did. And she’d escaped, because Portent and Gallant had been the only heroes on the scene and all they could do was try to get as many as possible away from a pre-vision they couldn’t stop. I could have done something. But I’d been kept safe. Safe like this place hadn’t been in the face of her callous apathy. Because that was what it was.

I mean, holy shit! My blasts were only a fraction of what she could do, and there were levels of my strength I never pulled out without knowing exactly what was downrange! Not just my target, but also behind the nearest wall! But she’d just cut loose. And this entire area was in ruins and on fire and… and… and...

“Starlight.” Dauntless’s voice had a warning note in it. “You’re flaring.”

I was. And not subtly, either. I wasn’t just glowing, I had my aura up all the way, with coronal loops arcing out from me in brilliant yellow-white and a fully defined edge boundary. I looked like a comet approaching the sun, and I knew my eyes must be burning under my visor.

“Sorry,” I said in a small voice, hugging myself even as I brought my aura in. “I’m just… on edge.”

“Yeah.” He leant on his white-lightning spear. “Me too. God, this is horrible. I wish we’d been able to do something, dammit! But what the hell can we do when things happen so damn fast? I was working out when this got called in!”

“At least the boys didn’t get hurt.” I couldn’t feel my lips.

“Yeah. Portent and Gallant must be feeling like sh-” he looked around, noticing the journalists behind the police tape, “... like really bad.” He paused. “You know, it could have been worse?” he said carefully.

I didn’t see how. He took my silence as an answer.

“Portent said he saw what happened if she hadn’t angled it down. If she’d fired it level. So. Yeah. Could have been worse.” He rested his hand on my shoulder. “You feeling up to cooling that place down, or do you need a moment?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I do. I know it can’t burn me, but…” I shivered despite my aura keeping me warm in the cold winter air. The pit stared up at me, glowing like an orange-red coal from the burning oil and gas down there, swirling and boiling and screaming from the leaking water mains and tortured metal.

“Don’t blame you.” Dauntless was better company than Triumph, not that that was hard. He kind of understood the pressure I got as “Brockton Bay’s rising star”. I didn’t have to try and - hah - live up to the Legend around him. He got it. Showing a moment of weakness wouldn’t make him start treating me like a helpless kid, and nor would it knock me off a pedestal in his eyes.

“She was really trying to kill Lung,” I said out loud, trying to keep my voice level. “Do you know if Purity’s ever thrown around this much firepower before?”

“I don’t think so.” He shook his head. “I reckon she just saw him arrive, and decided to just go all-out to take him down before he could amp himself up. Cops say eyewitnesses said he wasn’t much taller than a regular dude and only partly scaly and… yeah. He tried breathing fire up at her and she just nuked him.”

I took a step closer. One of the reasons Dauntless was here with me was his armour protected him against extreme temperatures, at least a bit, but he still stayed close behind me where I could shield him from the wall of heat. “Is… is he dead?”

“Dunno. But Portent said ABB bikers showed up with Oni Lee and Kin Daruma, and they pulled something out of the pit. So. Y’know.” He worked his shoulder, the same shoulder Lung had broken six months ago. “If he’s alive at all, he’ll be back on his feet eventually. Basta… dude doesn’t die easy. And man, he’ll be pissed.”

I shuddered at the thought. Pulled him out of the pit? No. Not likely. Neither of those two villains had powers that would let them go down there without cooking. Which meant if they’d found Lung, he must have crawled out of there. I tried to breathe into my cupped hands, forgetting that my sealed helmet was in the way. God. God. Trapped in that pit. That burning pit. Surrounded by ruin. Probably blinded. Trapped down there, unable to tell which way was up. With skin melted away by Purity’s blast and broken metal piercing my flesh and whirlpool-tossed concrete debris breaking my bones, burning and drowning in a frothing mix of fuel and water as more and more of the buildings above collapsed in on me-

I screwed my eyes shut, but that didn’t help. Not when it was my imagination which was providing the fuel.

Strong arms turned me around and walked me away from the pit. “Okay, you are in no condition to head down there on your own,” Dauntless told me. “I don’t need to be Gallant to see that.”

“I’m fine,” I lied. A blind mole on the moon could have seen through it.

“C’mon, what’s the matter? This isn’t the worst fire you’ve seen.”

How did I tell him that it wasn’t the fire? It was the… the everything. Everything was making the hair on the back of my neck stand on end and filling my stomach with gnawing butterflies and pulling the strength from my limbs as greedily as I gulped down power. The melted asphalt on the ground which stuck to my costume was as much to blame as the hissing sizzle of broken water pipes dripping onto superheated ceramics.

“Don’t call it in.” I swallowed, wishing I didn’t sound so pathetic. “Please. I just need a bit of time to… to get myself ready.”

I walked off, back too upright, legs too stiff, and took off. Up; far enough up that I didn’t have to stand there among the ruins. I unsealed my helmet and gasped for air. I could taste the smoke and the fumes, but the rebreather had been stifling me. I needed the cold. Down below, the fire trucks were trying to get the blaze under control. The jets of water were producing a cold mist that drifted up to me. The salt trucks were spreading grit on the roads that led here, so they didn’t ice over. And from up here, I could see the winter-coated ants swarming around the disaster area.

Damn it. Damn it. I was lying to myself. I couldn’t have done a thing. Even if I’d been here. Not when she just cut loose like that. I’d have been safe from that beam, but I couldn’t have saved everyone. My legs and arms felt like overcooked noodles; I curled into a ball and hugged my knees. My eyes were stinging and I tried to blink away the tears. And... and this wasn’t just a moment of vulnerability, this was falling apart on the job, and however much he understood the pressure Dauntless was going to think I was too weak to cope with it and he’d probably call it in and people would know-

I felt sick.

I drifted back down ten minutes later, with my mask sealed back up, and didn’t say a thing that wasn’t a monotone perfunctory answer to one of Dauntless’s questions. Wrapped in my aura, I went down into that pit and quenched the fires and when I came out, my blue costume was as black as night from all the soot and fumes.

“It’s out,” I croaked, scraping a filth-encrusted glove across my visor and only managing to spread the soot around. “Coal. Lots of it. In a cellar. Probably from an old factory.”

“Great! I think that’s all that needs your attention, so you should probably…”

“Starlight, are you done?” Triumph interrupted over my radio. “The firefighters want your help.”

“Hey, hey, I think she needs to go back. They didn’t say anything was life or death,” Dauntless said in my defence. Was it my defence? I wasn’t even sure at this point. Words were hard. I just wanted to go lie down in my bed and sleep. For a week. Until I remembered how to feel things again. “And she’s covered in soot and maybe some of the stuff down there is toxic.”

“The fire department says that there’s enough flammable material in the area that they want her on station.”

“No, listen, Triumph, I think she needs to go back!”

“We shouldn’t be having this on the general channel, Dauntless. Take this private.”

Why were they arguing? The damage was done. We couldn’t undo this. Purity had killed again. Through callous, uncaring collateral damage. And I hadn’t saved anyone today. It was all done by the time I got there. All I’d done was be a glorified sprinkler. But I couldn’t have stopped this. Even if I’d been here. My power kept me safe. Not other people. Not Dad.

I was coated in the residue from toxic fumes and a coal fire and I really didn’t want to unseal my mask or else I’d smell it, but I also needed - needed - fresh air. I felt weak. I felt sick. And I really didn’t want to throw up inside my helmet.

Sagging down, I sat on the ruined stump of a wall and concentrated on my breathing. My heart was a drum in my ears and someone had a hand clenched around my stomach. Why was I falling to pieces like this? I tried to be perfect. I tried to be the best Ward, the best cape, a sh-shining example of the future. Someone who

- couldn’t save anyone

saved people. Who was the sensible one. Who was a natural leader. But all I could do was wrap my arms around myself and try not to burst into tears.

“Hey.” Dauntless approached me. “We gotta get you back to base. For decontamination.” The sympathy in his voice hurt. I didn’t deserve sympathy. Someone who could have stopped all this and wasn’t falling to pieces like a child would have been worthy of it. Not me. “Can you fly?”

“Yeah,” I said, voice weak.

Dauntless grabbed my wrist, helping me up. I got his nice clean costume dirty because he’d touched me. “C’mon. You did a hero’s job out here today.”

He was lying, and it didn’t help.

Chapter Text

A shower helped. A little bit. The sun was low in the west by the time I was done and felt a little more human. A little less fragile. I wrapped up warm, dodged Megumi in the common area because I just could not right now, and swiped out so I could leave by the back entrance.

“Good job, Taylor,” Velocity said, passing by as I waited for the all-clear to leave. He was fully suited up, with only his mouth exposed. Couldn’t have been fun, running like that in this weather.

“Thanks.” Everyone was lying to me. But I had to smile at him and pretend like everything was fine. Like I hadn’t punched the wall in the showers and had to slurp down something from the office power to cover up the bruises on my knuckles.

He stepped closer. “Just so you know, if you haven’t checked your email, you’re not on the rosters tomorrow. Take it easy,” he said quietly.

“Why?” I demanded.

I suspected he was raising his eyebrows at me behind his helmet. “C’mon. You had shitty console duty and a no-notice deployment today. I thought you’d be glad to get to skip work. I’d be. You know, in your place.”

Rubbing my temples, I forced another fake smile. My cheeks were starting to hurt from how many I’d had to paste on today. “I mean, you’re not wrong…” Except he kind of was. I felt useless when stuck on console duty, but I was even more useless when I was doing nothing. “Just… pissed about today. And how,” Purity, “... they got away. But yeah. Maybe I’ll feel better tomorrow.”

“Yeah. Well, try to get your head out of the game. Go see a movie or something. Something easy to watch.”

“Maybe.” With that said, I tucked my scarf up around my neck, and stepped outside. Jamming my hands in my pockets, I headed along the slushy streets, lined with low-lying mist. I was glad I still had my contacts in, because my glasses would have fogged over in a snap. Headlights from growling cars pinned me with accusing stares, and light bled out from the upper windows of the corporate buildings all around HQ. Slipping on my headphones, I flicked through my albums until I found Irene Messler and headed homewards.

Only the thing was that I didn’t want to go home. Mom wasn’t going to be home yet, because she had some kind of exam planning day up at the college. I didn’t want to be home alone. Not because I had anything to fear, but because I didn’t want to be there in a cold house with no one but Paw Marx. Paw was terrible company when you had something to get off your chest. He’d prefer to sit on your chest instead.

So instead I went off at an angle, heading for St John’s. Pulling out my civilian phone, I noticed a missed call from Leah. I couldn’t face talking to her, not when I felt like this. But I shot off a text to Mom. I hesitated, looking at it. My thumb hovered over the cell. Should I…

Yes. I sent another quickly, biting my lip.

I put my phone away, so I wouldn’t see her response. I heard it vibrate, but ignored it. Mom would know that I’d had a bad day if I was going there. I headed out of the downtime area at a brisk walk. By the time I was passing the Lord’s Street Market, where figures in thick coats were shutting down the last of the weekday stalls, my legs were aching but I didn’t care. I welcomed the burn of overworked muscles. If I could get home and collapse and just sleep, I’d do it willingly.

St John’s was an old red brick church, on the edge of the dock district. The buildings around it were just as old; sawmills and paper mills, and the houses the workers had lived in. These days the mills were mostly quiet, and some of them had been knocked down to make way for apartment blocks. A lot of the New York refugees lived around here; the ones who had managed to avoid getting stuck in the Ormswood cargo container ‘temporary’ housing. No one paid me any attention as I made my way there, but I could hear people talking about the cape fight today. People around St John’s were no fans of the Empire-88, because there were too many African-American, Latino and Asian faces here and the Empire hated the New York refugees almost as much as they hated foreigners. But this neighbourhood also didn’t like the Japanese refugees over in Little Tokyo. ‘A plague on both their houses’ was a pretty accurate summary of the conversations I overheard. That and muttering about the PRT failing to take down the gangs.

It felt like they were blaming me. And maybe they were right to do so. People had been telling me that I’d screwed up by going after Half-A; Director Piggot, Portent, Mom. And for the first time, I almost felt like it was true. My feet crunched on the salt-gritted pavements as the street lights came on, one by one. I just… I didn’t know what I could have done differently today. There had to have been something.

I stopped at a 7-11 to buy flowers and catch my breath. The National Enquirers on the shelves were claiming that Scion had been seen in the Bermuda Triangle; the Brockton Bay Times was talking about a wave of refugee crime. Leaving both kinds of trash behind, I turned left into the church. The snow coated the graveyard under a thick white blanket. The paths had been kept clear, but around them was nearly a foot of snow on the seaward side. I headed past the church and up over the slope of the low hill, my thighs complaining with every step up the slope. There were some people around, but not many at this hour; solitary figures in black winter coats in the sunset red light. Shielding my eyes against the sun, I headed down a path I knew well. To somewhere where the evergreen trees formed a thicket, growing wild away from the main body of the church, shielding the cemetery from prying eyes over the exterior wall.

And there it was.

“Hi, Dad,” I said, my voice suddenly croaky. I laid the flowers on the snow in front of the headstone, and paused for breath. Putting my thoughts in order. Hearing the hammering of my heart in my ears speed up even more. “I know… I know it’s me again. You probably get tired of me showing up and talking at you. Never getting a chance to - ha - say anything back.” God, I sounded so false. “It’s just… I needed someone to talk to and Mom wouldn’t understand and…”

No. That wasn’t true. It was a lie. Mom would understand, but I didn’t want her to understand. This didn’t feel like something that could just be made better. And I didn’t want to worry her.

“So, things are going… I mean, they’re not super-bad, but there have been some bad things since I last visited.” I sighed, my breath fogging up in front of me as soon as it left my bubble. “No. I can’t lie to you. They’re pretty bad. Mom’s fine. It’s just… it’s just my life. I got in a fight with Half-A at the mall. A pair of gamer losers and a super annoying girl. And I drove them off with Amy’s help and then tracked them down and they got away, but they’re not going to recover from that easily. Only… only I didn’t follow orders exactly, and now I’m banned from patrols and…”

I stood in front of the grave, brushing snow off the headstone and watching it melt away to nothing in my hands. Cold water oozed down my sleeves, raising goosebumps. I never knew what to say at these moments. Dad and I hadn’t needed to talk. He’d just been… there. Words had only gotten in the way. As they got in the way now. He’d always been safe and secure and reliable and everything my life wasn’t. The cold wind whispered around my aura, and around me the ice on the path melted, leaving a little circle of bare concrete.

“She killed a bunch more people today,” I whispered. “Her. Purity. Over in Little Tokyo. She went after an ABB chopshop and… and Lung showed up and then she just cut loose and… and it was like last time. People were in the way. She didn’t care. They h-h-haven’t told me how many people died and I didn’t ask but I know that… that she murdered more people today. L-like last time.

“I’m… I’m sorry, Dad. I couldn’t stop her. I was stuck on stupid console duty. If I’d been there, maybe I could have…”

Could have stopped her. Could have saved the people in that horrible molten scar. Could have avenged you. All of them were things I wanted to say. All of them were things I’d failed to do.

“... if I’d been there, I could have tried. Even if I’d failed. But if I’d tried, I could have saved a few people. I didn’t s-s-save anyone today.”

The wind was getting in my eyes, making them water. I wiped them on the sleeve of my jacket, and sniffled as my hair fell in front of my face like a mourning veil. Goddamnit. I’d seen the aftermath of the fight earlier today and it was bringing back bad memories. I was a hero to protect people. To stop anything like this happening to anyone else. And I tried. I really tried. But the first person I’d failed to save was Dad, and now the woman who’d killed him had just killed a bunch more people and...

“Why?” Just one word, but it made up everything. Why did this have to happen? Why hadn’t anyone stopped Purity? Why was I the one who’d got the powers and had survived while he hadn’t? And was it in some way my fault?

I didn’t get any answers. I just stood there until the sun was gone, and the sparse street lights lining the pathways turned my red jacket black. Biting my lower lip, I shook my head.

“I’m sorry to always show up with bad news or… or because I’m feeling down,” I said. “You must think my life sucks. It… it doesn’t. Please don’t worry about me. Uh. But thank you for listening. I love you.” I swallowed. “I miss you.”

I crunched over the snow, and wrapped my arms around the headstone in a hug. It was only granite, though. Wet granite soaking into my clothes. It didn’t reciprocate. It never did.

“Bye, Dad,” I said, kissing the cold stone. “Uh. See you.”

I rose, dusting off fast-melting snow from my knees. Then turned my back on him, and retraced my steps out of the graveyard. Once out, I adjusted my coat and rubbed my gloved hands together. My legs were soaked. What time was it? Oh. Yes, I should head home. Mom would be happier if I took the bus - or called her for a pick-up - but I was going to walk. I needed the time to think. To calm myself down.

I might have lingered for a while under a humming power pylon and snacked on bubbly mains electricity until I felt a bit better. In my defence, it was healthier than binge-eating chocolate. I had to do it. Just in case. I had to be ready and topped off in case something bad happened. And it helped me think.

What I was thinking, right now, was that I needed some time off the job. Something to ground me. Something to knock me out of work mode and help me feel better. I needed a friend.

Emma’s house was fifteen minutes away if I took the 261 bus.

I crossed the road and made for the stop.

Emma answered the door so fast that I half-suspected she’d been waiting for me. Certainly, she gave me a sympathetic look and didn’t ask a single question. She just gave me a quick hug, led me up to her room and sat me down by her beauty desk. The mirror showed me a girl with red-rimmed eyes and a wide mouth turned downward at the edges, hopelessness and heartbreak written across her face.

I closed my eyes as she pulled off my hairband, and let the first tug of the brush pull my head back without reacting. My hair was wet enough from all the melted snow that it wouldn’t puff up and go frizzy. Not that I was in much of a state to care.

“I don’t know much,” she said softly as she worked. “Big explosion somewhere in the Docks. The talking heads on TV said it was Purity, and I guessed from the smoke columns that you’d be there. Did you... see her?”

I shook my head slightly. The tugging on my scalp as she brushed was relaxing - not exactly comfortable, but the way it pulled at my hair and moved my head back and forth with the rhythm of her strokes was nice. I felt her reaching around me to pick things out of the neatly arranged products on the vanity for when she was done, but didn’t bother opening my eyes to see what they were.

“They didn’t let me out until after,” I murmured. “For clean-up. She levelled a building. ABB chop shop. Smashed up,” I swallowed, “cars. And trucks. Giant pit she blasted in the ground, all on fire and... yeah.”

Emma drew a long, hissed breath in through her teeth and let it out with a quiet “bitch”. She hated Purity almost as much as I did - Dad had known her dad since university. He’d been like an uncle to her. And Emma had been the one who’d helped Mom put me back together after my Trigger. The brush stilled for a moment, then carried on in steady strokes.

When she was done with my hair, she spun me around halfway and dragged a stool over, unscrewing a bottle of something. I smelled the sharp acetone of nail polish and offered my hand. She squeezed it sympathetically, then grabbed a towel to help dry me off.

“You’re soaked,” she said, as she started painting in quick, cold, expert sweeps of the nail brush.

“Yeah. It’s,” I failed to smile, “my powers. Snow becomes rain.”

“Oh you.” She smelled of her perfume and a hint of burnt hair. She must have been straightening it before I arrived. Brush. Brush. Brush. After a while, “So?”

“So?”

“You look like you’ve been crying it out for a while,” she said, finishing my left hand and moving onto my right. “Where’d you go?”

“Dad.” I laid my left hand on the vanity, fingers splayed. I didn’t get quite the same sort of confidence boost from being prettied up as Emma did. It was probably what my costume was to me, on a normal day when it wasn’t stained with the soot and fumes of that hellish pit of nightmares. It was her superpower. For me, it was... just makeup. I liked how I looked with my hair and nails and face done up, but not enough to go to the effort of doing everything each morning.

But back when we’d lost Dad, Emma hadn’t understood that yet, and helping me look like I was coping was one of the things she’d thought would help. It had, in a way. Not as directly as she’d thought it would, but it had helped to not have everyone see me snotty and tearstained and sleepless all the time. It had helped to have time with her when I didn’t have to pretend I was functional. Quiet moments in our rooms that gave us something to do while we struggled to talk. So it had become our ritual whenever I couldn’t cope.

“That’s good.” She finished my right hand and moved onto my face, tilting my head back and tapping little spots of moisturiser on. I could hear the sad smile in her voice. “Did you tell him ‘Hi!’ from me?”

I shook my head again and got rapped lightly for moving. “Next time.”

She moved onto the primer, and sighed. “I’m trying to think of a better question than ‘how are you holding up’, but...”

That got a soft breath of laughter out of me, before the flash of humour drained away to nothing. My stomach churned; my thighs ached; my arms felt heavy and weak. “I, uh. Numb, mostly. At the moment, anyway. Later I’ll be... I dunno. Furious. Guilty. Hateful. But right now I just feel empty.”

“Empty as in burned out, or empty as in ‘going to do something stupid when the shock wears off’?” She dabbed concealer under my eyes and started on foundation powder as I considered the question. Much as I hated to admit it, she wasn’t wrong to ask.

“I- I think I’ll be okay. Not like there’s anything I could do even if I wanted to.”

Emma didn’t say anything for a few moments, working in sympathetic silence. “Talk to me when the shock starts wearing off, okay?” she eventually said. “You know how you can spiral. And as fun as Amy is, she’s not good at cheering you up.”

“Yeah. ‘Kay.”

“Good.” She caught my chin and I suppressed the urge to flinch backwards and squeeze my eyes shut as the mascara brush dragged over my lashes. I didn’t dare open them to peek at her expression, but I guessed she was wearing that little frown she always had when she was trying to think of something to say.

“Oh, hey!” she said. I hissed as she almost stabbed me in the eye, and she muttered a quick apology before putting the mascara away and taking out the lip paint. “So, you’ll never guess what happened at Winslow on the last day. Gladly basically checked out of the lesson and put on a video-”

“Who’s he again?”

“World Issues. The lame one who tries to be cool. So he basically let us gossip, and Julia was talking about how far she’d gone with her boyfriend, and she was so obviously lying to try and make herself look cool that I could’ve laughed. I think Madison bought it, too, but like... she was blatantly making up stuff she didn’t know a thing about. It was embarrassing to watch.”

She’d moved onto doing my lips, so I felt safe cracking my eyes open. They felt itchy and gritty from the eyeliner and eyeshadow she’d put on them, but I ignored it with practiced stubbornness. This was part of why I didn’t use makeup much on my own. I didn’t see the point of tolerating the discomfort every day.

For now, I let my gaze drift around the room as Emma chattered and finished touching up her work. It was nicer than mine. More feminine. There were some touches that stood out, like the bag of karate kit hanging off a hook on her closet door and the home recording studio setup next to her computer. It was certainly tider than Vicky’s, but there were pig-pens which were less of a mess than her room. And mine, of course, was still sparse from the move and how a lot of my stuff was kept in my room at base. A lot of what was in there were things like technical manuals and non-fiction books, too. Emma’s, by contrast, was a stylish young woman’s palace. I wished my room looked like this, but there was no way I could put the time in to be this cool.

It hadn’t always been like this. I remembered when her room had been a shrine of pastel pink and princess themes. We’d traded off sleepovers ever since we were old enough to have them, and I had years of memories of being tucked into cutesy covers among piles of plushies, peering through the windows of elaborate doll’s houses, knocking flowers off the shelves as we had pillow fights.

But about six months after Dad died, she’d decided to grow up. I’d never asked if it was looking after me that had pushed her to step into more adult styles, or if she’d just decided she wanted a more mature look. Either way, she’d gone over her room mercilessly. Nowadays, the walls were a tasteful cream with pops of colour where she’d painted the silhouettes of landmarks she wanted to visit some day - an Eiffel Tower in red beside the window, a Venetian bridge I could never remember the name of over her desk. Her vanity was no longer a tiny pink thing cluttered with beanie babies and cutesy stickers - now it was sleek, professional and frosted-glass-topped, with lights around the rim of the wide mirror and a single selfie of the two of us tacked up on one corner.

Photoshoots from her modelling hung up here and there, and there was a shelf of her bookcase devoted entirely to - signed - Starlight merch. The old treasured Alexandria doll I’d given her when we were ten was up there as well. I’d borrowed it for my award ceremony and, blushing furiously, asked the woman herself to autograph it. Emma’s expression had made the awkwardness of the request entirely worth it.

Sometimes I wondered if I would have been able to do the same thing, without Mom forcibly moving us away from the old house. Emma had reinvented herself, deliberately and with careful thought put into who she wanted to be. Sometimes I felt like the only changes I’d made since that last halcyon summer as a normal girl were the ones that had been imposed from outside. Purity, robbing me of a parent and leaving me with powers. Mom, moving us away from the house I’d grown up in and enrolling me in Arcadia “for better support”. The Wards, giving me a place to drown my grief and a purpose to replace it with.

Emma finished chattering and beautifying me while I was lost in thought, and spun me back to the mirror with a victorious “hah”. The girl that met my gaze looked...

... better. Her makeup wasn’t obvious. She didn’t have smoky eyes or bright red lips or anything. But the tear stains and wind-chapped cheeks were gone. The bags under her eyes were expertly hidden. Something subtle around her mouth and cheeks had changed, making her look serious and determined instead of just wide-mouthed and miserable.

I inched a corner of my mouth up, and this smile came off as wry, rather than hopeless.

“Feeling better?” Emma asked behind me. Her arms came around my shoulders in a loose, supportive hug.

“Still not great,” I sighed, leaning my head back to rest in the crook of her neck. “But I’ll get there. Thanks, Emma.”

“Anytime, Tay.” She nudged me in the side. “I’m your sidekick, after all.”

Mom still wasn’t home by the time I got back. I checked my phone to see if she had anything to say.

Oh yes. She had said this morning that she had her work Christmas dinner tonight. I’d just forgotten it in all the chaos of the day. My thumbs hovered over the buttons. Should I ask her to come home so we could talk? No, I decided. No, I wouldn’t. She deserved a chance to have dinner out with friends. And I was feeling fine. Just fine. Or at least not un-fine enough to force it on her. I could talk to her tomorrow or something.

I got the vegetarian lasagna out of the fridge, and stared at it. Bits of red pepper and mushroom poked out of the tomato sauce. Sigh. All healthy. And full of nutrients and vitamins and things like that. I was gonna have to eat ice cream after this to make up for this sad sack of a meal.

“Y’know,” I told it, as I transferred it to something that was oven safe, “lasagna is a deeply depressing meal. How does it feel to be the stuff on the bottom layer?” It had nothing to say. “No, no, think about it. Not only are you doomed to be eaten, but you didn’t even get to live at the top with the nice crisp toppings. That’s life down there. Soggy. Wet. Doomed to get stuck in the bottom of the oven tray and thrown out.”

I put the oven dish on the cooker top, put its lid on, then cranked the temperature up. Five minutes later it was done, and I had lasagna which was about half-way between oven-baked and microwaved in consistency. Some people might say that it’s a misuse of superpowers to heat up food, but they’re just people who’re jealous.

“Mraa. Mraa. Mraaa. Mraaaaa.” Paw Marx decided to rub up against my legs and try to trip me over, because he wanted to be fed. And he wasn’t going to leave me alone until I gave in. Of all the criminal extortionists in the city, he had to be one of the most effective.

“Fine, you stupid fat cat,” I grumbled. “They should Birdcage you. Except you’d like that, because you’d think you were going into a real birdcage. Where you could eat baby birds. Like you do.” I poured his dry food into his bowl, and he looked up at me resentfully. “Oh, I know you want the wet food, but you’re not getting it. You’re on a diet,” I told him as I washed my hands. “To each according to his needs, and you need to lose weight, you fat bag of crap.”

“Mraa,” he said, before deciding that I wasn’t going to give in and give him the wet food he really wanted.

Grabbing a book on my way to the table, I got started on my dinner. It didn’t work. My stomach was hungry, but my brain wasn’t. By half-way through, I was spending about as much time pushing food around my plate as I was actually eating. I managed another quarter, forcing myself to eat, before I gave up. Scraping what remained into the food waste bin, I headed upstairs and flopped face-first onto my bed. And then remembered the makeup. Urgh. Bluh. Dammit, that was going to stain my duvet. I couldn’t deal with it now though. I was humming with nervous energy. I couldn’t focus on anything.

Getting changed into my pyjamas helped. A little. But only a little. I floated through to the bathroom, and attacked my face with some makeup remover. When I met my gaze in the mirror, there were little stars in my pupils. Oh crap. Hopefully I hadn’t been glowing on my way home. I’d checked before I left HQ like I always did, but when had this started? If I’d been like that when I got to Emma’s, no wonder she’d realised I was in a bad state. Though my eyes had been normal when she’d finished my makeup.

Calm down. I had to calm down. Except I couldn’t, because my heart was racing and my nerves were busy twisting themselves into tiny knotted cords. And there was nothing here that was a threat. This was home. Home was safe.

I closed my eyes and again saw the burning hole in the ground. Rebar protruding from molten ceiling tiles. Flame-jets sprouting from broken gas lines. Like a smouldering gullet full of broken rebar fangs and brick rubble molars and leaking oil digestive juices. No. Home wasn’t safe. It was just a building. Buildings weren’t safe. Not with her out there. I wasn’t wrong to be on edge. It was everyone else who was wrong. I was the safest person in the city because I could pull in her power, but I didn’t have enough range. I couldn’t even keep mom safe if she was in another room. Let alone when she was off having a Christmas dinner with her work friends.

I checked my phone. No response to my most recent message. What if something had happened to her? Why hadn’t she called? Or texted? Oh, it was a dark, horrible thought and I couldn’t see a reason why Purity could have tracked down Mom, but that was just it. She didn’t need a reason. She hadn’t had a reason for… for killing those people today. They’d just been in the way. No. They hadn’t even been in the way. They’d been in the general area.

Why weren’t the Protectorate hunting her down? They could bring people in. Grab a proper strike force, and bring her to justice. So no one else became ‘collateral damage’. There had to be Thinkers out there who could work out who she was when she wasn’t glowing. People who could take her down without letting her charge up one of her big blasts. Hell, the only way she’d beaten Lung today was that she’d dropped that massive blast on him before he’d got amped up. And… and… and...

“Damn it,” I whispered to my reflection. I was such an idiot. I had been so excited when Brandish had mentioned that there were going to be villain raids around Christmas. Well, look at me. I’d got my wish. My nemesis had shown her face and I hadn’t been able to do a thing and now there were even more people dead.

God. Sometimes I even managed to forget that this wasn’t a sport. Villains weren’t just in it for the thrill of the game. And every time they escaped, we were failing everyone else. I was failing everyone else. Half-A with the way they’d treated Emma like meat. Just like they treated those poor animals as things for sport. And Purity, who didn’t care. Who had a power so much like mine but just used it to hurt and kill and destroy.

I checked my phone again. Still no response from Mom. Maybe I should call her. Just to make sure that she was alright. I really should. Except then maybe I’d worry her and she was worried enough already. I didn’t want to make her cry. I had to be strong for her. Sitting down on my bed with my cell cupped in my hands, I stared out the window at the lights of the city. It was starting to snow again.

A ringtone drew my attention. But that wasn’t my personal phone. It was my PRT one. I grabbed it off my desk and glared at it. What bullshit was- oh!

“Hi Missy,” I said, answering it.

“Hey, Taylor. Wait, are you okay?”

“What do you mean?”

“That was a real grumpy ‘hi Missy’?”

Huh. Had it been? I stared at my reflection in the window, and forced myself to smile. I couldn’t let her realise how… how off-balance I was. “Today was really stressful,” I admitted. “You know how console duty is. Ninety percent boredom...”

“... ten percent people shouting,” she completed for me. “Yeah. I heard there was another big ABB vs Empire fight down in Little Tokyo.”

“Portent and Gallant were nearby. They’re fine.”

She breathed a sigh of relief she must have been holding in. “Oh. Oh, that’s great.”

“Yeah.” No, it wasn’t. Well, it was great that they were fine, but talking about how my friend and Portent were fine when other people weren’t made me feel like a fraud. “How are things with you?”

“So-so.” That was her ‘talking about family’ tone. It wasn’t at all like Amy’s, because Amy would just tell me when she got in a flaming row with her mom. Missy curled up in a ball and tried to pretend everything was fine. But she’d just pull away if I asked further.

“So, what’s up?” I asked. “I have a bath running, so I’ve got maybe ten minutes before I’ll have to go.”

“Oh, nah, it’s going to be quick. I had an idea! Are you doing anything tomorrow? I checked your schedule and it says you’re free.”

“Yeah, I got tomorrow off.”

“Well, I thought, since there’s now three girls on the team, we need to have a girls’ thing together! Y’know, get to know Megumi better! It’s nearly Christmas and all! And school’s out.”

Oh, right. Yes. And Missy wanted out of the house. “That sounds great,” I said. “Do you want to go catch a movie or…”

“Actually I thought we could go to the Lincoln Park Christmas Market! It’s in Little Tokyo and it’s always neat. And we can do Secret Santa!”

“I’m not sure how secret it’ll be,” I pointed out.

“Well, we can buy each other presents then, Amy-lite,” she retorted. “So, how about it?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I’ll… uh. When do you want to meet up? Around 11, if we’re going to grab lunch there?”

“Yeah! Meet up at the statue at the top of the park? You know, the Lincoln one?”

“OK. See you there.”

“Kay, bye!” She ended the call, and I was left staring at my phone. I… yeah. Yeah. That would be good. Something to take my mind off things.

Something to build up my friendships, instead of tearing things down.

Chapter Text

Falling snowflakes landed on the metal of the heat lamps and sizzled. It was a background noise, nearly lost among the sounds of the Christmas market in Lincoln Park. The stalls were loaded with clothing, little hand-painted china dolls, illustrations and a hundred other things. Over there, a wrinkly old man sketched a caricature of his customer; to our right a juggler in a Santa mask entertained the crowd. And then there were the food stands; roasted nuts, hot chocolate, teriyaki and yakisoba, and all the range of Americo-Japano-German street food you got in the Little Tokyo market. It was going to be a Christmas Market until the twenty-sixth, after which it would seamlessly transition into being a New Year's market in the true spirit of capitalism.

Cigarette in hand Megumi strolled through the crowd, scarf hanging loose. I was serving as the DMZ between her and Missy, who refused to stand next to someone who was smoking. This was, of course, a wonderful start to our team-bonding-as-girls, learning-about-each-other-and-becoming-friends exercise.

I was certainly learning a lot. For example, I’d learned that none of us were very good at bonding or making friends.

Well, that was an exaggeration. Things could have been worse. No one had thrown a punch and absolutely no fires had been started. But there was a big difference between going terribly and actually going well. I could chat with Missy normally, but not so much in public. We couldn’t talk shop in front of the civilians. And Megumi just wasn’t clicking with us. She’d been starstruck when she’d first met me, but once that had worn off she’d come across as a surly girl with a chip on her shoulder. The kind of person Emma grouped into ‘those girls who hang out in the bathroom near the English classrooms’ when she shared Winslow gossip. And I hadn’t gotten to know her better since then, because I’d wound up in the dog kennel after the mall thing and the times I’d seen her, I’d been serving as a fire extinguisher. Which wasn’t the most congenial environment.

On top of that, I hadn’t slept well. Not after yesterday. And I couldn’t turn off in a crowded outdoor market in Little Tokyo. Every sudden movement in my peripheral vision had me flinching, and I had to keep suppressing the urge to check my six when I felt people too close behind me. I was certain I’d drained a few phone batteries since arriving, bubbly cola washing over my tongue every time I was jostled.

The sky loomed above us. It would be so easy for Purity to soar in overhead and level the whole market. The burning pit yawned in my memory. She could reduce all the stalls and stands around me to kindling, if she chose. I kept my eyes peeled for glowing points of light among the clouds, fervently grateful that the Christmas lights strung up overhead weren’t yet turned on.

“... gotta say, I’m surprised you two came here on your own,” Megumi was saying as I shook my attention away from a furious-looking man stomping away from a hook-the-duck stall. No, I didn’t have to be on watch for trouble spots. I raised an eyebrow at her, and she shrugged. “I thought you’d be dropped off by your parents, all worried about how dangerous it is to be around here. Of course, you gotta be smart. The market’s probably going to be fine, but you better not wander off without me.”

“I think we’ll be fine,” I replied, a bit stiffly. She was exaggerating. For all that the market had my hackles on edge, that was more because of Purity’s recent attack than it being a really bad part of town. It was just on the edge of Little Tokyo, and got its trade from locals as much as the refugees. “Hey, can we get something to eat? I’m hungry.”

“Sure, but most of the stuff here is overpriced crap. Follow me, I’ll find us something better.”

We trailed after her, exchanging dubious looks. The food stalls were a bit expensive, but they didn’t look that bad to me. They certainly smelled good - there was a nearby food stand that the delicious fried-chicken scent of purring car engines wafted out of, mixed with the faintly Tinkertechy herbs and spices smell...

Missy was looking at me oddly. Oh. I’d said that out loud.

“You are really weird when you start talking like that, you know?” she said. “About your smelling not-smells thing.”

It was called synesthesia, thank you very much. “Says Little Miss Ripples-on-a-Pond-Made-of-Playdough,” I retorted, nudging her. “You’re in no place to talk to me about weird.” She’d tried to describe what her power felt like from the inside before, and all it had ever successfully done was give me a headache. My power might come with odd sensory effects, but the Blaster part was mercifully straightforward. “At least I don’t doodle eye-hurty loopy patterns in my notepad.”

“Well, no.” She yanked down her scarf so I could see her cheeky grin. “Because you can’t draw.”

Megumi emerged from the crowd around a stall with a paper bag - her treat, apparently - and we retreated to a bench near the edge of the market to munch on chicken strips and the tangy dips she’d picked out. The ocean formed the eastern edge of the park, along with an old pier that the market sprawled out onto. Sometimes a powerful wave hit the sea wall and splashed up onto the path. The smell of fish and brine battled the fast food on our laps, and a nearby ring-tossing stall warbled out tinny music that we had to raise our voices over.

“Do you have to smoke?” Missy snapped, as the wind shifted and it blew across her. Megumi took a long, deliberate drag before answering.

“Got a problem with it?”

“Yes! It smells bad and it’s bad for you!”

Megumi shrugged. “It’s no big deal. Grow up.”

“Urgh!”

I rolled my eyes and squeezed Missy’s shoulder. Technically, she was wrong. I’d read the power reports for Megumi. Smoke inhalation did nothing to her. Which made sense, given her power. She’d have been dead if breathing in poisonous fumes could kill her. So she was immune to basically any kind of poisonous gas or particulate, and needed far less oxygen than a regular human. She had the power to survive in the heart of a inferno. It was a misuse of it to shrug off the negative consequences of smoking, but it worked.

Looking around for something to derail the budding argument, I felt my work mindset take over in full as a sound registered - a cry of pain. Missy felt me stiffen and stopped bickering, looking around for whatever I’d noticed, and we found it at the same time. The man from earlier - the one who’d been angry walking away from the hook-the-duck stall. He’d been arguing with another stall owner in the corner of my eye, shouting, gesturing wildly. It looked like the local enforcers had had enough.

And here, in this market, they were ABB. The so-called ‘dragon-scale jackets’ - leather, with black sequin detailing - were a gang sign, and everyone in the city knew what they meant. As we watched, they dragged the guy away, already bleeding from his nose.

In some cities, this would have stood out. But this was the Bay. The only difference between these enforcers and the ones on the Boardwalk was that they wore their colours overtly. I’d read speculation in the PRT files that Ouroboros had the contract for security on the Boardwalk.

“Yeah, just walk on,” I said, with a sigh. It wasn’t right, but this was our day off.

“I hope he just gets tossed out,” Missy said, her hands balled into fists.

“Yeah.” I felt the pang of guilt, but there really wasn’t anything we could do. “Come on, Megumi… Megumi?”

When I looked over, she was watching the enforcers with a turbulent mix of fear, anger and nausea showing. But as soon as I said her name, she buried it under an assessing look, then shrugged it off nonchalantly. It was a good act, too. If I hadn’t seen her flinching expression, I’d have bought it.

“Yeah, it’ll just be a beating, probably,” she said with supreme unconcern. “That’s what happens.”

I frowned. She’d been talking to the Wards therapists, but hiding what she was feeling like that probably wasn’t a good sign. “Are you okay?” I asked carefully. “With, you know...” I gestured over at the guy being dragged off, pulled between going and intervening - a stupid idea, yeah, but one I still wanted to do - and trying to help my new teammate.

All it got me was an eyeroll. “‘Course I’m fine,” she said. “It’s nothing I haven’t seen before. They won’t hurt him too bad, just bruises and a warning. That’s how it works around here.”

I didn’t like to admit it, but Megumi was getting on my nerves. She was just... the whole street-smart tough-girl act was so obnoxious. It was stupid, trying to pretend she had as much experience as us two, and I didn’t understand why she was doing it. I wasn’t denying that she knew things about Little Tokyo we didn’t, but the kinds of ‘tips’ she was giving us were...

“Who does she think she is?” Missy muttered to me as Megumi ambled off to throw the trash away. “Tony Toponi?”

“Who?” I tried to remember the other friends she’d mentioned. “Is he someone from school or something?”

“What? No! He’s from An American Tail, you know, the cartoon one with the mice and... the...” Missy trailed off as she realised what she was admitting to watching, and reddened slightly. “Whatever, you know what I mean! She’s acting like she’s some kind of super-tough street-smart badass. I was walking her through how to use the Console only the day before yesterday!”

“I think she’s just trying to look cool so we’ll like her,” I muttered. Missy gave me a concerned look, like she thought I was speaking from experience there - which I wasn’t! - but nodded reluctantly. I gave her my best encouraging smile. “So just kind of... let it go, and she’ll stop eventually. I hope.”

A shrill whistle rose over the noise of the crowd. “Hey girls!” Megumi said, pulling her fingers from her mouth. She grinned and beckoned us over, pointing at something down along the edge of the market looking out over the Bay. I pushed myself up and went over to see, Missy following with an exasperated groan. Following her finger, the unmistakable shape of a man with a long-barrelled rifle at his shoulder had me tensing, my aura surging to just below halo levels, my veins and arteries lighting up underneath my thermal sleeves...

... before receding again as I recognised the tiered racks of prizes at the long stall he was standing at, and the targets across from him. There were kids just past him as well, hefting their own pellet rifles and taking enthusiastic aim at the tin figures. Right. Just a shooting stall. Nothing to freak out over.

“C’mon,” Megumi said, tugging me toward it. “I’m great at these, I bet I can trash you both.”

I gave the stall a dubious look as we made our way over. This took longer than it had to, because the crowds were fairly thick even here at the edge of the market, and most of the people on the sidewalk wanted to go along where we wanted to go across, necessitating a certain amount of muscling our way through. I kept Missy downstream of me and watched with faint concern as Megumi took a bit too much pleasure in elbowing people out of the way.

The stuff in the stall was mostly Christmas market crap. Nothing all that exciting. Packs of trading cards for various kid’s games, plastic toys, a handful of gift certificates, some stuffed animals. The usual line-up of cheap prizes. Still, Megumi seemed enthusiastic, even if I got the impression she was more interested in showing off than in what was there to win.

I could pretend that I effortlessly beat her with my perfect aim and years of training, but I would be lying. Blasters did not come with magical aiming powers relevant to every ranged weapon under the sun unless they were Miss Militia. Precision fire with parahuman lasers that shot out of my hands at whatever angle I wanted them to, I was good at. Precision fire with firearms that cared about exactly which way you were pointing the barrel, less so. Still, I hit some of the targets - more than Missy, who I suspected was wishing she could use her powers to cheat.

Megumi, though. Megumi actually was good. She walked away with a ten dollar gift certificate in hand that she eyed without much interest and then gave to Missy as a consolation prize. She also walked away gloating. “You know, I thought you’d be a better shot,” she said, nudging me as I stuffed my own plastic bubble wand in a back pocket.

“Pfft. I don’t have time to hang around market stalls and arcades.”

She looked slightly taken aback by that. “Oh, sure, you think that’s how I learned it.”

Probably, I didn’t say out loud. She seemed to read it in my face anyway, and crossed her arms with a huff before changing the subject, her tone goading. “Hey, you ever seen anyone get actually shot? You know, for real?”

On my other side, Missy abruptly stopped walking, and I grabbed Megumi’s shoulder to stop her, turning back in concern. Missy jammed her hands in her pockets, face pale inside her hood, and shook her head. “Come on,” she said. “Who wants to talk about that?”

“Opsec,” I said, hoping to head off this figuratively and literally loaded topic before it got worse. “Both of you.”

“What?”

I rolled my eyes at Megumi. “We don’t talk about some things in public. Remember?” I said firmly.

“Oh, so that means you have?”

“It means we’re trying to have a normal day out and we don’t talk about people getting shot. We’re meant to be smarter than guys.” Though Megumi’s macho swagger was stupid enough to be coming from a boy.

I looked at Missy, the way her shoulders were hunched and she was carefully not looking at us. She knew me as well as I knew her, and glanced around for an escape route to get out of the brewing fight.

“I need the restroom,” she said tightly, nodding over at a bay-side cafe across the street, right next to the sea wall. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”

I nodded, and kept an eye on her until she was across the road before turning back to Megumi. She’d tensed up, and her body language was defensive, guarded, ready to return fire. I wanted to tell her to knock off the posturing, but that wouldn’t accomplish anything. I needed - urgh - to try and do what Dean would do. Pacify. Connect.

“Come on, let’s sit down and wait,” I said.

We sat on an empty park bench next to a statue that had been bedecked in fairy lights, snowflakes drifting down from on high. Megumi sprawled out like a cat, offensively casual, like she couldn’t read the room at all. It was a complete one-eighty from how she’d been moments earlier and I didn’t get it. For my part, I tried not to look belligerent. How to tell her to back off? I needed to phrase it in a way that wouldn’t set her off, but which got across how important it was. Without telling her anything that Missy wouldn’t want me sharing, but also without letting her know I was keeping stuff from her.

Urgh. Dean would be better at this sort of thing. Or Portent. For all that he was an ass, his power would be really handy right now to pick an option that wouldn’t ruin the whole point of this outing.

Megumi regarded me with dismissive disinterest. It had to be a front, but I had no idea how to get past it. I wasn’t Emma. I had to say something, but it had to be the right thing. Easier said than done - nothing was coming to mind. I leaned back on the bench and stared out to sea thoughtfully to buy myself time to think of something suitably deep or profound.

A noise from above us gave me a little breathing space, and I looked up as the battered loudspeakers mounted up on poles and lampposts around the market crackled out a tinny string of Japanese, and then repeated it in English. An announcement about a missing child somewhere in the marketplace, the kind of thing I’d heard before at big crowded outdoor events like this to the point of being background noise.

It did give me an idea, though.

“You go to Winslow, right?” I asked. “What’s it like there?”

She bristled, like Paw Marx when I brushed his fur the wrong way. “Why would you care?”

Damn. Well, I was committed now. “Just a question.”

“Just a question from an Arcadia girl.”

“How do you know that?” I asked.

She snorted. “Oh, come on. Everyone knows where,” she jerked her head, leaving out the unspoken word ‘Wards’, “go. I mean, apart from me. Guess I’m not worth it.”

I squirmed. The bitterness in her tone was cutting, and even though I’d had nothing to do with whatever decision had been made about her staying in Winslow, I felt tarred with the same brush.

“Did you want to transfer?” I asked. “Like, did you talk to anyone about it? If you spoke to... to one of the bosses or-”

“Oh, get real,” she cut me off. “How many of us go there? If you’re Japanese, you don’t get to go to Arcadia.”

“Well…” She wasn’t exactly wrong.

“Yeah. So you can just stay there with your little gang.” She turned away and huffed, flexing her hands and shrugging her shoulders. With Paw still on my mind, I couldn’t help compare it to a cat’s hackles settling as it stalked off to perch on a windowsill and stare out at the birds in haughty solitude.

“You still didn’t answer my question,” I pointed out. “What’s it like? My best friend goes there, but her stories are more gossip than anything else.”

She glanced back at me over her shoulder. “You have a friend at Winslow? Who?”

I couldn’t tell if her incredulous tone was at the thought of the PR team’s darling being friends with someone from that school, or at the idea that one of her classmates might have secretly known Starlight for years. “Emma,” I said, figuring it didn’t matter either way. Megumi’s face stayed blank, no recognition passing over it. “Uh, red hair? About this high, she does some modelling, she’s friends with, uh...”

“I don’t read fashion magazines and I don’t pay attention to white-girl cliques,” she said. “Emma, Emma... yeah, I think I know who you mean. She the one with that stupid white leather jacket who tears down people who don’t dress right?”

“Her jacket’s not stupid,” I protested. I’d helped her pick that one out for her birthday last year as part of her campaign to impose a sense of fashion on me. “But yeah, her.” I forced a smile. “She’s actually much nicer than she seems, you could-”

“Walk up to a random white girl I’ve never spoken to and say ‘hey, we should be best friends’?” The sarcasm was thick enough that I could have plastered a wall with it. “So my friends can call me a suck-up and her friends can make fun of me? Do you not know how things work? You stick with your own group or it means social death. Do you think there are rules there? Rules people actually follow? Most of the teachers are just going through the motions. And the ones that aren’t are idiots or creeps or both.”

I leaned away from her, from the venom in her voice and the sullen chilli-burn of ang- wait, no, that was her power starting to heat the air around her. She caught it at the same time I did, and stuffed it back down with a snarl. I didn’t know what to say.

“I- I’m sorry,” I tried. “I didn’t know it was that bad.”

“Yeah, well, you don’t know anything.” She fumed for a while in silence, taking deep breaths and staring out at the Bay, before jerking her chin in my direction. “What about Arcadia, then? People say it’s nothing but rich kids and Wards. That true?”

I delayed answering, looking at her and trying to work out where the hell this was coming from. There was that temper I’d seen early on. So why hadn’t she been showing it since? And why now? Something about mentioning school had brought her fire out from behind her walls, and she was using her anger to burn away any offered commiseration or curiosity. Long experience with Amy’s moods told me not to bother trying to poke the bear further, but I made a note of it. It felt like a sore spot. A really sore spot that she was poking further, pressing down on a bruise to see how much it hurt.

“It’s okay, I guess. Most people there aren’t as rich as other people might think.” Apart from Sam. And Imogen. Leah, sort of. And Dean, obviously. “Nice equipment. Some of the teachers drone on a little. I’m not really friends with many people there, I just sort of hang out on the edge of groups.” I searched for a way to change the subject back to safer ground. Well, she’d seemed to enjoy talking herself up before...

“So what do you like to do, then? Outside school, I mean. You seem to know your way around here really well. And you were really good at that stall, where’d you learn to shoot like that?”

Megumi gave me a sharp look that said my gambit hadn’t gone unnoticed, but obviously decided to allow it and relaxed into a smirk. She really was good at hiding her feelings when she tried. The lazy superiority looked as good as the nonchalance before it.

“I’m not telling you that, Hebert. But if you’re that desperate to know more about me, ask away. I got plenty of friends I hang out with. Used to go rollerblading every weekend around Montrose Park, under the bridges.”

I knew the area, vaguely. “That’s the one with all the concrete curvy bits, right? Why’d you stop?”

Her glower came back, the yellow-and-orange stall lights playing over her features as she shook her head. “The city put down spikes and railings and shit - what’s it called... I can’t remember. No reason for it except to get rid of us. Assholes.”

I grimaced. The words she was looking for were ‘hostile architecture’. And while I was willing to bet that her friends were the kind of people Mom would describe as “bad influences”, I was in full agreement with her on the measures against them being stupid and callous. Wasting time and money installing things for no other reason than to stop homeless people sleeping in places or drive off loitering kids was just... it was bullying. Governmental bullying. Mom had a lot to say about taxpayer-funded projects that cared more about making the city look pretty than about actually helping people. Not least because you couldn’t make Brockton Bay look pretty without razing it to the ground and starting afresh.

“Assholes,” I agreed. She looked surprised, then laughed.

“Right, you get it! I thought you would, you’ve got your head screwed on right.” I wasn’t sure she believed that, but if she was complimenting me she at least wasn’t yelling. “And that’s not the only place the guys in charge are assholes,” she went on, chopping her palm with the side of her hand. “That’s just how America works. I bet twenty bucks you’ve seen the PRT fuck up ‘cause of that kind of thinking.” She was watching me intently, and grinned at whatever she saw on my face. “Yeah. Thought so. You know how often the cops show up here when they’re not looking to shake people down?”

She was getting heated again, but not spitefully angry like she had been over Winslow. Her eyes were alive this time. “Barely ever, for stuff that protects us. They’ll do drug raids or ‘suppress gang activity’. Or just arrest people to get their numbers up. You know about that fucking Purity thing yesterday? I haven’t heard from someone I know who lives in the area yet. Maybe she’s dead. And this isn’t the first time the Empire has pulled that bullshit on us. Why the fuck haven’t they hunted her down yet?”

God, I was fully onboard with that. And maybe she saw something in my eyes, because she nodded again.

“And the ABB say they protect us, but…” she bit back a snarl, “well, you know what their protection means really. It’s fucked up, Hebert. It has to change. But it’s not going to change because everyone in charge likes things the way they are.”

For all her passion, she wasn’t telling me anything I didn’t already know. “So you want to change things.”

She nodded, jutting her jaw out stubbornly, still with that almost desperate intensity to her. “Duh. Just like you, Miss ‘Goes Off To Beat Up Half-A’.”

It was a reminder that sometimes, when you’re watching people and trying to figure them out, they’re doing the same to you. “Go on.”

“So here’s the thing. I’ve been thinking. I’m gonna be in charge next summer, right? I’m gonna do something about this shit. Make it actually work, or fuck it up till they have to. But you can either help me, or get in my way. And I want you on my team. I can handle myself. You’ll see I’m not some weakling. Help me out. Back me up, when I get into the leader’s seat. We can change things.”

I looked at her over the top of my glasses. This... this whole day, the showing off, the bragging, the tough-girl attitude, the appeal to my morals... had she planned this all out to get my support? Was that the only reason she’d come along on this trip?

Huh. Definitely something to think about.

Megumi nodded once more. “Sleep on it,” she said, and patted me on the shoulder. “I’mma go get us a couple more drinks.”

She sauntered off back towards a fast food stand, and I tried to sort out what had just happened and why this was my life.

I wasn’t the best of company when Missy came back, distracted by my thoughts. After that speech, I had to do some re-evaluating. She was smarter than I’d taken her to be. And actually had a plan that wasn’t just making it to graduation.

Maybe she’d be more tolerable to be around. Being a Ward got almost claustrophobic at times. You had to cut most of your friends from your old life out. I was lucky to have Emma; she kept me balanced. But the only people you could really relax around were other Wards - well, and Amy and Vicky. I remembered back when I’d first joined, the sense of still being on the outside of the group compared to the older boys and girls who’d been there longer. I’d had Missy back then, of course, who’d joined only a month or so before me, so we’d been outsiders together - and we’d stayed as the core of the Wards as all the others graduated or transferred away, and new faces had replaced them. And some of them had transferred away too, after Assault.

I didn’t know how to feel about the whole thing, so I stayed quiet as we drifted around the market, picking up cotton candy here and Christmas trinkets there. Megumi must have burned off most of her determination to impress me in her pitch, because she’d dialled back the bragging, and that in turn meant she was pissing off Missy a lot less. She’d even offered an olive branch to Missy in the form of a cape debate, and they were busy butting heads in a friendly sort of way over Rime vs Chevalier while I thought.

Would it work, this team? Maybe her heart was in the right place, but she was just too new to lead it. I’d still do a better job. Which meant I was going to have to either convince her to listen to me, or make my case to Director Piggot that she should make an exception to the usual oldest-first rule when Portent and Dean graduated. I considered the regulations as Missy dragged us this way and that looking for something she could buy a bunch of to give her class at whatever Christmas party they were all meeting up at. There were a few things I could maybe try raising - Piggot probably wouldn’t be any happier about a complete rookie taking over than I was. But she was pretty strict. It’d have to be a really good case. And even if I succeeded, Megumi would be pissed.

My civilian phone rang, interrupting my plans for a coup. “Hi Amy,” I said, answering it and stepping out of the noisy candy stall where Missy was loading up on pocky, chocolate balls and stuff I’d never heard of but which Megumi was enthusiastically recommending. “What’s up?”

“Hey. Listen, are you doing something? Me and Emma are going to the cinema, and she said you might want to hang out.”

Oh Emma. I couldn’t help but smile. She was still looking out for me. “What time?”

“We’re going for the midday showing. Tower of the Overlady.”

I sucked in air through my teeth. “Eeeh. Sorry, I’m out with… the girls from my part-time job. We’re at the Japanese Christmas Market. I could do stuff later today?”

“Ah, ‘kay. Fair enough. Emma can’t make this evening. I guess you’re not going to cut your thing short?”

That and the identity protection thing. Emma basically knew my friends Missy and Dean were Wards, even if she officially had no idea, but after Megumi’s outburst I wasn’t sure I wanted to bring her into contact with Emma just yet. “It’s fine.” I tried to keep the smile out of my voice. “You can have a girly afternoon with Emma. She can take you out and get you into pastel colours, then get your hair straightened and dyed blonde.”

“Go deepthroat a chainsaw. That’ll stop you saying cruel things like that.”

“Love you too, Ames.”

“Well, call me this evening and tell me how things went and what the new girl’s like. And I hope you’ve got us both great presents. I’ve seen hers for you and you’re gonna have to bring your A-game to beat it.”

“Sure, I’ll call.” I could certainly use a second and third opinion on Megumi’s offer. I ignored the crack about presents. I gave it a fifty-fifty chance she was just provoking me to try and find a better one for her than what I already had waiting at home. “Have fun at the movies.”

“That’ll depend on how good it is.” She hung up.

Missy saw me smiling. “What was that?” she demanded. “What’s so funny?”

“Amy. She’s going to the movies with Emma. She wanted to see if I wanted to come, but they’re going at lunchtime so I’m busy.”

Missy frowned. “Mmm.” She didn’t like Amy and didn’t understand why Emma and I did. Honestly, I wasn’t sure why Amy and Emma got on so well, either. Normally it’s great for your friends to get along, but I couldn’t help but feel that Emma liked Amy’s vicious sense of humour and Amy liked Emma’s stories from Winslow a bit too much. It wasn’t a friendship I’d have seen coming - they were pretty much polar opposites in everything from attitude to fashion sense - but somehow they got along regardless. I pitied anyone who got the two of them mad.

And speaking of fashion...

“Hey, think we can go back to that place with the accessories? I wanna pick up a couple more things there.”

After all, just because I knew Amy was provoking me didn’t mean it wasn’t working. This was a competition now. I wasn’t going to let Emma one-up me just because she was my best friend.

Chapter Text

My purse probably breathed a sigh of relief that I ran out of bag space before ideas. I packed the last of my newly acquired gifts away and swung my backpack onto my shoulders with a huff. I’d have to come back to get the last few bits I’d seen.

“You done?” Missy asked, stuffing her own purchases into her coat pockets. I couldn’t prove that she was surreptitiously using her power to fit everything in, and I wasn’t going to ask. That way I had plausible deniability if it came up later. “Or,” she added with a grin, “were you planning to buy out the rest of the market next? And are any of those for us?”

“If you were getting bored, you should’ve said something,” I said defensively. “I’m done now. And yes, some of them are for you two, and no, I’m not telling you what.”

I wasn’t sure, but I thought Megumi might have looked surprised at that for a moment, and maybe a little pleased, before she looked away with a snort. But something caught her eye. Immediately she turned back, shrugging her jacket up around her shoulders and hunching over like she didn’t want to be noticed.

“What’s the-” I began. Cops? Gang members?

“Shut it.” I peeked over her shoulder to see what she was hiding from. A boy about my height was approaching us. He was long-faced with bad acne and shaggy black hair. I guessed that he was about my age, or maybe a little older, dressed in a puffy black jacket and jeans.

“Megumi-chan!” he called out.

“I think he wants your attention,” Missy contributed in her best ‘cheerful little girl’ voice.

“Yeah. Good catch.” Megumi’s voice dripped with sarcasm as she glanced back at him. Her shoulders slumped in acceptance of the fact that she’d been well and truly spotted, and she sighed. “Just… just wait here.” She waved at him, face suddenly flickering into a smile.

“Who is that?” I asked.

“Makoto. He’s my boyfriend.”

Oh. I reached out to place a hand on Missy’s shoulder. “We’ll just give you some space if you want. We’ll…” I looked around, “go look at those stalls. Over there. Just come call us when you’re done.”

“Yeah.” Megumi spared me only the barest of glances as she broke away to intercept the boy. She said something rapid in Japanese as she jogged over to meet him, but I couldn’t read her tone. I’d learned how to pick out meaning from inflection even when I couldn’t hear the words clearly, but that was in English. Japanese all sounded the same to me, a lilting jumble of syllables at a higher pitch than I was used to, and it threw my reading off.

Still, neither seemed upset, so Missy and I politely gave them some space and pretended we were deeply interested in the make-up and beauty products being sold in the stall I’d pointed out at random. I held a pack of nail decals up to the light, half genuinely appraising them as a potential present for Emma, half eyeing Megumi and Makoto in a mirror hanging from a support pole. They were talking in low voices; Megumi making an occasional flicking gesture with her hand or pounding a fist into her palm for emphasis, Makoto leaning down with one arm draped over her shoulder.

I didn’t get what she saw in him. It wasn’t like he was handsome. I mean, he wasn’t one of the guys who looked like they’d been stretched from their ankles during their growth spurt, but I was pretty sure Megumi could do better than him. Maybe he had a wonderful personality.

“I don’t see why she’s going out with him,” Missy whispered, peering at their reflections in the same mirror.

“Missy!”

“What?”

“You can’t just say that out loud,” I said firmly.

“So I should just say it in my head?”

“Yes!” I considered. “No. I mean…”

“Come on, look at what he’s wearing. That’s nearly a dragonscale jacket.”

I’d had thoughts in the same direction. I just hadn’t voiced them for two reasons. Firstly, accusing Megumi’s boyfriend of being associated with the gangs would be a super good way to piss her off. And secondly, the only boys around my own age I spent a lot of time around outside of school were Dean and Portent. Dean was only not the holotype of a rich white boy because Triumph was around, and I knew nothing about what Portent did when he wasn’t at base. I knew he was going for a GED rather than going to school, but I couldn’t tell you anything else about him. And my male acquaintances were all Arcadia students. Which was to say, uh, how to put it…

… it wasn’t like I actually knew any refugees. Megumi’s comments earlier had rubbed that in hard. And the fact that Makoto was dressed in a way which started setting off the alarm bells in my head didn’t mean the bells were right. There were a lot of young men dressed like that around here, and more than a few young women. None of them were committing crimes; some were manning the stalls, others just ambling around. I had to calm down. Not get twitchy. And not act like Purity would and assume that any refugee was an enemy waiting to strike.

God, this would have been so much easier if I hadn’t still been on edge from yesterday.

Whatever they were talking about, it came to a conclusion quickly. From their body language, I guessed that Makoto had convinced her of something - she was shaking her head and scowling, but her shoulders weren’t squared as stubbornly, and the way she leaned into him reminded me a bit of Amy in a grouchy mood after she’d lost an argument. Megumi glanced over at us, and I hastily looked away from the mirror as he pulled her in for a less-than-chaste kiss. A quick peek back at it a moment later showed her leading him over to us, and I idly drifted away from the mirror and paid for the nail decals. No need to make it obvious I’d been watching.

“Mako, this is Taylor and she’s Missy,” Megumi introduced as the couple joined us. “They’re okay. Girls, this is Makoto, my boyfriend. He’s,” she looked at him with a tinge of frustration, “really been missing me lately, so he wants to hang for a bit. You mind?” It didn’t sound like ‘no’ was a valid answer, though she didn’t seem thrilled about the prospect either. I just nodded and shrugged a bit, looking him up and down now that he was close enough to see details. Like that bulky and almost certainly fake-designer watch peeking out from under his sleeve.

“Hi,” he said. Like Megumi, he had a notable Japanese accent, and his voice still occasionally cracked. His eyes were just below mine. The lanterns hanging from the stall next door painted the left side of his face red as he stared at us, probably wondering how we knew Megumi. If she picked up on the unspoken question, she didn’t care.

“What are you doing here, anyway?” she asked him. “I thought you had better things to do than hang around the market?”

“Running an errand,” he replied shortly. For a moment I thought he was going to say more, but then he side-eyed me and Missy again and shrugged instead. “Who are these two?”

“Friends.” I was definitely getting strong Amy-in-a-sulk vibes from her curt responses and the way she wasn’t looking directly at him. “From work.”

Well, it was worth trying to play peacemaker, and I should give him a chance. “I’m Taylor,” I said, holding out a hand. “We’re pretty much done with our shopping, did you have anywhere you wanted to go?”

He frowned at me, ignoring the offered handshake, then took Megumi’s arm and half-turned her away. I couldn’t follow what he said - he was talking in Japanese again and keeping it to an undertone as if it would matter if we listened in. But before he could finish, she shrugged his arm off, scowling.

“Not now, Makoto. You wanna talk in private, catch me later.”

Something in her expression told me he was going to have a hard time managing that. From the look on his face, he knew it too. “Fine,” he said, giving in. “I got some places I wanna visit.” He hefted the backpack on his shoulders and shot a meaningful look at Megumi. “You can come.”

Megumi looked oddly hesitant at that, and glanced back at me and Missy. I had no idea what she was looking for, and could only offer a shrug.

“Whatever we do,” Missy put in, “can we decide and go do it already? My legs are getting tired just standing around here.”

We got going. Makoto led us around the market, disappearing into a succession of shops that I was trying not to be suspicious of without evidence. He was running errands for someone, but who? When he disappeared into the back of a particularly busy music stall, I wasted no time sidling up to Megumi to see if my suspicions were justified.

“Is this all… okay?” I asked softly.

“Mm.”

Helpful. “You know, legal?”

“Dunno.” She crossed her arms, squaring off with me. “Why do you care? You’re white. Even if the cops show up, they’ll just let you go. Just hang back and don’t talk to him and you’ll be fine.”

“So it’s not legal.” I tried to keep the harsh note out of my voice, and probably failed.

“I don’t know! I dunno what his brother’s got him carrying this time.” She glanced over at the stall and its booming music. “Maybe ripped CDs. Which isn’t a big deal. I bet you swap CDs with your friends too.”

I mean, I did, but… “You know we’ll all get chewed out if anyone finds out.”

“Wait,” interrupted Missy, “so he does have gang ties.”

Megumi looked down her nose at her. “‘Gang ties’. Yeah, like everyone who’s got a stall here. Everyone here’s paying the ABB protection or they wouldn’t be standing on two intact knees. That ‘gang ties’ enough for you? And yeah, I mean, his brother’s a soldier.”

“Wait, what?” I didn’t expect her to just admit it.

“Yeah, duh,” Megumi said, looking at me like I was a particularly stupid grade-schooler. “But I didn’t know that when I started dating him, did I? Besides, Makoto’s just helping out family. Not that his bro deserves him. He barely spends any time with him.” She kicked the slushy ground viciously. “Prick. The only time he talks to Makoto is when he wants something done. And the idiot always does it, like it’ll get him noticed or rewarded or whatever.” There was a bitter note to her voice, and her fists clenched as she glanced at the shop with a mixture of fondness and frustration. “This is probably just gofer work, not serious shit.” She snorted. “They wouldn’t trust him if it was.”

I opened my mouth, found nothing to say, and closed it again. Beside me, Missy frowned. “Wait, so he wants to be an ABB member? Why are you dating him, then?”

“Yeah,” I agreed. “Actually, why are you dating him at all? I mean, you seem to be arguing with him a lot, and you don’t seem to like him that much.” Happy relationships probably didn’t involve so many hostile looks and dismissive comments, if the ones I’d seen at school were anything to go by.

“Oh, fuck off with that. I don’t need advice from Little Miss Well-Meaning,” Megumi snapped, the fond look disappearing as her hackles rose. “You don’t know what you’re talking about, so butt out.”

“We’re trying to help!” Missy objected, and all three of us heard the ‘you bitch’ tacked onto the end. Megumi just scoffed.

“Like I need help from a virgin and a twelve-year old.”

“I’m thirteen-and-a-half,” Missy growled.

For my part, I just turned red and stammered. I wish I’d had a cutting retort about how women needed to define themselves as more than just trophies for men and that modern culture proliferated undue sexualised expectations for teenage girls and that sort of thing, but unfortunately Mom wasn’t there to feed me lines so I only came up with those responses later. And was she implying that she was- that she and Makoto had...

“Is that any of your goddamn business?” Megumi asked, cutting me off before I could even get any coherent words out. “But at least I can talk about it without turning into a tomato. Have you even ever had a boyfriend?”

She was changing the topic. Unfortunately, it worked really well. Now Missy was looking at me, too. “I’ve had other things on my plate,” I said, hoping to cut that subject off at the knees. But Megumi, either sensing weakness or genuinely curious, moved in for the kill.

“Do you even have a guy you like?” Flushing, I gritted my teeth and shook my head, as much objecting to the question as answering it. Megumi frowned a little, then took a half-step back, a mocking smirk growing. “Girl, then? I know you pal around with Radiant and Orbital-”

“Oh my god, no!” I caught myself as the lights flickered and closed off my siphon firmly. And took the opportunity for a couple of calming breaths, too. “Look, sometimes when a girl says she doesn’t have time for dating, she means she doesn’t have time for dating! When am I meant to squeeze it in, between my part-time job and my volunteering and my training? Some of us have more important things to do than... than sucking face!”

It was probably for the best at that point that Makoto emerged from the stall, because it meant that no one said anything more inflammatory.

Megumi asked him something. Her hands were jammed into her pockets and she radiated fed-up-ness, so it was probably along the lines of ‘Are we done?’. But from Makoto’s posture and his gesture over the other young men who’d come out of the stall with him, the answer was no, he didn’t want to blow off his friends. If that was what they were. They were a couple of years older than him. Three of them; one tall and lanky, one with a bright red scarf, and one with a loose tie. Taller, and preceded by a wall of cheap aftershave. Leather jackets with black sequin detailing. More dragonscale.

Tie glanced over at me, and made a comment to his friends - and I didn’t have to know Japanese to get the context of that. I shifted so I was standing in front of Missy, but the attention was at me anyway. Missy was too young for that tone.

“Megumi,” I said. “It’s cold standing around out here.”

“Hey, don’t worry,” said Scarf. “If you’re looking to warm up, we’re right here.”

Holy shit, were men totally incapable of realising I was fifteen just because I was tall for my age? I took a step back, trying not to show fear and also trying not to let on that I wanted to blast them all.

Megumi stepped in front of me, though, putting herself squarely between me and the men. Her hands came out of her pockets, balled into fists, and her shoulders were up defensively. “We’re leaving, Makoto,” she said, deliberately using English - probably so I understood. “If you’re not finished with your job here, you can text me later and we can meet up.”

He said something to her, gesturing at me. Her response was a machine-gun quick barrage of Japanese which drowned out his objections, and she grabbed my wrist and led me off. My skin crawled as they wolf-whistled at us, but at least they didn’t follow.

“Thanks,” I said softly.

“You don’t know how to handle men like that making moves.” I winced. It was true. The boys at school who hit on me were… not like that. And normally I was out with Emma and she was the one who got the worst of it. Which meant I had to step in to protect her. It wasn’t the same when they were undressing me with their eyes like that.

“They were horrible,” Missy whispered.

“Yeah,” said Megumi darkly. “They were. Get used to it. That’s how men are. You’ll find out in a year or two.” She nudged Missy lightly in the shoulder with a fist. “Good job not looking scared, though. Most of the time, pricks like that won’t try anything if you look like you’ll deck ‘em.”

I shuddered. I was just glad she’d stepped up to defend me and Missy so quickly, our argument beforehand forgotten. We weren’t friends yet, but when it came to the stuff all girls had to put up with, she’d come through.

“Megumi! Megumi!”

“He’s trying to catch up,” Missy said, glancing back nervously.

“No, really?” Megumi’s shoulders slumped, but then she straightened up again and turned, her mask back in place. “Hey, weren’t you going to stay with your friends?”

“Come on, you embarrassed me in front of them!” He dropped into Japanese again.

“No!” She forced things back into English. “You wanna talk about embarrassing? I am trying to have a girls’ day out and you got your asshole friends hitting on them and they’re just kids.” For once, Missy didn’t protest, and I was silently thankful. “So if you want to hang out with them, go do that. But I saw how they were looking at me too.” She crossed her arms. “You’re meant to be my boyfriend. Stand up for me against them.”

“Megumi…”

“Well?”

He huffed. “You can’t just go act like that. Not in front of Itsuki and his friends. You never used to be so dumb before.”

“You calling me dumb?” Her voice rose, and she dropped back into Japanese.

Missy and I hung back as the four of us made our way through the market, keeping well out of the relationship drama. There was a reason I had no time for this kind of bullshit.

Absent anything else to do, we kept going along with Makoto. He’d chosen to follow her over staying with his creep friends, Megumi either couldn’t or wouldn’t blow him off, and I didn’t dare blow her off. So we were stuck following a wannabe gang member around as he ran ‘errands’. The crowds were too thick to walk four abreast, and Megumi had moved up in front with Makoto while Missy hung back with me.

“What is she doing?” she hissed to me, gesturing forward to where Makoto had an arm slung over Megumi’s shoulders again. She was tolerating it this time, though I still got the feeling she wasn’t happy. In fact, she glanced back as I watched, looking at us with that tense, frustrated look I was beginning to associate with personal life matters for her. It wasn’t anger - well, it was, but it wasn’t pointed at us. More at the situation. But when I sped up a little to get closer, she shook her head and nodded for me to stay back. Whatever was going on, she wanted to keep us and Makoto separated just as much as I did. Unsurprisingly, given our respective jobs.

“Hmm?” I non-answered.

Missy hadn’t noticed I was only semi-listening. “Seriously!” she grumbled. “She was almost okay for a little bit, but then he showed up and he’s with the ABB and do you think we should report this?”

“Quiet down or they’ll hear you,” I muttered back. “We shouldn’t talk about them behind their backs.”

“You talk about people behind their backs all the time. You’re super catty. Like, I remember how you and Emma got when we went to see Nightingale. You two were going on about people the whole time!”

She had an inconveniently good memory. “Not when we’re literally behind them. And… uh. We just have to ignore that he’s with a gang. Not that he’s with a gang. He’s just…” I tried to look for words, and ecology homework came to mind, “... in a gang ecosystem.”

Missy’s expression told me everything I needed to know about how little she cared for that distinction, and despite my words, I kind of had to agree. I just didn’t understand what Megumi thought she was doing with him. Why hadn’t she just dumped him? True love? Hah, no way. Not with how they were acting around each other. She might be fond of him, or sympathise about his apparently-abusive brother, but they didn’t seem to get along as friends. God, why did hormones make people act so dumb? Not that I was immune, but I tried not to let my hormones speak for me.

Megumi had stood up for us in the face of those guys, though. And she was looking increasingly stressed trying to keep our group dynamics stable. Increasingly stressed, and increasingly angry. Glares and stomping were the order of the day, and she was ignoring more and more of Makoto’s attempts to talk to her.

But on the second stop after the creep brigade, something caught Megumi’s eye, and she wandered over to one of the stalls to browse through purses. I drifted over to stay close to her and out of the lane of people, with Missy following me, and so I had a good position to see Makoto’s face when he came out of the latest stall and saw her with her new red leather purse bag, studded with sequins in a flame pattern that looked good with her jacket.

His expression went from neutral to bored, but then stopped. Snagged on the purse. Shifted into surprise, suspicion.

And then something else. Something ugly. He stormed over, fists clenched, pushing past a couple of people in the way hard enough to almost knock one of them over. As soon as he was close enough, he snatched the bag out of a surprised Megumi’s hand and barked something out at her in loud, angry Japanese. She stumbled back in surprise, looking at him wide-eyed and confused.

“What the... I just bought it here!” she said. And she was rallying even as she said it; her shoulders came up and her fists clenched and her spine straightened. “What the fuck do you care? And where do you get off yelling at me and,” she snatched the purse back, “grabbing at my stuff, huh?”

“Your stuff?” There was a wicked innuendo to his tone. But I had no idea why he’d gone for that.

Megumi knew, though. I couldn’t read his tone, but I could read her face. Shock, disgust, anger. The red lighting hanging up along the edge of the stalls played over their features. Monochrome rainbows projected onto rising steam from food stalls haloed the little specks of light. The sound of the crowd and the tinny music from too-loud CD players meant that there was almost a sense of privacy to this. They might have been shouting, but no one else was looking. It left me feeling like a voyeur.

“I got a part-time job, OK?”

“Yeah, pays well.” He stepped in. “Doesn’t it?”

“Say that again,” she hissed, getting right up in his face. She was shorter than him, but I knew that she was stronger. He didn’t back down, and they were left standing almost nose-to-nose, fury crackling in the air between them. It was a position that would have looked like they were about to kiss, if they hadn’t both been snarling. “Say it to my face, asshole. You think you know anything?”

“Yeah. Yeah I do. Weird how you’ve had so much more free cash lately. And how you don’t tell me where you work.” And there it was, that pause, the kind of pause you might get in a movie before someone shoots. “And how you’re not at home most nights.”

“Yeah, because I got a part-time job,” she said, slow and emphasised like she was talking to an idiot. “The hours change, dumbfuck. And I’m too tired to answer your calls and listen to your whining.”

“Whining?” Sullen, glaring, arms twitching. He dropped back into Japanese, and I left Missy half-hiding behind a stall banner to step up closer behind Megumi. He was an ass, but I knew what she could do. I wanted to be close just in case things escalated further. And then he jabbed a finger at me, and while I might not have understood every word, there was definitely a ‘fucking’ in there.

She interrupted him. “They’re friends, god! Am I not allowed to have friends now? You might wanna be ABB but I’m not! I can hang out with whoever I want!” I got the feeling this was an argument they’d had before. Not necessarily about people like me specifically, but... well, I could see this guy trying to control who his girlfriend spent time with. Megumi cut off another bout of Japanese with a sharp wave of her hand. “I said I know them from work, dumbass, where else would I have met them? And if you’re gonna talk shit about them, don’t be a coward, do it in a language they can understand!”

The red light painted him scarlet. “You’re meant to be my fucking girlfriend,” he growled. “Not hers. Or whoever else you found who’s paying for all that shit you sure as fuck can’t afford!”

“I’m paying for it, I just fucking told you so, god you’re mega stupid!” I went rigid as I tasted chilli, and quickly opened my siphon to pull at her hands. It would not be good if her gloves started smouldering in her anger, and she was getting heated enough to... well, to get heated. I stepped up beside her and caught her wrist as she gestured with it, glaring at Makoto in support.

She was strong. Really strong. We made a strange tableau; her with one arm raised, me holding on for dear life with both hands like I was trying to pull back a bull. “He’s not worth it,” I hissed into her ear.

“Get off me!”

“Not in public!” My feet dragged on the slippery, slushy ground. “Chill!”

Her arm tensed, her fist clenched, and for a moment I got ready to trip her - better a muddy and embarrassed coworker than a fireballed civilian. But then she let out a long exhalation through her teeth and the strain of holding her arm back slackened off.

“You’re right,” she spat. “He’s not worth it. Never has been.”

Now if we could just get through the next few moments without a stupid-

“That’s it, then.” Water in the corner of his screwed-up eyes. “I can’t believe you…” He violently wiped his face on his sleeve. “We’re through!”

“We’re through? I dumped you, you-”

A vicious stream of Japanese left his mouth, only cut off when he turned on his heel and shoved his way through the crowd. Leaving us behind. Megumi seemed about to follow him, to do - I didn’t know what. I held on again.

“Come on.” Oh God, should I point out that she had water in her eyes? No, stupid question, of course I shouldn’t. I should act like she was fine. “Let’s get away from here so he doesn’t go looking for those dumb friends of his.”

“Yeah.” She shook her head, pulling up her hood. Her cheeks had flushed pink and splotchy with rage. And maybe humiliation too, if books were right about how it felt to break up with someone. I really had no idea what I was doing here. “That asshole. Do you know what he was fucking saying?”

“I don’t speak Japanese, remember?” I tried weakly. “But I could hear the tone. He was just a boy spitting bile.”

“He’s gonna be spitting teeth if he says that shit around school,” she growled. But the bravado and threats couldn’t mask the fear in her eyes. Whatever he’d said, it had cut deep, and on more than a personal level. I’d seen that look in Emma once or twice when she’d talked about other girls spreading rumours about her. And I didn’t get the feeling Megumi was as good at the high school social games as Emma.

“If you think he’s gonna be a problem, tell… you know, the job,” I suggested.

“What, you think I can’t handle him?”

“I think you’ve just had a break-up and we should go,” shit, what did they do on TV, “have hot chocolate or something together.”

“Don’t look down on me!”

“Hey. Hey. Hey.” I patted her shoulder. “Remember? Like you said, I’ve never even had a boyfriend. So maybe I want a hot chocolate. And you can come have it with me.”

“Because you’re scared ‘cause of those-”

Okay, no, I wasn’t playing along that far. “Because I like hot chocolate,” I said firmly.

Things were quiet as we searched for a hot chocolate stall. I understood enough about Megumi to know she wasn’t going to bring the fight back up, and she wasn’t going to admit weakness by begging to talk about something else, either. But Missy always shrank into her seldom-used shell when people fought around her.

So it was up to me to provide conversation and take everyone’s minds off how things had turned ugly. I searched for a topic, then paused, distracted by a tantalisingly sweet smell drifting through the air, a dissonant note among the coffee and mulled wine smells of the drinks stalls around us. There was nutmeg in there, and something tart, almost fruity. Spiced cotton candy, maybe. I hadn’t even known that was a thing.

“Hold up,” I said, sniffing. “I smell something really tasty.”

“You’re still hungry?” Megumi asked, jumping on the change in topic. If her eyes were still wet, I wasn’t going to point it out.

Missy glanced up at me. “She’s really serious in trying to get taller than Brian,” she said, nudging me in the ribs.

“Ha ha,” I said. “Come on, let’s see what it is.”

Megumi sniffed the air. “What’re you smelling?”

“That kind of nutmeg-y smell. It’s really good.” I led through the crowd, pushing against the flow of traffic. The smell was getting stronger, though it didn’t stand out so well away from the contrasting coffee stalls. But then it changed direction. “Hold up, it’s this way.”

Something was niggling at me, at the back of my mind - a thought that wasn’t quite clicking. I let it come in its own time, focused more on the delicious scent I was following. Something about that, though, something that was making my instincts stir uneasily... I led us out onto one of the major market aisles, looking around for any stall selling roasted peanuts or whatever. I couldn’t see any food stalls nearby that looked like candy, which meant it was probably a bag of something being carried. That’d explain why it had been moving...

Come to think of it, it must smell really strong for me to pick it up over everything else in the market, and from far enough that I couldn’t see where it was coming from.

Trepidation mounting at that unsettling thought, I followed my nose and found myself looking at three men walking past the intersection I’d come from, obviously getting into the festive spirit with a little superhero cosplay-

Wait. Crap. Those were Power Lord masks. He’d been a Protectorate cape when I was a kid, in I-think-Arizona-or-maybe-New-Mexico. Not as big as the Triumvirate, but still, really big down south. Then he’d dropped off the radar. Quit, burned out, something like that. I’d only got the real story when I’d joined the Wards. He’d quit the Protectorate under a cloud, because he’d been working with local law enforcement to set up prison camps for Latinos and hadn’t much cared whether they were immigrants or not. And that had lasted right up until a Democrat took the governor’s office and started ringing the alarm bells about the blatantly illegal things that were happening. End result; Power Lord quit the Protectorate quietly, and went creepy-militia-cult-leader on everyone, ruling as mayor over some podunk town full of his followers.

To cut a long story short, a Power Lord mask meant militia, white nationalist, and hard right. And in Brockton Bay, that meant Empire.

The men in the masks stunk of nutmeg and sugar. That’s what had been niggling at me. It wasn’t my normal sense of smell I’d been following. It was Tinkertech. And they were packing. The nearest one had a pistol on his hip, and with winter jackets and big rucksacks who knew what else they had on them? I stopped dead in my tracks, and Megumi walked into my back.

“Hey, watch it.”

“It’s not here,” I said, trying to sound calm. “Never mind. We should go grab some food in a diner nearby or something. Out of this place.”

“Nah, come on, you’ve been dragging us around after this wonderful-”

“We need. To go,” I said, shooting a glance at Missy. I nodded at the Power Lord masks. They were walking past our intersection, with no reason to look directly at us. Yet. “Go find food. Somewhere else.”

Her eyes widened in recognition. “Oh crap,” she mouthed. I could practically see her expression change from withdrawn to mulishly stubborn. It made me feel better. That was much more like her.

“You two are acting super weird so-”

We were getting nowhere. I leaned down to Megumi, bringing my mouth close to her ear. “Three Empire soldiers, wearing masks. We need to make sure our part-time job knows.”

“Empire?” Megumi’s eyes narrowed as she looked around. “But that doesn’t make sense. This is ABB turf.”

“Yeah. Exactly.” I had my hand around her wrist, leading her away.

“You think they’re doing something since Lung’s out of action,” Missy whispered. Not a question.

“Yeah. I do.” Goddamnit. Purity had to have been part of a plan to lure Lung out to just… get him out of the way. I felt my shoulders tense up as my stomach churned. Crap. Crap. Why hadn’t I thought about that? It wasn’t just her being a murderous bitch. It was a hit-and-run, a deliberate strike to get him out of the picture. To get him out of the way so they could do something. Do what? This was the Empire. Nothing good. But the Christmas Market here was meant to be a big ABB money laundering thing, as well as a way they showed off in ‘respectable’ ways to the refugee community.

“If they’re doing that then we should fi-” began Megumi.

“Firstly, shh,” I ordered, looking around. The crowds were tight around us as we pushed towards the exit. “Keep your voice down. Secondly, are you dressed for getting into a scrap? No. None of us are.” I had to remember how new she was. She didn’t have identity protection and its sometimes-onerous burdens ingrained as an instinct yet. “We don’t want to draw attention,” I settled for.

“... okay.” That was softer. Good. Her brain did work.

“Now, c’mon. Let’s get out of here.”

Chapter Text

The wind was picking up, coming in off the Atlantic. It made the brightly-coloured stall toppings thrum, the pinwheels spin like mad dancers, and the wind-flutes sing out. It picked up spray off the sea, blowing it into people’s eyes. When it gusted hard, the paper lanterns strung between the street lights bobbed and swung like tethered balloons.

To outside eyes, the market hadn’t changed. But now I wasn’t looking at it like a girl trying to have a nice day out with friends. I was looking at it like Starlight, and that meant watching for lines of fire and backstops (none clear, nothing solid), considering evacuation routes (jam-packed, hard to access), and trying to spot potential threats among the crowd.

There were too many of them. ABB thugs working as market security in their dragonscale jackets. The nutmeg-smelling people in Power Lord masks. And too many people here who’d just bought a mask from a stall and were busy being false-positives. Goddamnit.

I hunched up my shoulders, and led us through the crowd. “Excuse me, coming through, I need to get to the exit, excuse me.” But the Christmas market was as snarled up as downtown on Friday evening.

“This is dumb,” Megumi growled, pushing in front of me. She didn’t shrink in on herself, and let her elbows do the talking. A dyed-blonde woman protested as she barged past her, but Megumi whirled on her and the older woman hastily shrunk back. I held onto Missy’s hand so she didn’t get lost in the crowd, and tried to follow Megumi.

“Just so you know,” Missy shouted over the blaring radios coming from the nearest stall, “you only get to hold my hand like I’m a little kid because this is an emergency!”

She didn’t fool me. I could hear the tension in her voice. “Duly noted,” I said, pushing onward.

Something hummed to life in the air. More nutmeg. Not too close, but it was such a penetrating scent. Maybe some kind of EM-field? But it wasn’t just that, because I could hear clamour coming from up ahead. Voices raised, sounds of panic, signs that things were going wrong. A flow of people away from the exits. Which Tinker was behind this?

“Missy?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you remember the list of Empire Tinkers?” I asked, struggling to make myself heard while also not letting other people hear me.

“Uh. Victor and Cricket, I think?”

Wait, they weren’t… “Tee-eye! Tango Indigo! Gadget people!” I swear, they had to get around to replacing the power classification names some day. “Not brainy people!”

She squeezed my hand so I looked at her. “Doctor Holistic?” she said, exaggerating her mouth movements.

“Yeah. I think it’s just her.” She seemed to make a grab-bag of things; low-grade human enhancement, medical treatment, and I was pretty sure Velocity had mentioned her doing something weird with crystals. Nothing like laser guns, though. Which was a problem, because laser guns were easy for me to deal with. “Dunno what they have.” I looked ahead. “Hey, wait up, Megumi!” I yelled after her fast-retreating back.

“Hurry up, then!” she hollered, though she slowed down long enough for us to catch up.

We pushed on ahead, past free-standing heat lamps and skirting around the edge of abandoned tables by noodle stalls. I kept my eyes open, looking for more Power Lord masks. There were too many real-food smells to pinpoint anything.

There! Nutmeg. Up ahead, right by the exit. I grabbed Megumi by her sleeve.

“Hey!”

“Just hold up! I can smell it again!”

“Oh hey, so can I!”

“Really?”

She snorted. “No.”

I tried to bite back my response. And failed. “What is your problem?”

“My problem? You’re going on about smells!”

It was my power! She… argh! “Look, I have a good reason!”

“Fine, whatever.” She jammed her hands in her pockets. “Where are we going to go next, then? Assuming the pigs over there don’t decide to fuck up our day.”

There were cops at the entrance to the market, doing bag checks. We’d passed them on the way in. Cops with buzz cuts. I paused. Were they skinheads? Were they even real cops? Or was I just seeing false positives again because a lot of cops cut their hair short? No, I didn’t think I was. There were men and women in camouflage fatigues entering the market, being waved past the cops. Only cape masks weren’t part of the National Guard’s uniform, and neither were black armbands with a white fist on them.

Well, crap. Militia. Maybe that was what Hookwolf had been doing upstate, picking up allies. My nostrils flared. More nutmeg.

“We need another exit,” I said, as my eyes settled on a woman wearing my damn mask. Oh, fuck that. When we came back, she was going to be introduced to the hard-hitting end of a finger beam. Fascists didn’t get to appropriate my costume! Or…

“I’m gonna pretzelise her sense of down,” Missy muttered, glaring at another woman who was wearing her merchandise.

“No, you’re not,” I said reluctantly. “And…” I trailed off. Armour and a white surcoat. A pike. In amongst the militia streaming in through the gate. And another one. And another; all three identical. “And we need to find another exit. Now.”

“Crusader,” Missy nodded. “I hate that guy.”

Megumi, for her part, was already joining the human exodus away from the Empire incursion and its cape spearhead. “We can try to get out onto Gettysburg Street,” she said, stomping on the slushy path like she hated it. “They might not have people there. But they probably will. After all, the cops are in with the Empire.”

“No they’re not,” Missy said.

“Yeah, they are. They always are.”

“You don’t know that!”

Missy still looked up to the cops. My opinions on them were far more mixed, because I had Mom as a bad influence. “Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t, but we can’t trust them if they’re waving militia in,” I said, trying to keep the peace. “You two, stick close to me.”

“Why you?” Megumi demanded.

“Because…” I had the most real experience as a cape, “... I’m the tallest and easiest to see over the crowd.”

Megumi bit back her response, thought it over for a second, and nodded gruffly. We had just made it back to the statue of Lincoln. A gaggle of gawky Japanese boys had gathered. They looked cold, and on closer inspection they’d shed their dragonscale jackets. Blending back into the crowd. I pointed it out to Megumi.

“Yeah,” she said softly. “When there looks like there’s gonna be a big gang throwdown, the hangers-on just discard their gang colours. ‘Least if they’re not among friends. I hope Makoto has been smart enough to do it. Idiot better not get himself killed.”

Then the loudspeakers strung up around the Christmas Market chimed. I wondered what it was going to-

“Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. I am Krieg.”

Oh crap.

All around me, voices rose and I tensed up. Krieg; one of the Empire-88’s three lieutenants. In some ways, not as dangerous as the other two. Less likely to kill people because he was bored, or because they were in the general area of a blast. In other ways, much more dangerous, because this meant the Empire had to be making a serious play against the Christmas Market if he was here. If it had been Hookwolf, then he’d be just here to break heads and stab ABB gang members. But I had no idea what Krieg was up to. And his psychological profile noted stress-reaction abnormalities. He wasn’t someone who panicked. At all.

“I am pleased to announce that the reign of the criminal Azn Bad Boys over this market has been brought to an end. From this moment on, the Empire-88 will assist the police in maintaining order here. No longer will any of the stalls here have to pay protection money to Lung’s men. From this day forward, we will keep the Americans here safe from the threats of violence.”

Next to me, Megumi swore, mostly in Japanese. I didn’t actually understand what she was saying, but I assumed it was swearing. There were certainly quite a few ‘fucks’ blended into the mix.

“The American Fist will be aiding the police in hunting down criminals and ensuring that all stalls present have paid their licensing fees. Failure to pay will result in your eviction from this market. If you are not a member of the criminal ABB, point them out to our people, and we assure you, you will not be harmed. On the other hand, anyone who acts to hide them or protect them will be treated accordingly. Consider yourself warned.

“Do not waste your time calling the police. They already know that we are here. Do not try to start trouble, because we will stand our ground in the face of violence. And to any ABB scum who wants to object? You can come and face me. Like men.”

The loudspeakers chimed again, and then fell silent.

All right. I could see the Empire plan. And unfortunately, it wasn’t stupid. Hookwolf makes contact with other far right groups upstate and brings them in as extra manpower. Purity takes Lung out. Today; they snatch the Christmas market when the ABB is in chaos, taking one of their big money laundering operations. Even if they couldn’t hold it long term, they just had to screw up the ABB cash flow during the bit of the year when the market was earning. And even if I wasn’t right with that guess, it made sense as a play.

Was this a massacre in the making? I didn’t think that was the plan. There was a limit to how much the cops could turn a blind eye to. I had to hope that was the case, anyway. Extortion and theft? That was just gang activity. But a massacre here would get them all hit with kill orders. Unfortunately, there was still a lot of room for things to go wrong. The market was packed, with gun nuts and neo-Nazis looking to flex their muscles. Things could get very bloody very fast. We needed the PRT here as soon as possible.

“So we’re going to take him down?” Megumi cracked her knuckles.

“No. We’re still leaving.”

“Fuck you, didn’t you hear what he said?”

“I did, yes. Doesn’t change anything.” I understood her feelings. Even if I was right, I was willing to bet some ABB members would be dead by the end of this. And I wanted to flatten neo-Nazi face all over the ground, especially after yesterday. “But that’s a trap. He wants people to go after him.”

“Yeah,” Missy said softly, looking around. “Bet he’s got Hookwolf there with him. Anyone who rushes in is ground meat.”

“But they’re going to-”

“They haven’t started anything yet,” I said firmly. I was lying, but we couldn’t get into a fight here. “So we get out. This was a normal day for us, Megumi. No,” I tapped my glasses, hoping she’d realise I meant masks, “and there’s people everywhere. We don’t do anything because we don’t want to get more people hurt. We get out and the Protectorate comes in with PRT backup.”

She winced at that, then snarled. “They’re gonna hurt people anyway. You fucking know they are.”

“Maybe. But they’re not going to win this,” I said. The Gettysburg Gate was up ahead, and there were more militia there and more maybe-cops. People were milling around, and while the guns weren’t technically pointed at the crowd, fingers were close to triggers. Shit. “Missy, people who don’t know you think you’re small and cute. Go over. Ask them if people can leave. Say your mom asked you to see.”

She nodded, and pinched her cheeks to make them redder. “Mistah skinhead, pwetty pwease can we leave?” she lisped. “My mommy is supah scawed.”

“Really?”

“Just getting into character,” she said, taking a deep breath. Her eyes flicked over at the armed men. “No, I’m not actually going to talk like that really. Just… need to think like that. Rather than thinking about how I can make them fall into the sky.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know you’re a badass,” I said, squeezing her shoulder. “You don’t need to reassure me.”

She nodded. “And don’t you forget it. But, you know. Feel free to bail me out if Hookwolf shows up.”

“I did last time.”

Missy smiled at me. “I know.” And with that said, she headed off towards the gate.

Megumi busied herself with checking her gloves. Her eyes wouldn’t stay still; they danced between the Empire people at the gate and the people I’d seen around here who looked ABB. Not that there were any dragonscale jackets around anymore.

It’ll be fine, I didn’t say. Because I couldn’t promise that, and that kind of passive bullshit would just get us in trouble. “We’ll make it work,” I said instead.

She snorted at that, bouncing up and down on her toes. “Yeah. Whatever you say.”

Missy came trotting back. “They told me that they were checking everyone,” she reported. “But that a nice girl like me would be fine. So I told them I’d go find my mom.”

Megumi’s face was as sour as if she’d just mistaken a lemon for a tangerine. “A white girl like you,” she muttered.

“Probably,” I said. She wasn’t wrong. “But if they’re checking… you think they might notice our cells are PRT-issue?”

“Dunno.” Missy shrugged. “I don’t think they’re gonna be checking us in much detail. But they have got weird scanner-things set up that look kinda Tinker-ish. But, if we really have to, I can probably boop them past the guards or something.”

I adjusted my glasses, and peered over at the gates. They’d just let a white family out. And they were setting up a line, enforced by the militia and the maybe-cops working together. “You can almost certainly get out. I bet I can too. But Megumi…”

“So you’re going to go get help and leave me.” It wasn’t a question.

“What? Hell no!” The words came out before I’d fully registered how ugly the undertones in Megumi’s voice were, bursting up from nowhere. She looked at me, and in her face I could read years of other people promising things and never delivering. Fire safety measures in Little Tokyo. Equal opportunities for refugees. Fair policing. Protection from the gangs - not just the Empire, but the ABB as well.

It wasn’t even angry, the look in her eyes. It was a bitterness that went beyond anger to the point of painting everything I could say as suspicious. Doubting me wasn’t rage, it was reflex. Her gloves smouldered at her sides, plastic smoke drifting up from them.

I grabbed her wrists, smothering the flames flickering over her nails. “I am not leaving anyone behind,” I whispered, exaggerating my mouth movements so she could read my lips. “I get why you think that, but we are in this together, okay? And I am not leaving you. Now deep breaths. Calm the hell down, do you get me? We are getting out of this. We are getting out of this and then our bosses are going to come and these skinheads are going down hard. But no fire. Because we are not going to get caught. We are leaving, and if we do everything right they won’t know we were ever here.”

She was quiet. Then, “Why do you care?”

What was she, stupid? How was I meant to get this into her head? I was a hero. There was no way I was abandoning a girl who was still sleeping up at base most nights because she set things on fire when she lost control. And even if the ‘trying to make friends’ thing hadn’t gone so well today, that didn’t mean I’d leave her here all alone. I’d be more willing to leave Missy here alone than her, because I knew Missy was smart and resourceful and the skinheads would look at her and see a young white girl. Missy was my friend and that meant I could trust her to handle things on her own. Megumi wasn’t my friend, and that meant I had to keep her safe.

“I care ‘cause you’re on my team,” I said. It wasn’t enough to explain everything, but maybe it was what she wanted to hear.

I think she bought it. Or at least she was willing to accept it for now, as she pulled out her lighter and lit another cigarette. Things were tense enough that Missy didn’t protest. “What now?” she asked. She didn’t put away her lighter, instead fidgeting with it.

“We could try another entrance,” Missy said.

“I think they’ll have them covered,” I said. “The wall’s too high to jump. You could get us over, but I dunno. They’ve got too much Tinkertech around for me to want us to risk it. I really really don’t want to let the Empire have any chance of finding out who we are, and they might have people watching for people trying to get out over the walls.”

“Call it in?”

“Let’s get out of sight of the gate people, but yeah.”

We headed deeper back into the park. The militia were moving deeper in from their intrusion point. All around me I could hear raised voices as they screamed at stallowners and threw their weight around. Bullies. I pulled my work phone out of my bag, and nudged Missy until she stood right next to Megumi.

“Watch for cops or the Empire,” I said softly.

Megumi rolled her shoulders. “Yeah, I got practice at that.”

I selected the saved number for the hot desk, and prayed someone would pick up immediately. Someone was listening. “This is Agent Messer. Starlight, what is your emergency?” She was a PRT agent I didn’t know.

I took a breath. “I’m at the Lincoln Park Christmas Market, in Little Tokyo,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady. “A heavy Empire-88, I repeat, Empire-88 presence has moved in. Crusader is here, Krieg. There are more - thugs with Doctor Holistic’s tech, I think. Right-wing militia too. Break.”

“Empire-88 moving in on Lincoln Park Christmas Market, Crusader and Krieg positively IDed. Starlight, you are on location and you are out of uniform?”

“Yes! And that’s not all! I am here with Flare and Vista! Who also don’t have uniforms! We were just going to the market, OK?”

“Have there been any injuries or deaths yet, Starlight?”

“I don’t know. I heard screaming, but I haven’t seen any fights.” Something cracked, not too far away. Then another one. Then came the screams. “Correction, that was two gunshots. No sign of ABB cape response. Yet. It looks like elements of the BBPD are helping the Empire. Or the Empire have cop uniforms. But they’re convincing.”

“Please hold.” A pause. She must have muted the line because I heard nothing down the other end. “Okay, Starlight, here’s what we need you to do. You, Vista and Flare need to get out of there, without compromising your identities or engaging with the Empire-88. Right now, we’re rounding up a response team to try to handle the situation. Do not, I repeat, do not engage! You are out of uniform!”

“I understand,” I said, trying to keep it professional and not snap at her for telling me things I knew already. “The problem is that they’ve got militia and cops at the exits we’ve checked. And they’re checking everyone who’s leaving. I don’t want to risk it with Flare here, and we’re not leaving her behind.”

“Copy, Starlight. Are you in a safe location currently?”

“No immediate threats. But they do have Tinkertech-enhanced gang members patrolling.” I could smell the nutmeg. “I can detect them when they’re in the area.”

“Copy. We are currently getting surveillance drones on station. We’ll try to identify the best exfiltration route for you. And-”

Megumi grabbed my elbow, and nodded over towards the end of the street of tents. There were masked people there, and a man was pointing them over towards us. I sniffed. Nutmeg. “We need to move, but don’t run,” she hissed. “Running makes cops look at you.”

I cradled my cell in my hands. “Messer, we’re having to move. Someone’s pointing us out to the Empire. I think maybe they saw me with the phone.”

“Copy, Starlight,” the tinny voice said. “Can you obtain disguises in case you have to go loud?”

“Maybe.” I looked around the stalls. Food stalls, not the places selling cape masks. “We have scarves and everyone’s in winter clothing.”

“If you have to go loud, safeguard your identities. But avoid engaging if at all possible. If you have to hide your cell, don’t hang up. We’ll be able to get drone eyes-on with the signal to help.”

“Copy, Agent. I’m going to put the phone in my pocket, and we’re going to try to lose them.”

“Understood, Starlight. Good luck.”

“This way,” Megumi said, darting in between a fast food truck and the covered seating area next to it. It was a tight squeeze in our winter clothing. The man in the truck shouted something at Megumi, and she flipped him off. “Next exit?”

“If we go to the waterfront, it’ll be easier for me to path us out. There’s too many people around,” Missy said, pulling her hood up.

“Sounds like a plan,” I said. “Or we can try the waterfront sidewalk there.”

Megumi sucked on her cigarette. “‘Kay,” she said, exhaling blue-tinged smoke.

Weirdly, the smoke helped. It was nasty, and it meant I couldn’t smell anything else. Which meant I couldn’t smell the real food in the area.

“Pause,” I said at the next intersection, nostrils flaring. Nutmeg to the right, getting stronger. “Quick! Look busy!”

We paused in front of the noodle bar, pretending to look at the menu.

“What do you want?” asked the woman behind the counter. It was a weak attempt to sound like everything was still normal, her eyes flicking over behind us.

“Just looking at the menu,” Missy said.

A glance back showed two men and a woman ambling down the impromptu street, people scattering out of their way. Khaki greens. Rifles on slings. Lots of pouches. Almost like they were trying to be soldiers, except for the cape masks they were wearing. An Alexandria, a Texas Ranger, and a Captain Wolf. Texas Ranger over there was holding some kind of device that looked sort of like a voltmeter from science classes at school, wires going from that to the goggles he was wearing. Waving it back and forth.

Back. Forth. I narrowed my eyes. Some kind of scanning tech, like what Missy had seen at the gates. Dr Holistic’s work, or had the Empire found another Tinker upstate willing to sell to them? It couldn’t be much good if it was being used by some random militia thug. It didn’t taste all that strong, either. But it was too far away to drain. Next to me, Missy was scowling, and Megumi sucked on her cigarette like she wanted to curse it and its family for the next seven generations. Back and forth.

It settled on us.

“Crap,” I muttered, grabbing a plastic spoon from the side. “They’re coming this way.”

“D’you think they picked up your cell?” Megumi demanded. She pulled something out of a pocket, and it took a moment for me to register that it was a flick-knife. That was definitely more effective than a spoon.

“Might have.”

“Fucking Tinkers,” Missy growled, rolling her shoulders as she yanked the drawstrings on her hood tight. She was as stiff as a board.

“We don’t want trouble,” I said, pulling up my own hood and adjusting the sit of my scarf. “They have guns.”

“Yeah. Yeah.”

“You!” That was the Alexandria. “Hands up! Now! Now!”

Slowly, I raised my hands. Next to me, Missy did the same. “I d-d-don’t know what’s wrong!” she whined, trying for once to sound her age. “I w-was just here with my friends and…”

“She’s faking it!” snapped the one with the goggles and the hand device. “They’re thinking like ABB.”

“Y’sure?” asked the other man. He glanced away from us. “Two of them aren’t even pocs. You sure the scanner isn’t playing up?”

“I can see their fucking auras, OK? They ain’t thinking like normal people!”

Well, shit. “Please,” I tried. “We’re really not… not gang members or anything. We just went to the Christmas Market! I don’t understand, but please. Don’t hurt us.” They were clumped together - could I hit them with beams if I had to?

“I’m not with the ABB,” Megumi said softly. “I hate them.”

“See, you’ve been kinda squirrely ever since you got those goggles. They’re just girls.”

“No, that’s just what they want you to think! Radio Crusader!”

I glanced sideways at Missy. She met my eyes, and nodded once. We’d clashed with him before. Would he recognise us just from the lower part of our faces? Could we risk that?

The other man let go of his gun, reaching for the walkie talkie at his belt.

“Hey, listen, we can talk about this,” I said, stepping in, and as soon as I was in range, I yanked at the walkie-talkie’s batteries. If there was a flash of light, everyone else would think it was just a reflection from another stall. “There’s no need to-”

The man with the goggles raised his gun and pulled the trigger.

Chapter Text

This is how a gun is meant to work: the hammer falls, sets off the primer, and that sets off the propellant. It burns very quickly and makes lots of hot gas, and, to use technical language, the little metal pointy thing goes very fast because all the hot gas is pushing it. And then the little pointy metal thing puts a hole in something or someone that probably didn’t deserve it.

This is how a gun fails to work: with a popping noise, an audible ping and a puff of black smoke spat out of one side like a sooty cough. Nothing from the barrel. No shell casing. I let out the breath I had been holding. Phew. He’d been close enough.

“What the fuck, Chris?” the woman blurted out. “Just… just put the gun down. Holy shit, do you want to kill a kid? And you,” she turned on me, “just stay the fuck back, OK?”

“She did that!” Chris the Texas Ranger howled, working the action on his rifle as he stepped back. An empty casing popped out and fell to the ground. Oh no. No, goddamnit, the idiot. “I saw it. She knew that was going to happen.”

“Hey, I have no idea what-”

“Get back!” the woman shouted, shoving me. I staggered back, just in time for him to raise the gun at me and-

This time there was a proper bang. Localised entirely within the gun. It went to pieces like a Lego toy someone had dropped. Barrel split like a banana skin; all the stick-on gadget-thingies going flying; blood on his hands. I yelped as red hot pain lanced into my arm.

“Holy shit, holy shit, holy shit.” The woman whirled on her friend, grabbing at him frantically. “Are you all right?”

“Do I look like I’m fucking alright?” he yelled, clutching his hands to his chest. “Fuck this hurts!”

I glanced down at my left arm. Something had torn my jacket, but I didn’t think it had been a bullet. Or at least not all of one. I was bleeding, but I could move my hand even if it hurt. It had been probably some part of the gun.

“Oh my god,” Missy gasped, “did he shoot you?”

“He tried.” I swallowed, feeling lightheaded. “I think I got super lucky,” I said loudly, so they could hear me. “He misfired or something. I-I’m okay, though.”

“Chris! Chris, oh fuck, just lie still, let me get a tournequet,” babbled the woman, kneeling down and starting basic first aid. These guys weren’t trained professionals. I’d guessed as much from the dumb cape-mask cosplay, but this confirmed it. One thing went unexpectedly wrong and they went to pieces. But where the Alexandria was panicking over her injured friend, the Captain Wolf mask reacted differently. She got distraught. He got angry.

Muscling forward, he drew himself up, his body language hostile. He ignored me, even though Texas-Ranger-mask had been blaming me for the misfire, and grabbed Megumi by the collar. “Listen up,” he growled, racism and anger for his friend curdling into sour rage. “You better have had nothing to do with this or-”

He stopped talking. Megumi’s hand was down at gut height. I saw the gleam of silver. Her flick knife was right up against his belly. “Or what? The fuck are you going to do, buta?”

I clenched my teeth, dreading where this was going. Megumi talked tough, but even basic self-defence classes should have told her that was a bad idea. Not when she had a small knife, he was wearing heavy clothing, and she had no leverage.

Fake-Captain-Wolf glanced down as he felt the knife, his hands still twisted into her collar, and shoved her away. She wasn’t expecting that. She wasn’t braced, and no matter how strong she was, she didn’t weigh any more than any other teenage girl. His shove sent her stumbling back into the noodle bar with a crash. She pushed off it and lunged for him, but he smashed the butt of his rifle into her chest. She dropped her knife, wheezing, and he stepped back to bring his rifle up. I didn’t know whether he had the safety off or not, and I didn’t care.

So I opened my siphon as wide as I could, and threw the nearby box of plastic cutlery in his face. He staggered back with a grunt, forks and spoons cascading all around him, arms waving as he tried to regain his balance. It knocked that rifle off-target, and that was all I wanted. But Missy beat me to it. She threw herself at him, wrestling for the gun, and managed to tear it out of his hand with a twist I recognised from Armsmaster’s training.

For all her ferocity, though, Missy didn’t have the advantage here. She had the heart of a tiger, but the mass of a short thirteen-year old. He punched her and she fell into the stools in front of the stall, wheezing. I yelled, but I couldn’t make sure she was okay because the woman in the Alexandria mask was getting up from her bleeding friend. I swung at her with a stool as Wolf lurched forward to grab at Megumi. She snatched him by the collar and jerked him face-first past her into the noodle stall. Clang, scream, sizzle. Shit shit shit. Had that been her powers? And fake-Alexandria was backing away, out of reach of my stool, and I couldn’t go after her because she was bigger than I was and the trigger-happy idiot was on the ground between us.

Through the paper mask - so much like the plastic helmet I’d worn in the Mall two weeks ago - I saw her snarl. Her doubts about fake-Tex’s ravings had vanished. She brought the rifle up, within range of my senses but just beyond my reach.

Space warped between us, and the deafening crackle of bullets curved sideways and down to tear into the ground in front of the yakitori vendor to our right. Chunks of frozen turf coughed up from the ground. Missy had her hand thrown out, lensing effects gleaming around her fingers.

It was the kind of moment that heralds a shocked silence from everyone involved, in the stories. As a Ward, I’d had a lot of training on how not to freeze up in shock during that kind of moment, which was why I brought my hand up just as Missy dropped the warp and blasted her across the aisle into a fruit juice stall. Her gun hit the ground, and I sliced it in half with a cutting beam.

The flashes of light had lit up the area, and every head was turned to me. I pulled my scarf up and tugged my hood lower instinctively, cringing away from the dozens of watching eyes. We’d trashed the noodle bar - its owner fled - and people had been shooting guns. A man with a mangled hand was moaning on the ground in the middle of the market aisle, and the juice stall opposite us was wrecked. I saw more cameras than I wanted pointed at us by market goers. They were keeping a wary distance, and I couldn’t really blame them.

Turning back to my friends, I caught Megumi kicking her fallen and groaning opponent between the legs again. His Captain Wolf mask was covered in stir-fried vegetables.

I could hear the voices. The names coming up. Starlight. Vista. This hadn’t been quiet, and it hadn’t been subtle. Hopefully nobody had caught our faces with enough resolution to matter, but that was a problem for later. Right now, we had more pressing things to worry about.

“Mi- Vi-” I stuttered, and then just opted to ignore names. “Are you two okay? And make sure your hoods and scarves are up.”

“Fine,” grunted Missy, pulling herself up. “Ah!”

Her ankle had given out as she put weight on it. I knew the signs of a bad sprain. Maybe even a break, if she’d fallen wrong. Shit. This was bad-turned-to-worse. With Missy hobbled we’d be slow if she tried to walk and conspicuous if either of us carried her.

“Put your arm around me,” I ordered tersely. “We need to get out of here. Now.”

“I’ll carry her,” Megumi said, after one last kick. The neo-Nazi was retching.

“I can walk!”

“Yeah no. You can’t even stand. C’mon. Piggyback. That’s the right word, right?”

With Missy boosted up onto Megumi’s back we hurried away, watched by the crowds but not followed. Nobody wanted to be near the kids who’d taken out three militia, not with Krieg in the market and who knew who else. I cut through two rows of stalls as quickly as I could, putting cover between us and any responding skinheads, then tried to think. Okay. Okay. So they’d know soon enough that Starlight and Vista were here. They’d be looking for two white girls - and we’d clashed with the Empire before. They might be able to recognise us. The guy had talked about auras. Was that auras like what Gallant could see, or something else? Assume worst case; assume they could pick us out of the crowd. Couldn’t hide among the civilians. They’d probably stop anyone leaving.

The loudspeakers chimed again. “Ladies and gentlemen, this is Krieg.” All around me, people paused, glancing up at the hanging speakers.

“Move,” I hissed. We pushed on, making our way through the milling crowd as we took advantage of the distraction. Had he heard about the fight yet?

“I have a question for everyone who paid the criminal ABB money for ‘protection’. Did it work? It does not look like it did. Lung was defeated yesterday by a valiant protector of the American people. Where are your cape protectors? They are not here. The ABB are powerless. They cannot fight us.”

Fuck you, I thought. Fuck you, and fuck Purity.

“So we will keep the Americans at this market safe. We will prevent criminal elements from infiltrating it. We will root out the illegals who use this place for selling drugs and stolen goods.”

“Militia up ahead. Take a left,” I ordered Megumi, and we cut between a music stall and a stall selling fluffy toys to avoid the camo patterns I could see over by the red tent up ahead.

“I therefore ask you to make your orderly way to the exits of this park. We are assisting the police in checking the immigration status of everyone here. If you are here legally, you have nothing to fear - though,” he let out a humourless chuckle, “perhaps you might want to move if you have been paying the criminal elements of the ABB for so-called protection. But I promise you - the real Americans here have nothing to fear.

“I remind you that we will be sure to engage in self-defence against anyone who interferes with our lawful activities here. That will be all for now.”

Megumi let out a furious hiss. “Fuck him! Fuck him!” She glared at me. “Do you even have a plan?”

I didn’t meet her eyes. “Of course I do.”

“Yeah, do you, really?”

“Shut up!” That was Missy, her voice thin and strained.

“I have a plan,” I lied. Because I didn’t. Of course I didn’t. I’d been assuming that Missy would be able to walk. I’d have one in a little bit, when my brain wasn’t blurry from adrenaline and trying to grab at ideas to weave together, but right now I wasn’t thinking that far in the future.

Maybe some of that showed in my voice, because she didn’t look convinced. “Do you?” she said, sending a man staggering as she barged past him.

“What I’m going to do right now is update Console,” I said through clenched teeth, jamming my glasses back up my nose.

“Yeah, great plan,” she muttered. “Fine, you do that. Me’n’Missy will look out for any more of them. And don’t stop, follow me while you’re talking.”

I pulled out my cell again. “Agent, I don’t know if you caught all that, but things went bad.”

“Nah, you think?” Megumi grumbled ahead of me.

“I heard gunshots. What happened? Is anyone hurt?”

“Three members of an Empire-aligned militia. They went after us. No one got shot, but Vista is hurt. She sprained her ankle.” We paused at the next intersection, looking for skinheads. Clear. “They have Tinkertech scanners. Picked us out. I don’t know what they were detecting. The one with the scanner said something about auras. But we had to fight back.”

“Did you go power-loud?”

I took a deep breath. “Yes. Me and Vista went loud. They were going to shoot us. No fatalities, I repeat, no fatalities.”

“Copy, Starlight.” Her words were professional, but she sounded only a bit less stressed than me. “Initial elements of a PRT unit are on route to Lincoln Park. Back-up is on the way. One of Mister Crypsis’s drones has eyes-on you, so I can track you now. ”

I glanced up, but of course I wasn’t going to see it. “We need a way out, Agent. Remember, Vista can’t walk.”

“We have an exfiltration route, Starlight. Get to the waterfront. We’re sending a boat. Vista should be able to get you onto it.”

A boat. Made sense. Living beings interfered with Vista’s power, but with a big expanse of water, she could easily crumple up space. “Okay. Got it. We’re heading to the waterfront for a boat pick-up.” I glanced at Megumi as I said it. She looked relieved, before she hid it under a scowl. “Can you see any more patrols up ahead?”

“One moment. Okay, we have eyes on Menja. She’s up ahead of you, along with a number of armed men. Take a left.”

“Left,” I hissed, and Megumi grunted and changed course, cutting between two scared-looking men in dragonscale jackets. “Here, Flare, let me lead. Console’s giving us directions. Vista, they have Menja here too.” She nodded at me, face pale in the midwinter midday gloom. “We’re moving, Agent.”

“Okay, continue across the next intersection. Do not draw attention to yourself, but do not pause. There are three patrolling Empire soldiers, but they are not facing you at the moment. You should be able to slip by.”

The snow was more prominent now, heard by the hiss and ping of snowflakes falling on the heat lamps. The wind was blowing in our faces. My arm hurt with a dull, throbbing ache, but I didn’t have time to stop and heal up. I kept my hands around my cell, as we tried to avoid jostling anyone. Hopefully, we blended into the mass of winter coats.

“Stop! Don’t cross the street yet. There are three armed men patrolling. But they’re about to pass you, so be ready to move!”

“Here,” I ordered, tugging Megumi into a stall selling scented candles. I could barely smell them in the face of the approaching nutmeg. In the mirror behind the counter, I saw three men in the combat webbing and greens of the militia, and I held my breath. But they walked on by, without looking in our direction.

“The patrol has passed. Move before they come back.”

“Got it,” I said softly, mouthing a ‘thank you’ at the woman behind the counter. “Go.”

We were three figures in winter coats, moving with the crowds towards the waterfront exits. But we were drawing attention because Megumi had Missy in a piggyback. I knew it, and so did they.

“Cross over the next intersection, and then head down the path to the waterfront,” said the agent. I relayed those instructions.

“People’re looking at me carrying her. That way,” Megumi said, jerking her chin to the gap between a tent selling brightly coloured beads and one stocked with the kind of mall katanas which would bend if you tried to cut a banana. There was a stocky guy swaddled up in a thick jacket, watching the nervous crowds.

“Why?”

“That’s someone I know. I gotta say something to him.” Without waiting for me, she stepped over to the tent selling the swords. She said something in Japanese to him, and a machine-gun-fast conversation followed. “This way,” she said, hefting up Missy and heading down the gap between the tents.

“What was that about?” I said, squeezing after her.

“He’s the brother of one of my friends. I told him that the Empire’s grabbing girls.” The plastic coverings slithered against our jackets, and heaters hummed. “He let us back here.”

“Great. Good job.” She shot me a quick flash of teeth that was more stressed grimace than grin, and I turned my attention back to my cell. “Console, someone let us into the back rows. We’re still heading to the waterfront.”

“Copy, Starlight. We lost you for a moment. Let me just… alright. There is one group of armed men patrolling this area of the waterfront. There’s another one on the pier, and… there’s a Crusader there.”

My stomach clenched. “Him, or one of his ghosts?”

“Can’t ID.”

“Shit. We can’t risk the pier.”

“Agreed, Starlight. Can you make it to the statue to the east of the pier?”

I knew the one she was talking about. “We’ll try it.”

“Watch out, the patrol is coming back along the waterfront. You’ll want to hold until they pass again.”

I grabbed Megumi’s arm. “Hold up.” I ordered. “Console says that the patrol is coming back.”

“‘Kay. Hey, Missy, hop down for a bit. I need to take a breather. And my scarf is slipping down.”

I helped her down. “I’m sorry for getting hurt,” Missy said, perching on a discarded plastic crate.

“It’s not your fault,” Megumi and I said at exactly the same time, and traded surprised looks at the echo. She broke the stare as she took off her scarf and tried re-tying it.

“Yeah, what she said,” I said. The pinwheels whirred on the other side of the nearest tent. I could hear voices past them. Scared voices. A clatter of overturned tables. Now I had a moment to think, I was getting angry. Damn the Empire. Damn those skinheads and this bullshit. “You stopped me getting shot.”

“It was pretty cool. How you were just like ‘twist’ and then she was like ‘zap’ and sent her flying.”

I winced. It was a reminder that me and Missy were the ones who had gone loud. We’d needed to at the time. But I should have been good enough that we weren’t in that place to begin with.

“You jammed a guy’s head into a wok,” Missy said. “That was cool. Serves him right.”

“Prob’bly didn’t do much damage,” Megumi grumbled as she finished with her scarf. “Had that stupid mask on.”

And thank goodness for that. I wasn’t going to say anything because we needed to work as a team, but I was really really not okay with the idea of someone’s face getting stir-fried. Even if they were a neo-Nazi. “This would be so much easier if we had our own masks,” I said instead. “Don’t knock them.”

“Ha, yeah.” Megumi bounced up and down on her toes, working her shoulders. “You blasted the gun to make it blow up like that, right?”

“No, actually.” I tried to smile and it came out as more of an adrenaline snarl. My hands were trembling. “He blew his own gun up.”

Missy beamed with pride. “You did the squib thing for real. I remember how much time you spent with MM to get that down.”

“Yeah. Basically, uh, it’s a trick I worked out. If I suck the heat out of a gun as it fires, the bullet gets stuck in the barrel. Like, the kind of stuck that means you can’t fire the gun and need to take it apart,” I explained for Megumi’s sake.

“Huh. Yeah, makes sense. You stop the gunpowder going off. Neat. So they can’t touch you.”

“Oh hell no.” I shook my head violently. “They have to be only a few yards away. And I am so glad it worked in the field like it did at the firing range.”

“You mean you didn’t know it would-” Megumi stopped herself and took a breath. “This is the last time I let you two pick where we go. Next time, we go to the movies or something.”

“God. I mean, you’re not wrong. The movies would’ve been less of a disaster. Even if they were a literal disaster movie,” I said, shaking my head and shifting my backpack higher on my shoulders. “Console, how are things?”

“Starlight, we have a problem. Multiple Empire groups are converging slowly on your general area. It looks like they’re trying to sweep for you.”

I bit my lip. “Have we been seen?”

“No. We’re tracking their radio and cell phones. They have descriptions of you from the violent encounter, but they are imprecise - they’re looking for three teenage females, two white and one Asian. No mention of hair colour or even what you’re wearing beyond heavy winter clothing.”

Shit. Could be worse, but still not good if the Empire were looking for three girls. “We need to move. How close is the patrol?”

“It hasn’t passed you yet. Starlight, can you hide?”

I looked up and down the narrow alley of tent walls, cables, and trash. Anyone who looked down here would see three girls. “No.” I bounced up and down on my toes. I didn’t want to get trapped here. “Console, is the boat in position? Where is it?”

“The Cuttlefish is on its final approach.” She paused. “Please wait, let me… yes. There is the option to call in support. Dauntless is on station. But we don’t want to set off the Empire - a cape engagement in this market is too dangerous.”

She didn’t have to tell me twice. What could I do? I could break the nearby streetlights - but there would still be too much light for that to make a difference. There were too many people around for Missy to really do anything with folding space. And Megumi…

“I have a plan,” I said. “I think we can make sure they’re not looking at us…”

I had to talk quickly to make my case. But I was the one on the scene, and I wasn’t going to leave anyone behind.

The girls had heard me. Missy was trying to be brave, but I could see how much it was hurting her. Megumi was a contrast to that, bright-eyed and eager. “Sorry for not thinking you had a plan,” she whispered. “We’re gonna show ‘em.”

“Yeah,” I said, helping Missy up and passing her the cell. Megumi had to be able to move freely. “C’mon, you can lean on me. Just don’t put weight on that ankle.”

“I’m going to be fine,” she said fiercely. It didn’t hide the tear tracks at the edge of her eyes. “J-just get me to where I can see the boat.”

I nodded. Stooping down, I rested my hand on the ground and pulsed a thin beam down to cut the cable. The street lights along the waterfront went out. Shifting, I made sure to balance Missy’s weight better. “Ready,” I told Megumi.

“All right!”

We slipped out between the two tents, into the gloom. It was only midday, but with the street lights out and the snow it felt more like sunset. The wind whipped against my face, blowing little flecks of white in my eyes. There were people following the path towards the exits - too many. Not a good place to get into a fight. The pier was just ahead over to the side, and I could see a cluster of the Empire-aligned militia on it. And the armoured figure of Crusader. Whether or not it was the real one, I wasn’t going anywhere near him. But that meant we had to skirt closer to the patrolling thugs in their Power Lord masks.

I nodded to Megumi. She bit her lip, and stepped over to the nearest trash can. Missy and I continued heading towards the statue, even as there was a whoomph behind us. I tasted the wash of heat, spiced with Megumi’s power. The skinheads were staring at the burning garbage, and ignored us as we just walked on by.

“Good job,” I whispered to Megumi as she rejoined us, feet crunching on the snow-covered grass.

“Pfft. Wasn’t hard,” she said, jamming her hands in her pockets. She nodded over towards the pier. “Fuckers are on the move too.”

“Yeah, well, we’re just going to ignore them. Missy, what does Console say?”

“We just gotta keep moving,” she whispered. Her face was paler than it should have been.

“You’re doing so well. Just a little further. Just a bit more,” I reassured her. “And here we are.”

The statue loomed over us. It was a man on a horse, but he’d been covered in ABB gang tags and was missing his head. Probably stolen for scrap metal.

“Okay,” Missy said on the phone. “Okay. Yeah, Taylor, just help me over to that wall. And just… just let me lean on you. They’re going to uncloak the boat… now.”

I peered out over the choppy grey waters. There, out past the pier - hundreds of yards away. There was the boat I’d seen in the workshop, suddenly there when it hadn’t been before. It must have been an emergency launch to use it so soon. “Can you do it?”

“Of course! Just don’t distract me. I’ve gotta handle the way it’s moving up and down.” The boat already looked closer, but I turned away and trusted in her. My job was to keep the Empire off her, and we didn’t want anyone noticing what we were doing.

“You wanna fight them?” Megumi asked me.

“No,” I lied. She looked me up and down and snorted, not buying it for a second.

“Yeah. Sure.” She paused. “Same, though. Screw the ABB, but most of the people here don’t deserve this.” She glared out at the market like she could shoot fire from her eyes, not just her hands. “Those fuckers think they can just walk into our neighbourhoods and-”

“Quiet. Now’s not the time.” Were the trio who’d been investigating the burning trash can heading our way? “We’re not home free yet. Something else could still go wrong.”

“Oh. Yeah.” She rubbed her hands together. “If they catch us here…”

Yes. It wouldn’t be good. “You help Missy onto the boat first. I can fly, so I can’t be trapped here. But you two can. And you’re on my team, Meg. I said I’d get you out safely.”

“Don’t call me ‘Meg’... Sparkles. We’re not friends yet.” But she didn’t sound offended.

“Sparkles?”

“Yeah. Sparkles.”

“Okay!” Behind me, I could hear the sound of water slapping against a boat’s hull. “Done it!” Missy announced. The boat was right there, the light lensing just around its edges where space had been crumpled up like wet tissue paper.

Megumi helped her on board first, into the arms of the PRT agents on deck. They’d have a medic for Missy. It was probably a sprain, but they’d be able to tell. That was good.

“Okay!” the nearest agent called out. “Get on, Starlight!”

Clambering up onto the wall, the wind howled around me. I paused, glancing back. It would be so easy to take down these bastards. The three over there; low-power beams to the legs. And then it would be Crusader and his lackeys, and I’d have the element of surprise.

But no. I was going to be good. And sensible. I didn’t have my armour, and there were too many Empire gang members here to fight them all. Not when it’d only take one bullet to kill me - and that would be it. And then they’d probably open fire on the civilians here, too.

I had plenty of good reasons to evacuate. I had only one good reason to stay, and that was beating the fascists. But I’d promised Mom. I’d promised her that I’d let the PRT keep me safe. Mom didn’t like violence and I shouldn’t let her down. And I wasn’t going to let anyone else get killed by not thinking about what my powers could do. I didn’t blast up places where there were civilians around. I wasn’t like her.

One step took me several hundred yards, and I stood on the deck of the boat. I gave in to the guidance of the PRT agents who led me below deck, and finally let the shakes hit.

Chapter Text

The lights hummed overhead in the Wards common room. I could feel the power flow. It was reassuring. A reminder I wasn’t alone.

Writing the reports helped me unwind. A little bit. I felt like one of those old fashioned clockwork watches which had been wound up to the point of nearly bursting. Time and mandatory enforced post-incident paperwork helped bleed off some of the tension. But only some of it.

My leg bounced up and down under the table as I reviewed the forms. The general post-incident report, with attached form SI-3 to be sent to the security teams for secret identity impact assessment. The Blaster Incident form documenting that I had used my powers. The medical incident report detailing the circumstances of how Missy had been hurt - and me, too, though I’d fixed myself up and all that was left was my clothing needing some stitches. And that was the villain form reporting which supervillains had been present and its annex, describing the use of tinkertech by Empire-aligned militia.

Sometimes I hated having to do this. Going back over everything that had happened and everything I’d done, knowing where I’d failed and where I could have done better. But it wasn’t so bad this time. I was actually pretty sure that I wasn’t going to be yelled at and would probably get told ‘well done’. It sucked that we’d had to go loud, but it had been justified by the situation, and in every other aspect? We’d done well. We’d worked together and called in for support and advice, we’d done our best to avoid engagements and kept them as short and non-lethal as possible. Missy had been hurt, but she’d got rid of one gun doing it and then saved my life from the other. And we’d kept her safe and supported all the way to the boat, afterwards. The situation had been a clusterfuck, but we’d shown teamwork, proportionate reactions to threats, good prioritisation and excellent adherence to protocol.

And I was prepared to argue that case all the way up to the front of Director Piggot’s desk, because this time, it was true. True, and well worth filling in a dozen different forms for, even if it took a chunk of the afternoon to do.

With a flourish, I signed off on the last document, and deliberately put the lid back on my pen so it made a satisfying click. Then I worked out my wrist.

Accomplishment. Such a nice feeling, being done with something.

I checked my phones. Texts from Emma and Amy, checking up on me. I shouldn’t worry Emma with this, but Amy didn’t like being ignored.

The response came after such a short while that she had to have been sitting there, phone in hand.

I smiled at that. Aww. She did care. And texted better than her sister.

Leaning back in my seat, I swivelled around to take in the rest of the Wards base. Nobody was out on patrol at the moment, so the Console seat was empty. Missy was in medical getting her ankle looked at, and the boys were nowhere around. But Megumi...

“Urgh!”

... Megumi had apparently given up entirely.

“Having trouble?” I asked, wheeling my seat over to her side of the desks. She was sprawled out over three chairs, headphones in and watching something on the computers. Something which clearly wasn’t making her too happy, unless the unhappiness came from how the plastic arms of the chairs had to be digging into her back from how she was sitting. Though, maybe Brute powers made it more comfortable for her?

She would still probably have been more comfortable if she’d sat upright.

“I’m fine. Starlight.” That last word came out more viciously than I’d expected.

“Just, you know, we need to get these reports in…”

“I’m. Fine.”

“I mean you’re clearly not, because it looks like you haven’t even finished the basic incident report and…”

“Oh, why do you care?” She hit the spacebar and whirled to glare at me. The cooperation back when we’d been running from the skinheads seemed to have withered on the vine. “You always have to be perfect, don’t you? Sparkles the S-tier super.”

Yes and so should you, because who wouldn’t want to be perfect? I didn’t say that, though, because it would just cause trouble. Instead, I edged around, already half-suspecting what kind of thing I’d see on that screen. And yes, I was right.

“Okay. Listen.” I pulled out the headphones from the PC, and perched on the desk. “Listen. Power tier videos are BS.”

“Yeah, of course you say that!” Megumi flared. “I bet you wouldn’t say that if all the rankings didn’t keep on putting you in the top, like, three of all the heroes in this city!” She hit the spacebar again, and the video resumed. “He’s putting you at S-tier! And-”

“ - still don’t think Flare can get out of the C-tier.” Urgh. I knew that voice; a WorldShare clickbait guy who did city-by-city breakdowns of all the heroes and villains. He went by ‘Your City Heroes’ and sounded like he could have been Leet’s twin. “A high C, maybe, but she just doesn’t have the oomph to earn herself a B. You should know how I do these things by now. If you’re a generic Blaster, and you can’t fly and don’t bring anything new to the table, you’re probably in C-tier. Gallant on the same team shows what you need to do to get higher, because he’s a Tinker as well, but Flare doesn’t have a unique trick. Now-”

“Please tell me you’re not listening to that crap,” I said, reaching over to tap the spacebar again. “Come on, he buys the story that Gallant’s a Tinker. He doesn’t have any inside sources. He’s just a dude who spends way too much time reading briefing packages and watching cape fights.”

“He put you in S-tier,” Megumi snapped back.

I groaned. I got shit from Missy and Vicky about that asshole’s power tiers too. Surprisingly, not from Amy, but that was because she flaunted that she got an S-tier ranking too. Amy could be very shallow when she felt like it. And what made it worse was that she probably had a better claim on it than I did. For a few minutes a day, Amy was an unstoppable tank. I’d heard from Vicky that the gangs were avoiding New Wave these days because they were scared that if they got into a major clash, New Wave would deploy Radiant. And sure, some of that was that Vicky liked to hype up her sister, but…

“He’s an idiot who buys into the hype.”

“Oh, stop with your humblebragging!”

“I am not humblebragging.”

“Fuck off you’re not!”

“Look, he doesn’t get anything about how real fights work.” God, give me strength. I hadn’t fully relaxed after the market, and now she was getting in my face. “He thinks people fit into nice clean tiers! He has stupid ideas about how he could use my power better than me. And he hypes me up way too much. He throws around the idea I could fight Behemoth, Megumi. Behemoth!” I winced as I remembered the stupid power analysis series and how I’d got my own video. “He made this stupid video set to clips of me and… you saw it, didn’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay. So, I can’t in fact pull in all the energy in the surrounding area, and turn it into one giant blast. I don’t have some super move like that. I’m the third person to be called ‘Starlight’ and they both had better powers than me and they’re both dead! And I can’t…” My hands were shaking. I remembered how he’d pointed out how similar my powers were to Purity’s and assumed I could do everything she could and I wasn’t like her, not one bit! “People call me the next Legend. I’ll never be that good. And not just because that shitbag Uber called me ‘loli-Legend’ and I still-” I drew in a breath. “I just. It all-”

Breathe. Breathe.

“ - I nearly got shot today. And if he’d done it from a little bit further away, I’d have been in deep shit. And that might have been it. So. Yeah. Mister ‘Your City Heroes’ should go to hell. S to F ranks can go… can go F themselves.”

“You didn’t sound like that when you were bragging about your powers that first day.” At least she wasn’t raising her voice.

“Yeah, well, I hadn’t nearly been shot on that day,” I said, gripping onto the edge of the table. “Like, sure. When nothing is going on, we can care about ranks and who can beat who and shit like that. Me and Vicky - uh, Orbital from New Wave - we have our little rivalry going on. We make fun of each other’s merch rankings and poke cape websites with questions about who’d win in a fight and… okay, that one is mostly Amy. Doesn’t matter.

“A real cape fight is a fucking mess, Megumi. That’s the long and short of it. Forget power rankings. Forget whatever number you get next to your rating. In the end, both of us could really fuck someone up in a fight. Or even kill them. And we don’t want to do that because we’re the good guys, so it’s about not putting yourself in a position where you have to kill or be killed. In the end, being smart and making sure you have someone you trust backing you up matters more, because - yeah, we have dangerous powers, both of us? You know what else is dangerous?”

“You’re going to say something like ‘overconfidence’.”

“What, no. I mean, yeah, that’s probably right, but what I was going to say was just... a regular guy with a pistol. I mean, they’ve been putting you through basic. Didn’t you get sick of trainers telling you that you need to ‘de-escalate situations’?”

“Well, yeah, but…”

“It’s not some hypothetical thing. You remember how Missy doesn’t like guns? I… I didn’t want to talk about it in front of her, but…”

It had been so stupid. It had been just a patrol. One of the showy, PR-friendly patrols, with Vista and Starlight. Two good girls, just being there in public. Making people feel safe. And then some methed-up asshole from upstate had freaked out when two government capes had asked him if he was feeling alright and why was he shouting at people? Freaked out, with a handgun.

I hadn’t known how to make a gun fail to fire back then.

So yeah, I told Megumi the story. She’d gotten shot and I hadn’t been able to stop it and I’d blasted him back into a wall hard enough to break bones. No supervillains. No great plan. Just an idiot with rotten teeth and enough methamphetamine in his system that seeing two heroes was enough that he thought they were out to get him. Two heroes who were a teenage girl and a pre-teen who’d been scared out of their wits even before the crazy shouty man pulled out a gun.

“That’s why I learned to jam guns,” I concluded. “And that’s why Missy gets nervous sometimes, around things like that. And her powers play up when she gets nervous.”

“Shit. You should’ve just said that. Shou-” Megumi pulled a face and cut off the name she had been about to say. “I know someone who got shot and now she doesn’t talk to anyone apart from her boyfriend ‘cause she’s too scared about what someone else might do. I wasn’t going to be a bitch to her just because she gets nervous about that kind of stuff.”

“But you’re not going to tell her I told you that.”

“Why?”

“Because she doesn’t like being babied. Remember. She’s been doing it since she was, like, eleven. And,” I chuckled, like the experienced fifteen-year old I was, “come on. Remember being thirteen. No one that age wants to be treated like a kid.”

“Hah! Not wrong!” She sighed. “I dunno.”

“Still pissed about that idiot and the ranking he gave you?”

“... kinda. It’s not like it goes away. Even though he’s totally dumb, I don’t want people thinking I’m a C-tier hero.” Megumi fiddled with her lighter. “You know?”

“We can’t smoke in here,” I reminded her. I meant ‘you’, but saying ‘we’ made it seem like it wasn’t just her I was complaining about. Even though it was.

“Yeah, but… urgh. Fuck it.” She stared at the paperwork on the desk. “Because you’ve got all this experience, you gotta know how to handle all that bullshit.”

“Yes, actually. I’ve finished all mine already.”

“You’re so the worst, you know that?”

“Well, if you don’t want my help…”

“No no no it’s… uh, it’s a compliment. At Winslow. You probably do things differently at Arcadia.”

I shook my head and slipped down from the desk, nudging her legs so I had a place to sit down. “Come on, then. This is a one-time offer. I’m not going to get stuck doing all your forms all the time.”

Megumi rifled through her pockets. “Hey, want some gum?”

I saw the bright purple packet and stiffened up. “Nah. I don’t like bubblegum flavour.” I swallowed, throat dry. “Too sickly sweet.”

“Fair enough. So, uh. Like, what is an SI-3 form…”

I had a terrifying premonition that this was going to happen again, despite my warning. Maybe that was what it felt like to be Portent. This looming dread, and the knowledge that no matter what happened, things wouldn’t go well. Maybe I should go easier on him.

Nah. He was still a prick.

Eventually, we managed to claw our way to completing Megumi’s incident report form. It was painful, and unfortunately most of the pain was on my part. I was sure that I’d never been that bad. I had managed to resist the urge to point out that as team leader, she would have a lot more paperwork to do. And spreadsheets. And all the other bits of boring work that Portent grumbled about.

God, it was going to all get delegated to me. I was doomed.

“Well, do you think you can at least file it on your own? All you have to do is hand it in to Miss Militia.”

“Don’t treat me like I’m stupid! But… where’s her office?”

I didn’t whine, even though I wanted to. “C’mon.”

I poked my head in to check on Missy, who was lying on her bed with her foot elevated and in a compression bandage. It was just a sprain, rather than being broken, but she looked extremely disgruntled at the prospect of having to avoid strenuous activity for the next eight weeks. I picked up her - already completed - forms, and together me and Megumi set off on an epic quest to find the office of Miss Militia.

“You’re so weird,” she said as we made our way through the institutional-beige hallways.

“I am not!”

“You just said this was an epic quest. Who talks like that?”

“Come on, it was a joke.”

“Yeah. A joke that says so much about you.”

Megumi really had a tendency to say stupid things. There was no point in engaging with her any further, though, because there was a suited woman ahead of me. I didn’t recognise her, and more than that, she didn’t seem to know the place from how she was looking around. She was short - shorter than even Megumi - and east Asian, in a black suit.

“Can I help you?” I asked, stepping up to her. “And do you have a guest pass?”

“Oh!” She adjusted her glasses, then showed me her guest lanyard. It looked in order. “I’m Special Agent Julia Bao, FBI. I’m looking for Armsmaster. I’m meant to be meeting him in his office.”

Ah, that again. “His office isn’t here - it’s down towards the labs. Just follow the green line on the wall and it’s just before the airlock. Or head back to the front desk and ask for someone to direct you there.”

“Right! Right! Thank you!”

I watched her as she headed off down the corridor. I had seen more FBI agents around the place than usual. Maybe it was a sign the PRT and the FBI were working together on something big. Arresting-Purity-big. I could only hope.

“That… happen a lot?” Megumi asked.

“Yes. I’m afraid so. People follow the signs to the offices, and then find Armsmaster’s isn’t here.” I patted the wall. “At least she didn’t ask us to guide her. Come on, we’re nearly there.”

No windows and a camera above the door; those were the offices the Protectorate members got. Just enough privacy to take your helmet off. The Wards rooms were nicer. I knocked sharply at the door with Miss Militia’s nameplate on it.

“Come in,” crackled the intercom, and the lock clicked.

Miss Militia always had the cleanest office of any of the adult Protectorate members. Every last thing was tucked away where it needed to be. She didn’t have Battery’s collection of reminder post-it notes, Velocity’s assortment of unwashed mugs, or Dauntless’s Lego that he claimed he kept around for stress relief but which I was pretty sure he just played with when he was bored. Even the papers in her in-tray were flush against the sides of the plastic tray. It spoke of either a scrupulously tidy personality, or far too much free time.

“Just got the incident forms,” I said, gesturing with them. They fluttered in the draft. “Mine. Flare’s. And here’s Vista’s - she’s just lying down at the moment.”

“Thank you, Starlight. I can trust you to get your reports in on time. Mostly.” Miss Militia stood up, and stretched. One hand went without thinking to rest on the handgun at her hip. She took the papers from me, glanced at each of them in turn, then placed them in her in-tray. “Have you two eaten?”

I shook my head. “Not really since lunch. Some snacks, I guess. Trying to get over the crash.”

“Yeah, I’m heading to the canteen.” She grabbed a domino mask. “Come with me. You should eat properly before you head off for the day.”

“They’re keeping me in overnight again,” Megumi grumbled.

“Me too,” I added. I hadn’t had to stay over for a while, but after Megumi’s first real cape thing they’d had words with me about making sure someone was around just in case the really bad nightmares came back and she started setting things on fire in her sleep again.

I realised I was ravenously hungry when we got into the Protectorate canteen. Though that term flattered it. It was more like a large coffee room; small, cramped, self-service salad, with a hatch that allowed orders to be passed through. Another place that people could de-mask with some privacy. White, slightly greasy walls, and tall tables and chairs in an attempt to give it something of a diner feel. I didn’t say much while I wolfed down a burger and fries. Megumi didn’t say much either, though she was only picking at her food despite Miss Militia’s best efforts to get her to eat.

She noticed my attention, and misunderstood it. “Do you want this?”

“Don’t take it, Starlight,” Miss Militia said, the last of her salmon half-way to her mouth.

“I wasn’t going to,” I said. I was lying, but that didn’t matter.

“I’m just full already.”

“You’ll feel worse later if you don’t eat,” Miss Militia said. “Your body is telling you it’s not hungry because it thinks it’s going to get in a fight again. Don’t listen to it. You’re safe here.”

“I said, I’m not hungry!” Megumi raised her voice, and Velocity glanced over from where he was on a laptop with headphones in. “I don’t want to eat! And I’m not scared!”

I left Miss Militia to it, and went up to grab a banana from the free fresh fruit they gave out to try to convince their superheroes to eat more healthily. On consideration, I pocketed an apple too, to eat back in my room. Rather than sit right back down, I flicked through one of the newspapers that were left around in the cantina. The local news was all about what Purity had done yesterday, talking about ‘gang violence’ and ‘an escalation’. Tomorrow would be another big story too.

How dare the Empire-88 do this! It was so obvious that this had been planned out in advance. They had a big plan to spread their power through the city, and we couldn’t let it succeed.

I tossed the paper onto the table as I perched back up on the chair. “I bet PR isn’t looking forward to the front pages tomorrow,” I said, as a conversational opener.

Miss Militia placed her cutlery down on her plate with a clink. “It might not make the front page. Well, except for the Brockton Bay Times. They’ll be trumpeting the BBPD line about immigration arrests. And - thank Allah - the Empire didn’t go on a massacre and seem to have dispersed. Besides, the PR boys are probably just relieved that nothing happened to you three and there’s no identity leak online yet. Good job. I know you think you could have done better, Starlight, but you did good enough.”

“So what are we doing to take them down?”

“You know I can’t discuss operational planning.”

“We have to do something.” Something crawled in my stomach. Hot, tight. I gripped the edge of my seat to stop my hands shaking. “Look what the Empire has done. Just in the past few days. We can’t let them keep getting away with this!”

“Calm down, Starlight.”

“I am calm!”

“You are not.” She didn’t look like someone grabbing food anymore. She had shut down like she did when she was on duty. “Just breathe and take a moment before you say anything you regret.”

I bit back what I wanted to say to that bullshit, and took an exaggerated breath. “I am calm,” I said, a hint of false sweetness creeping into my voice. “But right now there are probably people dying out there. Because of those fascist fucks and we could be doing something and we are not!”

“It’s not that simple. I wish it was. But the BBPD has claimed jurisdiction over this.”

Megumi made a shocked noise, which pretty much matched how I felt. “They’re in the Empire’s pocket!”

“What?” I demanded at the same time. “How is ‘Nazi parahumans take over marketplace’ not our business?”

“I’ve been briefed,” Miss Militia said, answering me rather than Megumi. “The PRT is much more interested in the fact that it seems like Dr Holistic’s Tinkertech is proliferating in the Empire-88. Trust me, we’ll be looking into that. But the fact that the gang took over the market? That’s police business. And the local police cooperating with the Empire would be an FBI matter.”

“So nothing happens.” Megumi didn’t even sound surprised. Her dyed bangs framed her face as she leaned forwards. “Actually, hah. More like more people get stopped and searched. Sure is nice how your American cops always like to pat down girls. Especially the pretty ones. Ugly girls don’t carry drugs, you know.”

My stomach churned and I tried to quench the angry tremble in my hands from the knowing hate in her voice. “This is bullshit!”

“What do you want the PRT to do?” Miss Militia asked. “The ABB were running the Lincoln Park Market. Now the Empire is running it. How many people should we risk, just so the ABB can take it back over when Lung is on his feet again?”

“We shouldn’t let them have it back!”

“So we occupy the market with PRT agents? There aren’t enough agents to hold that. And they don’t trust us in Little Tokyo,” she glanced fractionally at Megumi, who was glaring back, “for many reasons. Some good, some bad. The PRT is here to handle parahuman issues, and the Protectorate needs a request from state or federal agencies to back them up. Like I said, we are going to be trying to take down Doctor Holistic. We can’t let her keep on helping the Empire if we can avoid it. But two gangs fighting over who collects the protection money from a market? That’s an issue for the BBPD.”

“The BBPD that’s on board with the Empire!” My knuckles whitened. “They were helping them take over!”

“I know there are fascist sympathies in the local cops. And I don’t like it,” Miss Militia said quietly. “But the rules are the rules. We have our jurisdiction, and stopping skinhead infiltration of the cops isn’t PRT business. We need to trust the FBI to handle it. And we have to save our strength for where it matters most.”

I felt sick. “So we’re going to give up and let them have it.”

“We’re going to focus on the problem of Empire tinkertech. And prepare, because when Lung shows his face again, then we’re going to have to step in. It’s going to be a mess and-”

I didn’t hear words. I could only hear the crackle of flames. The taste of blood and bubblegum filled my mouth. Defend the Empire? Defend them from the shit they’d started? When they were probably killing people right now? Fuck that. Fuck them. Let Lung take them.

A strong hand fastened around my wrist. “Calm. Down.” Miss Militia’s face was lit up, and she was squinting behind her domino mask. It must be my eyes. Behind her, Velocity was on his feet, up on tiptoes.

“Or what?”

“Or you’ll do something you’ll regret later when you calm down.”

Her words felt like a blow to the gut. She was right. It wasn’t her fault I felt like this. I… I wasn’t like that. I didn’t hurt people because I was too pissed to think straight. I took a deep breath, and screwed my eyes shut.

“Wow,” I heard Megumi say. “She looked like she was about to…”

“Shh.” She hadn’t let go of my wrist. “It isn’t good. But the alternatives are worse.”

“The right thing to do is-”

“The right thing is the legal thing,” Miss Militia said. There was a hard note in her voice. “America is blessed with laws. When people stop following them, everything falls apart. Even when it seems like the rules are protecting the bad guys. I pray you’ll never see what an America without laws would look like. The Protectorate is made up of citizens. Not would-be warlords.

“So we need to focus on what we can do. Even when it doesn’t feel right.”

I stared down at the table, my eyes still lighting it up. I didn’t understand. Not really. Miss Militia had to see. She had to understand at heart the reason that the gangs, that monsters like Purity and the rest of her fascist gang and those idiots from Half-A got away with things was that…

… was that we were failing. The Protectorate. The PRT. The Wards.

“I understand,” I said. My words itched the inside of my throat.

“Have a Coke, sit down, and just… try to relax. You’re wound as tight as a wire, Starlight. It’s not surprising given what you went through today. But you - both of you - need to grasp that you’re not in danger here.”

I didn’t want Coke! I wanted… I wanted something that I didn’t have words for! I inhaled, tasting the peppery meatiness of the food around me. It helped bring me back to myself.

“Yeah.” My hands cradled my glass. “Yeah.”

“I’ll have a few words with Dr Cleates and see if he can find a slot for you before he goes on leave.”

“Yeah.” My foot bounced up and down on the tacky floor. “I… thank you.”

She didn’t leave for a while, not until she seemed sure I had calmed down. Which I had, in the same way that one of those turf fires from the Discovery channel was cooler than a raging forest fire. I was still angry, but it was something deep down. Something burning beneath the surface. Because when it came down to it, I had every right to be angry. I was right to be angry. The skinheads were going to get away with it. It wasn’t just that I was helpless and unable to do a thing. The whole PRT was helpless.

“Okay, well,” Megumi began, “uh… you’re not heading to the Wards place? Where are you going now?”

“To the gym.”

I wanted to punch something. That might be Megumi, if she was up for it. Even if she wasn’t, those weighted bags were getting the ever-living crap beaten out of them until I was too sore and too tired to do something I’d regret later.

The chilli-lasagne of Megumi’s power mixed with the coppery taste of my own blood on my tongue. We’d given up on the pretense of friendly sparring some time ago.

It wasn’t elegant. It wasn’t clean or pretty or proper. We weren’t demonstrating martial arts techniques or sparring to hone our skills. We were too raw for that. It’d started out as a spar, but quickly degenerated into street violence. We were two teenage girls, mad and hurt and lashing out at the nearest thing we could: each other. It was only by blind luck - and my siphon opening wide in my anger - that we didn’t blast up the room. We threw ourselves at each other, and between her stamina and my regeneration I couldn’t say how long we fought for.

We both noticed when it ended, though. She’d just given me the third bloody nose of the bout, a vicious backhand rocketing my head backwards with a hot burst of pain and the liquid feeling of a nosebleed. But at the same time as she hit me, my foot had cracked into her kneecap, sending her down with a curse. I came down with an overhead punch, she did something that exploded over my tongue with an overpowering taste of capsaicin, and all the lights in the room shorted out in a flood of lemon sherbet flavour.

“... ow,” I said nasally, my nose already healing from the influx. I was probably going to get scolded for that.

“The fuck?” grunted Megumi, shoving me off her and looking around. My aura was the only thing lighting the gym room, a plain white box with mats spread out across the floor and benches against the walls. “What was that?”

“You flared,” I said, pinching the bridge of my nose. It had stopped bleeding, but the headache hadn’t gone away, and I was still blinking tears out of my eyes. “Really high. I think I overshot the drain and pulled on the lights as well. S’fine, they put fuses in to isolate each room last time this happened.”

She grunted again, sounding disinterested, and picked herself up. I joined her on a bench, watching her clench and unclench her fists out of the corner of my eye.

“Uh. Sorry. If I went too hard,” she said. “You’re bleeding.”

“Yeah. Come on, we should hit the showers and get cleaned up. If any of the adults show up, they’ll probably get on our backs about ‘fighting for real’.”

We cleaned up the pads we’d been wearing, and snuck off to the girls showers. I had a chance to look at myself in the mirror, and winced. Fighting like that, with her power constantly trying to escape and feeding me, I guess I kind of hadn’t felt the pain. But right now, I looked like someone had given me a thorough beating a few days ago. I cleaned up my face, wiping the blood from my nose, then went over to the hand driers and sucked down their heat until the bruises faded.

“What the hell does it take to make you lie down and stop fighting?” Megumi asked from the other side of the room, watching me. She wasn’t even bruised.

“Dunno yet.” I probably sounded weirdly cheerful, but in my defence I’d just taken away all the pain and was still giddy from the adrenaline rush.

“... okay, Hebert.” She shook her head, sweat-slick hair flopping in front of her face. “It’s mega good you go to Arcadia rather than Winslow. You’d be even weirder than you are now if you could get in fights at school.”

I couldn’t help but laugh at that, in my blood-stained t-shirt and tattered yoga pants. She frowned and muttered something about that not being a joke, which only made me laugh harder.

“Wow,” she said, shaking her head. “Y’know, this makes me feel so much better.”

“What?”

“Hey, easy. I thought you were…” she waved her hand in the air, trying to describe something I couldn’t be bothered to try to understand. “But… when you get pissed, you lose control too. It isn’t just me. You just force it down under that mask of being the annoying, stuck-up perfect one. Also, preachy. And judgy. But under all that, you’re a weirdo who gets off on being beaten up. I mean, you’re being all giggly. Maybe that’s the reason they’re making you stay here tonight.”

The incongruity dragged a snort out of me. “Yeah. I work hard on trying to keep my temper under control. If I don’t, I turn into a human lightbulb. And…” A thought struck me, and I opened my locker to check my phone. “Aww. And drain my cell’s battery. I probably drained yours too back in the canteen.”

“Eh, it was nearly flat anyway. Don’t get me to beat you up even more.”

A thought struck me. “And Miss Militia’s. Shit, I better not have accidentally eaten her gun-connection-thing again.”

“Does that… happen?”

“Yes, and then she gets annoyed because it takes time before she can change her gun again. ‘Snot my fault,” I said, grabbing my shampoo and my towel. “I dunno like… how it feels for you, but the power-draining is like moving an arm or something. Get mad enough, and you forget you’re playing a game of ‘only use your left arm for everything’.”

She caught my eyes, mid-way through peeling off her sweat-drenched and heat-browned t-shirt, and there was understanding on her face. “Yeah. I get you.”

Of course she did. At least I only caused electronics to fail in my area when I lost my temper. That wasn’t great, but it wasn’t fire.

“Look, I know you joined because you didn’t have much choice,” I said slowly, looking at her faded shorts, the fingerless gloves she’d taken up wearing to give her a moment’s warning if her hands started smouldering, the Flare t-shirt from merchandising that was already ruined. “But do you actually want to be on the team, Megumi? Do you...”

I hesitated. Instincts honed over years of knowing Amy told me that asking if she felt like she could be a good hero would not be taken well. I didn’t mean it that way, but she’d take it as me thinking she couldn’t. How else to phrase it...

“What do you think a hero should be like?” I asked instead. “What should they do? What’s the point of them?”

She stared at me incredulously. “The fuck kinda question is that?” she asked eventually.

“A pretty important one, I’d say. Given all this.” I gestured vaguely around us. “Look, this isn’t Boston or New York. We’re not part-timers licking stamps and filling envelopes for a hospital fundraiser or dumb schoolkids on work experience shadowing the guy who does data entry in the university’s basement. What we do matters. And while other kids in other cities can treat it like a punch-clock job that they do in the afternoons after school... you’re going to find it hard to do that here. Out there, we’re going to have to rely on each other. If you’re going to make it here, you need to commit. And if you’re going to commit, you need to know what you’re committing to.”

I tried to judge her mood. She was frowning, but it looked more thoughtful than angry or put-off. Probably.

“So,” I repeated. “What do you think this job should be? Not what it is, not what the others do. What it should be. What you’ll do.”

Her face creased. “Anyone tell you that you sound like a mega intense soccer coach?”

“Once or twice.” It was one of the things I was sort of uncomfortably proud of. Mom said that her ideals and Dad’s determination gave me a fierce charisma when I was making speeches. Of course, that was Mom, and she was basically required to be biased in my favour, but Emma and Missy said I was a good speaker too, and the PR department had used me in a few anti-bullying ad campaigns. I liked that I could get people to listen when I got passionate, but... it was kind of weird, being under that much scrutiny.

“But that doesn’t matter right now,” I said, shaking the awkwardness away. “You still haven’t answered my question.”

“Yeah, because- I dunno, I’ve never thought about it!” Megumi shook her head, fists clenching. A bead of sweat dripped down her button nose. “Look at me. Ha. Well, no one else did. I wasn’t a hero right until… it all happened. I wasn’t going to be a hero. Do you know how people overlook you? Right until they’re looking for someone to blame.”

I didn’t say anything. I wasn’t sure what I could say.

She shook the memories off with a scowl. She used anger like Amy used spiteful bitchiness, I’d noticed, or like Portent used stick-in-the-mud worrywarting, or like Missy used furious resentment at anyone who treated her like a kid. An inner spring she kept wound with tension that never really went away. A fallback whenever she felt lost. “So yeah. I don’t feel like a hero, and there you are, parading around your attitude and your… your perfect stuff and it’s only now I’m seeing the actual weirdo you are underneath it all. But. But. I mean, I guess a hero... a hero should be fair. Actually fair, which this place sure as fuck isn’t. Actual… actual justice, not just saying ‘cause you’re Japanese you’re ABB or just a thing to overlook and send to the worst school in the city. It’s that thing that they want us to say at school. ‘Liberty and justice for all’. Sure would be nice to see some of that in Little Tokyo.

“‘Cause we don’t get any of either. The ABB are mega evil, and we’re caught between them and the Empire. People go to the ABB ‘cause at least they care and they’ll come for anyone who’ll try to muscle in on us, unlike the cops - but they’re killers and rapists who go for anyone who catches their eye. Fuck them. Fuck them and fuck the city that leaves them the only people who claim to be protecting us. They’re all liars.”

She scowled at me, face framed between those two blue-dyed locks. “A proper hero would do something about all that. Not just be a cop in a fancy costume who only shows up to shake people down when the ABB starts shit again. And doesn’t even get rid of the actual ABB.”

I wondered how it would feel to be her. To be the victim of an uncaring society, which looked the other way when bad things happened to you. To see your tormentors when you walked around a market or at school, and to know that nothing you could do or say would make a difference. To be noticed only when something bad happened. No wonder she swaggered and acted tough. It was that, or be marked as a perpetual victim.

“I’m sorry,” I said, laying a hand on one of her clenched fists and squeezing gently. I could feel the heat coming off it as her power rose up close to the surface. “And you know what? You’re right. You’re totally right. Nothing you’re saying is wrong. It does suck. You know, once you’re off probation you can show up to the Protectorate Monday morning meetings and they only talk about ‘managing threats’ and ‘hostile cape deltas’ and… I think we’re losing things by inches.”

“Well, what’s the answer then?” she demanded, slapping her thigh.

“You are.”

“Hah.”

“No, I mean it.” I tried to fit the bright, glowing shapes and ideas in my head into the imperfect sounds of words. “Like, you’re right. I didn’t really think about the kind of stuff you’re talking about. Missy doesn’t think about it either. And it’s not because… well, I mean… we don’t live that life. Look at the Wards. Look at the local Protectorate, too. And the PRT agents, while you’re at it. None of us know what that’s like, to live in Little Tokyo. But now you’re here and you’re talking about it and, yes, you’re right, it is shit that we treat ‘the ABB isn’t starting trouble outside of Little Tokyo’ as ‘things going well’.” I rested my hands on her wrist. “I am listening to you.”

A faint pinkness painted her cheeks. She snatched her hands away. “Yeah, and you’re just one person, Sparkles.”

“Yeah. For now. But... think of it this way. What happened to us was shit. But your view of heroism? You’re right. We can help people now. Help people who need it, bring criminals to justice.” I caught her eye and held it. “We can take something awful that happened, and-and-and use it to make the world a better place.”

And because I was running off stream-of-consciousness, I didn’t shut my stupid mouth at that point and rest on my laurels. No, I just kept on talking. “Or at least we will be able to in two months, when I get off the bench. Or… I think you’re on like four or six months of probation.”

The hints of hope left her, and her shoulders slumped. “Yeah. And then the bullshit comes back, looking for revenge.”

“Yeah. Yeah,” I said. “But… you know what?”

“What?”

“The stuff you said earlier? I think you’ve got it in you to be a good team leader. And I’ll even do some of your paperwork while you’re still picking things up.” I saluted her. “Major Starlight reporting for service.”

Megumi snorted at that. “You are so weird. But, hey, Sparkles. The fact you’re a weirdo means you aren’t all bad.” I even caught something of a smile from her.

“See, that’s the spirit, Meg!” I wrapped my arm around her shoulders. “Teammates forever!”

“Urgh, get off me, you stink! You’re a sweaty, bloody mess!”

“That’s your fault.”

“I don’t care whose fault it is, just go wash it off in the showers! And then don’t go and hug me!”

“Yessir!”

“Weirdo.”

The water ran rusty as I stood under the stream, letting it beat down on my neck and shoulders. Here, as the euphoric rush of healed injuries wore off, I had to face up to the looming failure of what had happened today. The Empire had won. They’d taken the market from the ABB, and we hadn’t been able to stop them. Hadn’t really tried to stop them. And yes, we’d gotten out of there intact, but they hadn’t even been after us. The cops were collaborating with the skinheads, and I didn’t think there would be a real investigation, whatever Miss Militia said. What would the PRT do? What could it do?

In this growing chill, all I could do was cup my hands around the little green sprouts of a friendship with Megumi, and hope to nurture it through these hard times.

Even if she did insist on calling me ‘Sparkles’.

Chapter Text

Christmas Day was bitterly cold. Mom looked long and hard at me before deciding we were going to set out, and even then she’d sent me to dig the car out from under the heavy snow that had smothered the front of the house. It was one of my household duties, on the grounds that she wasn’t going to go do it when she had a strapping young superheroine who didn’t feel the cold to do it for her. But we just about managed to make our way through the icy roads, and to our destination.

Mom stopped the car just before the turn. Brightly lit-up Christmas decorations on the houses to either side of us painted the snow red and orange.

“You know, if we just want to have a quiet day, I’m sure they’ll understand,” she said.

“Mom!”

“I’m just saying.” She gripped the steering wheel, and didn’t look at me. “I know you want to see Emma, but maybe what we need right now isn’t a busy day. We just need something easy and quiet.”

I crossed my arms, leaning forwards until the seatbelt clicked. “They invited us over. I’m telling you, everything’s all right!”

“Just… tell me if you need some alone time. You’ve been so tense ever since the market thing.”

I wasn’t tense. And if I was, I’d have a perfectly good reason. Because like I thought, nothing had happened. The cops actually do something against the Empire? Don’t make me laugh. And it was Christmas, too. But I wasn’t tense. I was in control of myself. I was getting on better with Megumi and I’d got all my paperwork in and I’d even got a ‘well done’ from Director Piggot the next day so I had absolutely no reason to be angry or… or anything like that! Mom just wanted to wrap me up in cotton wool and baby me. I didn’t need that.

“I’m just tired and PMSing,” I said. “I’m fine.”

“Taylor…” My phone buzzed. Mom bit back what she had been about to say as I slipped it out of my pocket, and I rolled my eyes as I scanned it.

“Just Sam,” I said to Mom. “Just telling her we were about to eat, don’t worry. I think she forgot about the time zone thing.”

“Oh… ah, yes, you said she was over on the West Coast.” Mom smiled at me, but she was clearly tense. The hypocrite. “I’m just glad it was that phone you were sneaking a look at.” And there it was. There, of course, it was. Again. It wasn’t like she hadn’t made that comment time and time and time again.

It buzzed again.

Mom looked at me then, long and hard. I stared back defiantly. Shaking her head, she started up the engine again and drove us around the block to the Barneses.

“Oh my God Taylor! You look so good!” Emma bounded down the blue-carpeted stairs two at a time, dressed in a white unicorn onesie. If I’d worn something like that, it would have looked like I was trying too hard to be cute, but on her it just looked adorable. But that was Emma in a nutshell. She got to ignore all the social awkwardness and day-to-day problems that everyone else had. “That new jacket looks aaa-mazing on you!”

I smoothed down the sleeves of the tan bomber jacket, and grinned. “It really helped keep me warm on the way here and- oh. Mom asked you for help picking one out, didn’t she?” I glanced sideways at Mom as she stomped snow off her feet on the threshold.

“Can’t I know what looks good on my own daughter without help?”

Yep, she totally did. “Well, thanks, Emma.”

“I refuse to confirm or deny anything,” Emma replied, mimicking my tone when I got into the areas of Wards stuff I couldn’t talk about to her. She sprung into my arms, wrapping me up in a hug. “But if I did provide help, it’d probably all be worth it because of how incredible I am.”

“Are you planning to get dressed at all today?” I asked.

“I am totally mostly sort of dressed under this! It’s from Amy.”

“... she managed to set foot in a shop that sold things like that?”

“I mean, my guess is that someone invited her in so she could cross the threshold without catching fire. And made sure there were no crosses or garlic on the premises. But…”

“You are going to get dressed properly and you’re not eating Christmas lunch wearing that thing,” Emma’s dad Alan said, as he took Mom’s coat.

“Urgh come on, Dad, it’s streetwear!”

“It is not, and even if it is streetwear, it isn’t dinner-tablewear.”

“Bluh! Daaad!”

“Emma!”

“Where should we put the presents, Alan?” Mom asked him.

“Just under the tree. And I’ll get you something hot. You look like you need it.”

“Oh God, yes. I nearly called to cancel. The roads were a nightmare. I swear, every intersection had me worried. I hate driving when the snow is this bad.”

“Well, if it starts snowing again and it looks too bad to get back, we can always put you up for the night.” The two of them vanished off through into another room, while I followed Emma up to her room. I didn’t exactly mind getting some time away from Mom and her clinginess. And maybe if she got some adult time with Emma’s parents, she would feel better.

“So… look what’s new!”

I glanced around her room. “A new computer?” I said in disbelief, looking at the not-yet-opened boxes sitting on her desk.

“Yes! That’s my big present this year.”

I frowned. “Don’t tell me you actually started enjoying IT lessons this year?”

“Bite your tongue! No one wants to do all that boring stuff with fors and ifs and ‘Hello World’. It’s for losers. Nah, it’s got all the video editing software and photo editing and music stuff I wanted, too!” Emma hopped onto her bed, springs groaning. “So what did you get, what did you get?”

“Nothing as big as that,” I conceded, checking myself in her big mirror. “But, you know, books. Lots of books.”

“Do you even have the space for that?”

That drew a laugh out of me. “Well, funny you should mention that. So, uh, Mom got me a new bookshelf.”

“Oh my god Taylor. Seriously?”

“Yeah yeah.”

“Neeeeeeeeeeerd.”

“I also got a new punching bag!” I protested.

Emma sighed extravagantly. “You’re a lost cause, you really are. Your life goal is to be the world’s most jacked-up bookworm. I swear, I have to drag you kicking and screaming into accepting that you’re cool and pretty and you don’t have to spend every day with your nose in a book. I bet you wish you had, like, telekinetic control over paper as your power.”

“Huh. That would be pretty awesome. I mean, hmm. Do I still get to fly? I guess I could ride a paper surfboard. Or maybe a giant paper plane and… oh! Can I do that paper folding thing and make knives from-”

“You weren’t meant to take that seriously!” She pulled me down playfully. “At least you sound better than you did on the phone yesterday.”

I didn’t meet her eyes. Instead, I looked out the window. Heavy, leaden grey sprawled from horizon to horizon. It was the middle of the day, but the Scrooge-like sun was refusing to parcel out more than the faintest scraps of sunlight. “The weather’s been really depressing. No one’s feeling great. And, y’know.” I sighed, balling my hands up in my lap. “Fuck the Empire.”

“Hey. Hey, hey, hey. Taylor.” I felt her breath on the side of my neck. “This really hasn’t been your month, has it?”

“More like my season.”

She wrapped one hand around my balled fists, the other tilting my head towards her. Her unicorn horn was flopping down in front of her face. It looked ridiculous. “Come on. You didn’t sound great.”

Betrayal. If Mom had been conspiring with Emma to get me a present, who knew what else they’d been talking about? “I mean, being chased by skinheads isn’t fun,” I said. I willed my hands to open again. “But they didn’t hurt me in any major way. I mean… I mean, it’s not like I got shot.”

And if I’d seen that moment when he’d raised his gun at me in my nightmares, that wasn’t something I was going to worry her by mentioning. It was just another bad dream, to join the time Missy got shot and losing Dad.

“Jesus Christ!” Emma almost sounded angry. And I didn’t understand why. “Taylor! ‘I didn’t get shot’ is not… that’s not the threshold for being not-fine!”

“I mean, what am I meant to say?” My voice was soft. “We made it out of there. All that happened was that Missy twisted her ankle.” I forced myself to smile at her. “She’s pissed about that.”

“How about something about you?”

“But… I don’t-”

“Taylor, I am worried about you! Amy told me what she heard Vicky heard from her BF about what happened!”

Great. Just great. Now I was going to have to try to handle whatever a game of Telephone had fed Emma. Why was Dean such a gossip? “The PRT got us out fine. It was touch and go at points, but it all worked out.”

“Yeah, the PRT is good at getting you.”

“What does that mean?”

“Why don’t you ask yourself?” Sullen. And just a hint of viciousness there, bleeding through.

I backed away from her, crossing my arms in front of me defensively. “Why are you pissed, Emma?”

“Why am I pissed?” Her pitch rose. “Gee, I wonder why? You didn’t even call me!”

“I had to go through PRT debriefing.”

“Yeah, they always come first, don’t they! They’re eating you up, Taylor! Your life is always all about superhero stuff! And it’s like I’m just trying to squeeze into the cracks around it when you let me! Every time I see you, something happens or something has just happened and now all you can think about is cape stuff! And now you’re not even telling me the truth! You’re not even letting me know why you were super short with me on the phone and I have to rely on… rely on rumours filtering through a chain of friends!”

“You know I can’t tell you everything-”

“So you don’t tell me anything! Oh yeah, great solution there!”

It felt like something was gripping my chest, tight. My legs and shoulders were both taut as wire and loose as noodles. “I don’t… I didn’t want to…” I swallowed deep. “I just feel that sometimes I’m just using you as a verbal stress ball. Someone I only see when I’m worried and-”

“So you cut me out? We’re meant to be best friends! Best friends forever! That’s what we said!”

“I... “ I screwed my eyes shut, taking my glasses off. It made things easier if I couldn’t see her; pissed and angry and worried and looking sick. “You are my best friend!”

“Then why don’t you act like it! You don’t trust me! It… we hardly see each other! Since the winter vacation started, the only time I’ve seen you is when you showed up in tears.” Violently she yanked back on the hood of her unicorn onesie, folding her arms as a shield against me. “I know you have all kinds of shit going on that I can’t know about, but you could have come round after that thing at the market! Or just replied to my fucking text rather than letting me hear from Amy that you were alive and not hurt!”

“I don’t want you to feel like I’m just… just using you as some kind of therapist I can actually talk to!”

“Oh, so you’re not talking to me at all!”

“It’s not that, Emma!” Why was she doing this? I sniffed, and wiped my eyes on my sleeve. It was still cold. “I will always, always be your friend!”

“And I thought the same was true for you, but you know.” She drew a ragged breath, blinking heavily. “It’s very easy for you to say you’re my friend when you don’t act like it!”

“I just don’t want to be a burden on…”

She jabbed me in the chest with a finger. “You know what’s a burden? Worrying about you! Remember when what’s-his-name died! Assault! He wasn’t a Ward, but all I heard at school was that a hero had died and I felt like I was having a heart attack!”

It had been just a regular day. I’d been at school. I hadn’t even known until they called us in to brief us on what had happened. “That’s not my fault!”

“Well, maybe you wouldn’t be putting me into… into anxiety attacks about you if I’d been able to trust that my best friend - my best friend since kindergarten - would let me into her life! And tell me that she’s not hurt!”

I stood up, hands twisting almost into claws. I couldn’t look at her. “Why are you screaming at me?” I demanded, eyes blurring. “I… yes, okay, things have been bad, and I really don’t need you screaming at me on top of everything else!”

“Well, maybe it’s the only way to get through your thick head!” Emma leapt to her feet, looking up at me. “Maybe it’s because I care about you and when you’re off doing hero things I’m back here worrying about you! You just assumed I’d always be here, sitting back here, on your terms! Sitting back here and existing to reassure you - but only when you felt like being reassured! Because if I ever dared to actually check up on you you’d snap shut like… like some kind of forcefield!”

Forcefield. A cape word. And maybe she didn’t mean it like that, but I felt it. And I think she did too, because both of us just stood there in silence. In her bedroom. Among the boxes and the gifts still in their plastic wrappings. The light overhead flickered. The veins in my hands were glowing and odds were the light was crawling up the sides of my neck and onto my face.

“W-well, I’m sorry for making you worry and… and I’m sorry for being such a problem!” I snapped, and stormed out. My vision was obscured by tears and I didn’t have my glasses on, but I didn’t need glasses to find my way around her house. I knew it that well.

I locked myself in the nearest bathroom, sat down on the lid of the toilet and started sobbing. I got through quite a lot of toilet paper before I started to taper off. The floorboards creaked outside, and for a moment I thought it was Emma here to apologise and say sorry for being so mean, but:

“Taylor? Are you in there?” It was Emma’s big sister Anne. “They want people downstairs for pre-lunch drinks.”

“Just in the bathroom.” I tried not to sound croaky, or like I’d been crying. “I’ll be as down as soon as possible.”

Christmas lunch was bad. Very bad. Emma and I were not on speaking terms, but we also had - without speaking - come to the agreement that it was no one else’s business. You can’t hide something like this, though. So in the end, everyone at the table could tell that there was something very wrong.

I peeked over at Emma while her dad carved the turkey. She was wearing fresh make-up, and had changed out of the unicorn onesie. She wasn’t looking at me. Correction, she wasn’t looking at me. I bet that she’d been crying, as Emma got all red and blotchy when she cried due to her pale complexion, but apparently she’d prefer to put on makeup rather than say sorry.

Of course I didn’t eat much. I couldn’t. Not when my stomach felt like it had shrunk to the size of a nickel and food tasted like playdough-flavoured cardboard in my mouth. I put food in my mouth and chewed, wasting the effort that Emma’s mom had put into things - and that only made me feel worse. By the time the main course was finished, I’d managed to shift things around my plate and sneak things back onto the serving dishes that I couldn’t manage. And Emma’s plate looked even fuller than mine.

Her dad suggested we open the presents from each other while we waited for dessert, so we did that. And if lunch had been bad, sitting around trying to look pleased about the presents and having to hand over all those things I’d got Emma at the market - that she’d tricked me into getting her! - without sounding hostile or resentful was even worse. She’d bought me a lovely white woolen fleece sweater and I forced myself to smile and thank her. That was going in the back of my closet and staying there until we made up. And I had to listen to her false thanks for all the things I’d bought her and it was dreadful and awful and something I never wanted to do again. Opening presents made the dessert that followed seem almost tolerable. And after dessert came the wine and the cheese and I just couldn’t take it anymore.

“Mom,” I said quietly. “I’d like to go home. I’m not feeling great.” I swallowed, and crossed my fingers behind my back. “Maybe I ate too much.”

That brought the torture to an end, barring the bit where me and Emma had to pretend nothing was wrong when saying goodbye at the doorway. I didn’t warm myself up outside, and let the cold and the sea-flavoured winter air wash over me. I didn’t cry. And I didn’t look up at Emma’s window to see if she looked down at me.

Mom knew something was wrong. I was almost mute, and jammed in my headphones and turned up the new album I’d got from Amy. It wasn’t my taste, but it was loud and angry and drowned out the screaming silence in the conversations. I somehow felt like I got why she liked this kind of thing for maybe the first time ever.

“So, that was nice.”

“Yes.”

“We’ll have to see about having them over for some holiday next year. Maybe Easter. Or Thanksgiving.”

“Yes.”

“That sweater Emma bought you looks very nice.”

“Yes.”

She looked about to say something, but didn’t. It was a relief to get home and step in the door and immediately get faced by a hungry Paw Marx wailing for food while trying to trip us over.

Mom was clever, sneaky and treacherous. She waited until Paw had finished eating and jumped up to pin me to the couch like a lead weight on my lap before starting her interrogation.

“So, you and Emma are fighting.”

“Mmm.”

“You wanna tell me why?”

“No.”

“Can I hazard a guess that this is something to do with what happened in the marketplace?”

My lips thinned, and I looked away. Mom stayed quiet and expectant, and I eventually gave her the curt nod she wanted. She sighed, and the couch seat sagged as she sat down next to me and put an arm around my shoulders. I leaned into her, and Paw stirred on my lap to sprawl further over both of us like an expanding bag of custard.

“You know she’s just worried about you,” Mom said gently. “And she’s worried because she cares.”

“I know!” I snapped. “I know, okay, and that’s not my fault! I didn’t ask the Empire to attack the market! I didn’t try to even fight them! I got everyone out, like I was meant to! She didn’t have to- to scream at me and say I was giving her panic attacks like it’s my fault! That’s not fair!”

“Oh, honey.” Mom hugged me tighter. “I know. It’s not. Emma will get over her fear, and you’ll make up-”

“She said I’m pulling away from her! Me! I’m trying to keep her safe, I’m trying not to get her all mixed up in this, a-and there are things I can’t tell her, and she was getting mad about it! Saying I was a burden and that I wasn’t letting her into my life! What does she want me to do, huh?”

“Taylor-”

“And she was yelling at me for how she’d feel if the Empire got me, and...” I could feel myself starting to tear up again as I thumped the arm of the couch, startling Paw Marx into pouring himself off us and fleeing under the armchair to hide from the noise. “And what, does she think I don’t know that! Of course I know that! They got Dad! I know exactly how it feels!”

I panted, coming back to myself. My throat hurt from how loud I’d screamed the last part, and I was shaking. Mom pulled me in to rest my head on her shoulder and rocked me back and forth for a while, stroking my hair and whispering stuff I didn’t really hear. Eventually, I’d calmed enough that the coruscating light under my skin died away. I still wanted to release it in a full burn, to get my emotions out in light and heat and arcs of power. But I wouldn’t. Not until I was somewhere I could do it safely.

“Oh, honey,” she murmured. Her eyes were damp. “I know. I know you know. It hurts, and it’s not fair, and it’s okay that you’re angry.”

“I miss it,” I muttered into her shoulder. “How it used to be.” I wouldn’t give up my powers and the good I could do now for any sum of money, but if I could trade them for Dad being alive and the same carefree friendship I used to have with Emma? For Mom’s grey hairs and worry lines being gone? I’d do it in a heartbeat.

Although.

That would leave her free to act.

“Hey,” Mom said, shifting me upright. “Upstairs, in the study, there should be a box with the old photo albums on the top shelf near the door. Get the one from the late 90s and early millennium, would you? We can look at some old family pictures, back when you and Emma were kids. That might cheer you up.”

I thought about it and smiled. Yeah. I could see Dad again. That would be nice. Mom got up to make us some tea while I went upstairs to get the albums. Like she’d said, they were still in cardboard boxes in the office across from my bedroom. We really needed to get our act together and unpack at some point. We’d been in this house for… God, nearly two years, but a lot of the stuff that rarely got used was still living in cardboard boxes out of sight and out of mind. I pulled the blinds and then called enough aura to fly up and poke around the boxes on the top shelf until I found the right one, keeping my aura low enough around my hands that I wouldn’t singe the cardboard.

It only took a minute to bring it back down and unpack it. There were a bunch of albums in the battered cardboard, and I shuffled through them. They’d been thrown in haphazardly, without any sort of order, and there were a bunch of magazines in there as well. I found one from the early 90s, but that was before I’d been born, and then...

I paused, considering the “Late 80s” album I’d just pulled out. That was around when Mom and Dad would have met. I set it aside and dug deeper until I found the “Late 90s” one I’d been looking for. But curiosity had me hesitate and flip the 80’s one open at random before I went back downstairs.

Faded photographs were tucked into sleeves, the quality cheap and grainy. I’d got lucky. Dad smiled up at me from the page with a full head of hair and a slightly scraggly beard, standing next to a pair of guys I didn’t recognise. I flipped through, smiling down wistfully at the pictures of him working with them on protest signs and fixing a beat-up old car, goofing off with drinks and striking ridiculous poses. Mom was there too, holding hands with Dad and giving him a fondly exasperated look.

Only… the page was a bit stiffer than it should have been. A bit thicker. I slipped a finger behind the plastic sheeting. Yes. The photos here were double-stacked. I pulled out the second picture, and froze. It was Mom again. Mom, wearing something a little bit like my Starlight costume. But she had a leather bomber jacket on over it, and the suit was black with yellow patches, with a hood and gas mask that were pushed down in the picture.

Cold, clammy fear grasped my heart and I started feeling for any more double-stacked pictures. I found another. More women dressed in similar outfits, all lined up against a brick wall for what had to be a team photograph. Mom was there in the back, a balled-up fist clenched to her chest. Hanging from the brick wall was a black banner, and on it was a yellow Venus symbol with a fist inside the circle.

... and that was not a hero costume. I didn’t need any PR training to know that. It was a henchwoman’s outfit. She was dressed up in black leather and wearing a gas mask and... I flipped forward, feeling for more hidden photos. Pictures of riots. Figures in the black-and-yellow-with-gas-mask outfits throwing things at a police line.

A picture of a building on fire.

I sat on that for a while, and let the anger build. It coiled its tendrils around Half-A letting monsters loose in a crowded mall and terrifying women in changing rooms. It grew thorny, poisonous limbs through the gutted ruin of Oshima Motors and the shining figure who’d dropped out of the sky and destroyed it. Like ivy climbing a scaffold, it rose higher still from the memory of armed white supremacists blocking the market entrances as Krieg’s voice echoed out over the loudspeakers.

Hands trembling, I put the photos back between the pages, loose. The album I’d come for was forgotten as I walked downstairs. If there was an explanation for this, it had better be a fucking good one.

“There you are!” Mom said as I walked back into the living room. “I was starting to think you’d gotten lost up there. Did you find it?”

The cheerful, teasing tone only made me angrier. Wordlessly, I walked over to the couch and dropped the album on the coffee table with a bang. It fell open to the pictures I’d left loose in it, and a young Mom in black leather grinned up at us from the glossy picture, a gas mask around her neck. Beside it, the picture of the burning building sat like a confession.

The smile drained off Mom’s face, and she set her tea down carefully.

“Well?” I demanded when she didn’t say anything. “What’s this?”

She stayed still for a moment longer, then sighed tiredly, closing her eyes. “I wasn’t planning on having this conversation for a few more years,” she said. “Taylor-”

“You were a villain!” I snapped, my voice rising. “You were a henchwoman, you- what were you even doing there?”

She massaged her temples. “Here. Hand me the album.”

I passed it over, vibrating like a taut wire. Mom frowned, and flipped through the pages, checking the hidden pictures until she found the one she was looking for. She eased out the twenty-year old Polaroid. It was hard to see what it was at first, because whatever the picture had been of had blown out the image, completely overexposing the film in the centre. The white shape was vaguely female, with an arcing corona sparking from it. Like a plasma ball, the white filaments reached out to touch things in the area.

“I don’t understand,” I said. Feeling strange. Tense. Dry-throated.

“That’s Lustrum,” Mom said. “I had a polaroid camera, because I was really into photography back then and… well, that’s why I have all those pictures. After it was all over, I couldn’t bring myself to burn them. Even though I should have.”

Lustrum. Anonymous author of A Parahuman Manifesto. Mom had read it through with me, and talked with me about its importance in late-80s feminist thought and how it built off Donna Haraway’s work. Lustrum. Terrorist, extremist, leader of a late-80s-early-90s group of East Coast radical cells. She came up as a case study in Wards training about domestic movements and the dangers of parahuman-catalysed radicalism. Lustrum; not only had Mom been part of her movement, but her arcing corona sort of looked like mine. Her glow looked like mine.

I looked over the other pictures numbly. There were shots of Mom with other people - all women - in the same sort of get-up. Posing in a line, sitting together with banners and placards - ‘There is a PLAGUE; Where are the Tinkers?’, ‘The SuperWOMAN exists too’, ‘Stop The Cochran Amendment!’. Things like that. Some of them were armed, holding bricks and baseball bats with slogans painted on them. Shields, too, I realised. Some of what I’d thought were placards at first glance were homemade riot shields made out of cut-up barrels and trash can lids, painted over with slogans.

“Why?” was all I could ask. “You said- you said you never supported her violent stuff!” I’d known that Mom had sympathies to Lustrum’s message, because... well, she was Mom. Mom and left-wing radical feminism were like fish and water. But I’d always thought she’d backed out early on. She’d always said that.

Apparently that had been a lie.

“It…” Mom looked for the words. “It was complicated.”

“‘Complicated’ is just a word that people use to excuse doing bad things,” I snapped.

“No, it was complicated and that kind of black-and-white thinking helps no one,” she retorted, and took a breath. “I did leave before the end. You probably don’t trust me at this point, but it… it was easier to say I left when things got violent than try to explain that things were very complicated and Lustrum had sort of lost control of the movement. There was a lot of rage there. A lot of rage at Reagan and his ‘The superman exists, and he’s American’ bullshit. You have to believe me, though - I never went that far. I… I never killed anyone. And the only people I hurt were at riots, and throwing bricks at the cops and fighting the American League wasn’t the same as the things some other cells did.”

I thought about that and about what she wasn’t saying. “So you weren’t killing people. But other people were.”

She nodded, her head bobbing in the movement-equivalent of a whisper. “Yes. It’s… it’s hard to separate yourself from the people you know and trust when they start doing things you don’t approve of. I hope you don’t ever find that out, Taylor, but… it’s hard. Especially when you’re sure you’re doing things for the right reasons. It’s very easy to start making excuses for your friends' excesses. To say that it’s acceptable in the name of the cause.” She licked her lips. “And maybe I got scared. Scared of leaving and scared of staying, and in the end it was the fear of staying a part of it which won out. Like I said; it’s complicated.”

“Why stay with a- a supervillain?” I demanded, waving at the pictures. “I know what her… her movement did! Murders! Kidnappings! Bombings! They took hostages too! They murdered a senator!”

“Bob Smith,” Mom supplied.

I tensed up. “Was that you?”

“No, no! That was a different cell, down in New Hampshire. And I don’t support that they took him hostage and then executed him. I didn’t at the time, and I still don’t. Even if he had more blood on his hands than just one person.

“You’re making excuses for them!” It was infuriating. I was hunched over, arms rigid against my knees.

“He helped stop government funding from being used to fund para-research for solutions to the AIDS crisis. He was a monster who killed far more people than all of Lustrum’s movement put together!” She took a breath. “But... yes.” She sighed again. “Taylor, I thought we were saving the world. Or trying to stop the people in power from ending it, at least.”

“From what? How do you save the world by going villain? They’re the problem!”

Mom squeezed her eyes shut. “It... it wasn’t that simple, Taylor. You weren’t even born yet, and the system doesn’t want to remember how things got. Reagan was the one who really hammered home that you were a hero if you worked for the government, and everyone else was a villain. And Bush picked up where he left off, after the assassination. We didn’t think we were villains, but they called us that because they wanted to shut down the student movements and the nuclear-disarmament movements. No one ever talks about the Purdue Massacre these days, but they unleashed ‘heroes’,” Mom’s tone was pure acid, “on a CANE protest.”

“CANE… was a supervillain group.”

“That’s what they called it afterwards. After it started fighting back. And when everyone is your enemy, it pushes you into toxic ways of thinking. It’s so easy to assume anyone who speaks out against you is just an enemy in disguise. So easy to reassure yourself that you know what you’re doing is right, no matter what you’re called by your detractors. So easy to - hah - prove a villain and hate the idle pleasures of these days.”

“But you were a supervillain’s henchwoman.” She was refusing to face that head-on.

“If you asked the cops and the Republicans, yes. But I never thought we were. We were activists. We just had our own capes. And ‘Supervillain’ started off as Reaganite bullshit to delegitimise political movements that might actually stand up to his poison. And it worked. Look how no one lets ‘supervillains’ challenge the political status quo these days. They’re just petty criminals and wandering murderers now.”

“You are wearing a henchwoman outfit! Right there!”

“A gas mask, and hard-wearing leathers with some yellow trim so people could tell us apart from everyone else. Yes. They did a good job at selling that wearing protective gear to a riot made you a henchwoman. Unless, of course, you’re a cop. They don’t get counted as henchmen.” She smiled at me, trying to make it sound like a joke, but both of us knew it wasn’t really one. “I might have had this talk with you earlier, but… well. It never seemed to be the right time. So I waited until you were older.”

I didn’t see what me being older would add to an argument about Mom having been a supervillain, and my expression said so. But she gave me a pleading look, so I clenched my teeth and sat down.

“Since we’re having it now, will you at least answer my questions?” I asked. She winced, but nodded. I jabbed at the last picture I’d found. The one with the flames rising up from inside a boxy brick storefront, a woman caught mid-motion as she threw a bottle with a burning rag stuffed in it through a smashed-in ground-floor window. “What’s that burning building?”

She looked flatly at me. “That was… yes, that was the headquarters of an anti-abortion group. We burned it down because they’d burned down a clinic.”

My stomach churned. “Why… why did you pause? Did you have to remember which building you burned down?”

She looked away, and that was all the admission I needed. “I did things I’m not proud of,” she said softly. “And I know I was young and stupid, but we did it because they started it. It seemed like a fair turnabout at the time.”

I couldn’t deal with that right now, and picked another question from the hovering swarm. “You keep saying ‘we’,” I said. “Who else was there? Who were you doing it with? Like... her. Who’s she?” I pointed at a picture of Mom with her arms around the shoulder of a short Latina. They looked like they were very close friends.

“Oh, that was Imelda. She,” Mom looked for words, “got arrested, at the same time they took Lustrum down. She’s still in jail. Gets up for parole next year.” She passed over to the picture of the women lined up against the wall. “Peggy - killed by the cops. Donna - murdered by the Fangmen. Linda - got arrested, but she got freed a few years ago. I think she lives in Nevada now. Susan - well, you know her, Taylor.”

I blinked. “That Susan?” I could see nothing of Mom’s round-faced maternal colleague in that shaven-headed hollow-eyed young woman.

“Yes. We… well, I don’t know what you think we were like, but Hipparchia Unit - that was the name of our cell - wasn’t a street gang. We were mostly students. I was at graduate school for the last of it. We weren’t doing this for money. We saw ourselves as vigilantes.”

I shook my head. “And Dad? Did Dad know about this?” From the way she’d been posing with him in some of the shots, I kind of thought he probably had. “Wait, was he involved in this?”

“In Lustrum’s movement? Of course not, he was a man. But in the… wider radical front? How do you think we met?”

“What do you mean by that?”

Before she could answer that, my phone pinged at me. My Wards phone. I hated the interruption, but I also was incredibly thankful for the excuse to break off and not have to hear the answer. Pulling away, I retreated to the armchair to read it. It was another email on the secure client. I typed my password in and opened it, hoping for some good news to distract me from... from all this.

Not a kill order. A shiver of anger crawled up my spine like a venomous spider. A priority arrest warrant, but not a kill order. Eleven people had died in that blast, and who knew how many more would have died if she’d angled it flatter. Portent had pre-seen her do it, so it had been a possibility. She’d shot downwards by chance. It hadn’t been planned. Hell, if she’d cared at all about minimising collateral damage she wouldn’t have carved through a building in the first place!

But all she got was a priority arrest warrant, instead of the kill order she deserved. Probably - hah - probably because of the fascist sympathies in the police, or something. I couldn’t think of any other reason why she wouldn’t be properly targeted for this. When I closed my eyes, the splayed-open corpse of that row of warehouses was still there, architectural viscera left burnt and gutted by a white-hot cleaver. The Protectorate could take her down if they just tried. So no one else had to die.

“Taylor?” Mom asked softly.

“They’ve put a warrant out for Purity.” I heard the words coming out of my mouth, but they felt far away, like someone else was saying them. The room seemed brighter as I stared at the dimming white screen. “Priority arrest only. No kill order.”

“Taylor, your aura-”

“Why aren’t they putting a kill order on her? She deserves a kill order! She’s a murderer!”

“Taylor!” She went to grab my wrists, but flinched away as she came into contact with the orange light. “Off the chair! Now!”

Enraged, humiliated, I leapt to my feet. Mom’s hands were pink and raw. I paced back and forth, the lights overhead and on the walls flickering whenever I came near them. The bulbs on the Christmas tree blew out in a cascade of acrid pops. “What are they doing? They-they-they finally do something and it’s this bullshit, this low-grade bullshit, this...” I glanced at my phone to confirm that my eyes hadn’t been lying to me but of course that was shorted out too. “This weak nothingness!”

Mom swallowed hard, hugging herself gingerly, watching me with an expression I hated to see on her. “You have to calm down!”

“No I don’t! I don’t have to calm down! I think I get to be angry! Angry about all this! Angry about the fact that they’re telling me that I don’t get to do a thing and I don’t get to help and I have to sit down and be a good little girl who’s well behaved and-and-and-” Tears blurred my vision.

“Good!”

“Good?” I didn’t understand.

“Good! I don’t want you going anywhere near Purity! I don’t want you being in any position to get hurt! I want you to be a-a-a good little girl, Taylor! They’re meant to be keeping you safe! Remember what happened last time! What we talked about after that Half-A thing? You said you’d let them keep you safe and stop trying to fight them about that and… and what happened to that, Taylor? What happened to that promise?”

“This is different,” I snarled. “This is about Dad!”

“I know, but it’s also about you!” Her voice rose above mine and the crackle of my aura. “I can’t lose you! You’re… Purity is a monster, a fascist monster and she will kill you if she can and you are fifteen and angry and I know what it’s like to feel angry like that, Taylor, I really do! I saw myself in you when you came back after that Half-A thing, furious and hating those idiot boys who hurt your friend and I have been there because I was so-so-so angry when I joined Lustrum and it doesn’t lead anywhere good! It never does!”

Betrayal.

“You… you hypocrite,” I exhaled, eyes narrowed. “This isn’t about you. This is about Dad. About the fact that she k-k-killed ten people a few days ago and she’s going to keep on killing and all you care about is me. Not everyone else.”

“Yes, I do care about you, Taylor! You are my daughter! And I won’t shed a tear if she gets gunned down by the FBI or the PRT. But I don’t want you doing it! Because violence corrupts everything good and-”

I slashed a hand through the air, distantly noticing the bright glow around it. “Do you even care that she killed Dad?”

I might as well have blasted her. The look on her face made me take a step back, heart suddenly in my throat, my skin going cold and clammy. A squirming, sinking sick feeling wound its way around my guts and tightened as my mouth worked soundlessly on the echoes of my words. I took another step back, shaking my head, mouthing useless apologies. That had been too far. Far too far.

“I-I-” I stuttered. “I’m... I didn’t...” I gulped. Her face was chalk white, and the pain in her eyes was worse than anything she could have thrown back.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, closing my eyes against how much I’d hurt her. I didn’t dare wait for her to respond. I turned and fled as fast as I could, taking off from the foyer in my haste to get upstairs. I couldn’t take this. Not now. Emma had been bad enough. Now Mom wasn’t who I’d always thought she was, and I’d hurt her. I always hurt people when I was hurting. And the gangs and villains were winning no matter what Starlight did, and...

On both sides of the mask, the pillars of my life were crumbling.

Chapter Text

Emma didn’t say sorry. And even though maybe I hadn’t been the best friend all the time - and I knew it was a failing of mine! - she shouldn’t have shouted at me like that. So I would try to make up. In time. But only when I was sure that she wasn’t just going to shout at me again when I saw her.

Things were not much better with Mom. I mean, we were talking. But not about the fact she was an ex-henchwoman for a supervillain who was still making excuses for her, all these years later. Not about what I’d said. Not really. She didn’t give me anything more than platitudes, or want to answer any of the questions I had. Especially not about what she’d actually done as a henchwoman. I wasn’t going to turn her in! Of course not!

But… it hurt that maybe she was scared I would if she told the truth. And there was a part of me that compared all her statements about how violence was a power of a hegemonic state and looked at her past and wondered what she had done as part of the Women’s Action Front. But she wouldn’t answer, and so our conversations were hollow shells of words; their meaning a needle in a haystack of obfuscation.

It was lonely with school out. When it came down to it, there really weren’t many people I could confide in. Fewer still who I could confide in as Taylor, instead of Starlight. And maybe I wouldn’t be feeling like this if I hadn’t had a fight with Emma and Sam wasn’t over in California, but I had and she was, so things were as they were. I’d chatted with Leah on IM, but I couldn’t burden her with my problems. Not when she was still fragile after this summer. And talking around that just stressed me out.

The Wards Christmas dinner was on the twenty-seventh, and I was glad to get out of the house. Away from Taylor’s life and back to Starlight’s. I hadn’t been sleeping well. Or much. Hadn’t had much of an appetite. Maybe if it had just been one problem in my normal life, I could have handled it, but two? It was leaving me stretched thin. There were going to be seven of us at this dinner. Dean had invited Vicky along, and I’d used my plus-one on Amy. I was super glad that I hadn’t invited Emma instead, because it would have been awkward as hell. But none of the others had brought anyone. And it wasn’t a surprise. It wasn’t just Portent who kept his entire life out of Wards things.

It was clear outside. The lack of clouds made it bitingly cold, and the stars overhead twinkled far above me. I climbed out of the taxi, paid the driver, and clutched my winter coat around me tighter for the look of it. The Prestigo was an expensive Italian place down by the Boardwalk. The name was pretty on the nose, but I’d been here before for other Wards events and the food was good so I was willing to make a few excuses for it. It always smelled of rosemary and freshly baked bread, and my stomach grumbled.

“Taylor!” Missy called out from over at the long table in the private function room, waving at me.

“Sorry, the traffic was really bad,” I said by way of excuse.

Dean flashed a lop-sided grin at me. “You’re only a bit late,” he said. “And the last one here. You’re going to need to go find the staff to get a drink. The rest of us have already ordered.”

“Hey, I won the bet with Portent,” Vicky said, springing up. Her face was flushed, and her voice was raised above what was needed. “He thought you wouldn’t arrive until the starters were here.”

“What did you win?”

“Well, nothing. But it’s the principle that counts, right?” She smiled at me. “You look good.”

I blushed. “I didn’t go for anything exciting. Not like you,” I said stepping back so I could get a good look at her. “You look amazing in that dress.”

Vicky had shown up in what was probably her prom dress. She looked unfairly good in it. It was figure-hugging and it was super cute and I knew I’d never be able to pull off that look. I didn’t have the complexion. Or the cleavage. Or the curves. God, it just wasn’t fair how great she looked.

Amy had clearly had similar thoughts to me there because she’d shown up in a protectively fluffy sweater, striped leggings, and her big boots. “Don’t feed her ego any more,” she grumbled.

“This is a dinner so my ego needs food too!” Vicky declared loudly. “Behold!”

“Okay, okay, just sit down,” Dean said, guiding her back to her seat. He looked slightly sheepish. “And yes, you look good, Taylor.”

Turned out that none of the Wards had a consistent standard of what a ‘smart dress code’ entailed.

Dean was in a goddamn tuxedo. A white tuxedo with a bow tie, no less. It was like he was going to a formal function. Meanwhile Portent was in a notably cheaper mid-blue suit, and had neglected to bring a tie at all. Either he’d put on muscle since he bought his white shirt, or he just liked his formal shirts to be as form-fitting as his regular t-shirts. Somehow he looked really good in it, especially when he took his jacket off. It wasn’t fair at all.

But that was just the boys. And men had it easy with dressing up smart. I was kind of jealous. A suit and an ironed shirt was good enough for them. It was nothing like the problem that us girls had in interpreting ‘smart’. I’d shown up in a blazer, blouse and skirt which was entirely sensible and basically what I wore to the office when I had console duty. But I was feeling kind of boring and a little underdressed compared to Vicky.

I had to assume that Missy had been dressed by her mother, because she was wearing a dress which had probably fit her a year ago and had been bought a year before that. It was cute, and therefore she would usually never have been caught dead wearing it. Her expression challenged anyone to comment.

And Megumi…

… Megumi had shown up in a t-shirt and jeans. Either she had nothing smarter, she hadn’t read the invitation, or it was some kind of power-move to try to show how little she cared about dress codes. But that didn’t work that well when Vicky was there looking like the prom queen.

I ordered my drink, checked they’d correctly got my food order, and returned to the private room. The remaining seat at the table was between Amy and Megumi.

“I really thought the traffic was going to be quieter,” I said, sitting down. “Do you know if anything’s happened?”

“Nothing’s on my phone,” Missy said.

“Can we please have just one night where work things don’t come up and we’re just regular people?” asked Portent. He sipped his cranberry juice. “I’m imposing a rule. No work phones at the table.”

“What about regular ones?” said Missy.

“I mean, if you want…”

“I don’t.”

“What if they call us?” I pointed out.

“... no work phones at the table unless they call us,” Portent said with a sigh. “Why do you have to be like this?”

“I just like the rules laid out clearly,” I said, feeling slightly hurt. “So. Anyway. What has everyone ordered?”

A knock came at the door, as the staff brought my drink along with some rosemary sourdough and the starters. I’d ordered the porcini mushroom and cannellini bean soup, and it was good.

“I’ve never had octopus before,” Portent said, examining it on his fork. Fortunately, it had been covered in breadcrumbs, so no one had to see the tentacles.

Megumi paused, and swallowed her own tentacled mouthful. “It’s good,” she said. “And the chilli dip is weaksauce, so don’t worry about that.”

Portent bit down, and pulled a face. “It’s not that weak,” he said, sounding strained. “I… the flavour isn’t bad. But…” He grabbed for his drink, and gulped at it.

“If you don’t want it, I’ll have yours,” Megumi said happily, popping another bit of octopus in her mouth. “Holy shit, this is really good.”

“Shouldn’t you have known that was coming?” Amy asked him. It was a good thing she did. If she hadn’t, I would have had to mock him for getting caught out. But there was a reason Radiant was Starlight’s best friend.

“I don’t use my power all the time,” Portent said, with a weary sigh. It would have probably come across as less affected if there wasn’t sweat beading on his brow. “You know it gives me migraines. I just wanted to try octopus at a fancy place like this.” He swallowed, breathing obviously through his mouth. “Was the food this hot last year?”

“We didn’t come here last year,” Missy said.

“Yeah. They had it at the base,” I agreed, tearing off some bread to dip it in the soup. “How’s the… what did you have, Amy?”

“Fucina salad. It’s OK.”

“High praise.”

“God, it wasn’t much of a party,” Dean said, shaking his head. “Last year, I mean. They had it at the base and there was just food from the canteen. It sucked.” He glanced at me. “You know, we’ve got Triumph to thank for this. He kicked up a fuss after how bad it was last year.”

“Huh. Really?”

“Yeah. Said we should have something better than a school-disco-level party.”

“To Triumph!” Vicky declared, raising her glass in a glowing hand-shaped orb. A muttered ‘Triumph’ spread around the table. “And the soup’s good! Because, you know, no one asked me!”

“You know, it’s weird that it’s just going to be us three girls next year,” Missy said, glass cradled in both hands.

Megumi perked up. “It is? Wait, I think someone mentioned it. Both you guys are going to be eighteen this year?”

“God. Yeah, it’s kind of scary to think about graduating,” said Dean. “I’ve only got until August. Then I don’t get to come to these things anymore. Well, unless one of you decides to invite me.”

“June for me,” said Portent.

“Do you know where you’re going?” I asked him. “Afterwards, I mean.”

“Watchdog,” Portent said. No surprise there. Of course the regulatory agency would jump on a bad-news Thinker like him. “As long as I’m in good standing when I graduate, I’ve got a guaranteed job. And that’s my ticket out of this town.”

“Yeah, Watchdog placements often wind up in DC, Detroit or LA,” Dean said. “Good going for you. Me… I dunno. I’m probably gonna stick around for a bit. I’ve only got a placement offer from our guys, but I got to balance stuff with college. Which,” he grinned at Vicky, “well, it has its advantages. At least I’ll be around to help you out. I think. Family stuff might get in the way. I dunno.”

“Just us three,” Megumi said, shaking her head. “That feels… weird.”

“You’ll still invite me, right, Little V?” Vicky asked Missy.

“Yeah!”

“Eh. Someone will probably show up. You get one or two a year,” Dean said. “I mean, there would have been Carlos, but…”

“But what?”

I shrugged. “His folks pulled him out after the Halogenerator got Assault. Weren’t going to let him keep on doing it. Not in Brockton Bay, at least. Last I heard from him, wasn’t he thinking about joining up in another city?”

Portent shook his head. “I still talk to him occasionally. He’s holding off rejoining until he’s old enough for the Protectorate. Says this way, he has time to study for college.”

“Yeah,” Missy said, hands wrapped around her cup, “basically sooner or later someone else will show up. Probably going to be older than me, too.”

Dean smiled at her. “Maybe the next one will be a cute guy your age,” he said reassuringly.

Missy turned red. “Dean!” she gasped.

That drew more than a few chuckles, and we moved onto lighter topics. Dean had seen Shell Games over the winter vacation and we talked a bit about that, before Missy clapped her hands over her ears and started shouting ‘la la la’ because of spoilers. The fact that the Wards had seen the news about Purity was a nagging presence at the back of the conversation, but I recognised the looks they were throwing at me. No one was going to bring it up. And that was fine. I wasn’t going to be the one who ruined this.

Portent’s phone chimed. He pulled it out and answered it. “Hi, Brian here.” He paused, and I saw his face fall. “What happened? What… oh. Oh, okay. No. No. No, I can be right there. Just,” he grabbed for a napkin, pulled out a pen, and scribbled something down on it, “okay, say it again, more slowly. Right. Right. I’ll head straight there.”

“What’s that?” Dean asked.

“Family things. My sist… yeah. Family things. I have to go. Dean, you’re in charge now. I have to be somewhere and it’s an emergency. Just… keep things under control.”

“I hope it’ll be okay. You look worried. And angry.”

Portent only winced. “Yes. But I’ll deal with it. Don’t let me ruin the evening for the rest of you.”

“Do you want us to get them to save you food if you’re coming back?” I asked him.

“Thank you, but I don’t think I’ll be back. I’ve got to get across town, in this traffic, and…” He shrugged. “Well, uh. Goodbye. Have fun.”

We exchanged looks as he left. The question was going to be who broke first. “So… anyone knew he had a sister?” Dean said.

“Lots of people have sisters,” Amy pointed out smugly.

“Yeah, but… do you think it’s like, a baby sister who’s new? He hasn’t mentioned her before.”

“Yes,” I pointed out, “but when does he say anything at all about his regular life?”

“Yeah, I don’t think he’s ever said anything about… anything,” Missy said, playing with her spoon.

“Well, that’s how he is,” Dean said. He smiled, but still looked uneasy. “And we got our orders. We’re to have fun.”

Fun was had. Without Portent around to drag the mood down, everyone lightened up. For the first time in days I had my appetite back properly and I took full advantage of how the government was paying for this meal.

Dean and Vicky had even more fun than the rest of us, though. They started getting visibly touchy-feely with each other towards the end of the main course, and by the time dessert arrived Vicky was practically in his lap. And she was being even more loud and cheerful and extroverted than usual, which really took some doing.

It was very embarrassing to be in the same room as them.

“Is… is she drunk?” I asked softly. “She’s never normally like this.” I considered. “Well, she sort of is. But not this much.”

“She showed up with him,” Amy muttered to me as she finished off inhaling her cheesecake. “I’m pretty sure they were both drinking at his place. His dad’s super easy-going about that stuff. Full on favoured-son BS.”

“You two didn’t come straight from your house?”

“Nah. She said she was meeting him at your HQ.” Amy glowered, crossing her arms. “Fuck this. Someone oughta order a bottle of water so we can dump it over their heads.”

“Still or sparkling?” Megumi contributed from my other side with a grin.

“Full of ice cubes.”

“Hey, St...aylor, can’t you just freeze the water too?” Megumi asked.

“No.” I was glad to have something else to talk about. “I’m limited to... do you know what a Carnot engine is?”

Megumi stared at me blankly.

“Okay, never mind. Uh... yeah, I can cool stuff down, but not very much, and it costs me more energy than I get back from it. It’s basically good for chilling drinks and minor burns and not much else.”

“Untrue,” Amy put in, lips curling up. “It also makes you useful in muggy summers as air conditioning. And you’re a space heater during the winter! Everyone should have one.”

I rolled my eyes. “Yeah, and how many hot summers do we get? It’s a party trick at best. Though speaking of things getting heated… I kind of feel like some fresh air.”

“Oh God, me too,” Amy said quickly, head turned so she couldn’t see her sister.

“Me three,” Megumi chipped in. “Hey, wasn’t there a park across the road from this place? We can just go… I dunno. Do something. Actually, I brought something with me so… yeah, a walk might be a good idea.”

Amy practically leapt to her feet. “Hey, Vicky, we’re-going-out-to-get-some-fresh-air save-the-table we-won’t-be-long-okay,” she said in one quick machine-gun burst.

“Whatever.” She flapped a hand idly in our direction. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do!” For some reason, she found that hilarious and burst into a witchy-cackle.

“I’m coming with you!” Missy said.

“You shouldn’t walk on that foot out in the sn-,” began Amy.

“Don’t care, I'm coming!” She gave us a piteous look, and mouthed, “Don’t leave me here.”

“I guess me and Meg can help you,” I said.

“Megumi. And hey! Did you just volunteer me?”

I considered. “Yes.”

“Urgh. Fine!” She winked at Vicky as she picked up her bag. “We’ll knock loudly on the door before we come back in.”

Dean turned bright red at that comment. Didn’t move his hand off Vicky’s chest, though, so he had it coming.

After retrieving our coats from the cloakroom, we crossed the road into the small park opposite the Prestigio. Bare tree branches and slender pines stabbed up at the clear night sky. The thick snow drifts were waist-high away from the parks, painted orange by the street lights. In the night sky, the mournful cranes over by the docks were black shapes picked out in red, under a clear and uncaring patchwork of black and distant twinkles.

“Brr,” Amy said, huffing into her hands. “Why did we need to make the excuse of getting some fresh air? Couldn’t we have said we were going to the bathroom or something - no, shut up, Taylor, I know you’re fine!”

I hadn’t said a thing. “It’s pretty out here at night,” I said. “I always kind of like the dark. It’s peaceful. Quiet.”

The others looked at me. “What, you mean like that ambulance siren going off a few streets over?” Missy asked, leaning on me as I helped her along the slippery path.

“Or the cars?”

“Or those foxes yelping over there?”

I glared at them. “It’s figuratively quiet. Relaxing, you know? I like going for runs at night.”

Megumi flashed a grin at me. “And it’s not just ‘cause you’re so white that you can probably get sunburnt in fog, right?”

“I,” I said archly, “don’t get sunburnt. And even before I got my powers, that hardly ever happened.”

Amy stamped up and down on the snowy path, breath steaming and her cheeks pink. “It is really fucking cold! Less banter, keep moving!”

“I think that bench over there is what we want,” Megumi said. She brushed off the snow from the cold wood, and sat down. “Sure, it’s cold, but at least there’s no one around.”

“Sure,” I said. The snow melted around me before I even could sit down.

“Yeah, we’re all huddling up to you,” Missy said, sliding up to me on the park bench. “If you wanted personal space, you shouldn’t have gone and used your power to keep warm.”

“Harsh but fair,” Amy agreed, pushing in next to me before Megumi could get there. “God, you really are like a fucking heater.”

“So what did you bring?” I asked Megumi.

She rifled through her bag, and pulled out a pair of bottles, followed by some plastic cups. “Coffee brandy. Also, vodka,” she said.

“Nice,” Amy said. “I’ll have the brandy.”

“That’s illegal,” Missy said, crossing her arms.

“Hey, if you think you’re too young to drink…”

“I didn’t say that!” Missy said, holding out her hand for a cup. “I can do anything you can!”

I probably needed to step in and be the sensible and mature one as Megumi poured dark brandy into the plastic cups. The Wards got really shitty about us acting like actual teenagers if they had to find out. Which was pretty damn hypocritical if you ask me, because on one hand you got the feeling they knew people would break the ‘moral conduct guidelines’, but they still cracked down on violations. But on the other hand, it was just one drink and… and after Emma and Mom, I couldn’t handle another fight. “We’ll get in so much trouble if we get caught,” I said. “The press’ll be all over ‘Wards underage drinking at official party’. And then we won’t get one of these again. At best we’ll get the shitty cantina food next year.”

“Wow, just gotta kill the fun,” Megumi said.

“Yeah. You fun-murderer,” Amy said, taking a drink. She was clearly enjoying this too much.

I took a breath. Then, “Nah. I’m just saying it’s Missy’s job to dispose of the evidence if it looks like we’re going to get caught.” I held out my hand. “Come on.”

Megumi beamed at me. “See, you managed to dislodge that stick from your ass again,” she said, pouring me a cup. “You’re way more fun like this.”

“You went for brandy over beer?” I asked, ignoring the jibe.

“Come on, be serious. It’s cold enough out here that the beer would’ve frozen. It sucks when that happens.”

Something struck me. “Wait. What’s the percentage alcohol of this stuff then? If it’s not freezing, it’s got to be high.”

“Urgh why you gotta ask so many questions, Tay?” Amy asked, saluting me with her cup. “The fun doesn’t appreciate you going all Dollhouse Nine on it.”

“Wow,” I said, taking the cup. “Just… wow.”

“Just drink!”

A few lone flakes of snow drifted down on us. They melted as they hit the heat radiating off me. The liquid still had a little bit of the warmth from the restaurant in it, but it was cold in my hand. I sipped it, trying not to wince at the coppery aftertaste.

“Eh. I prefer wine,” I said, swallowing.

Megumi’s face fell. I got the feeling she’d wanted me to spit it out. “Wine?”

“Mom’s let me have some wine at, like, holidays. Christmas, Thanksgiving, you know? And when I had this before, it’s with milk. It makes it way better.”

Next to me Missy took a too-big gulp. Her cheeks bulged and her lips pursed.

“Yeah, it’s not great, is it?” I said. “There’s something kind of coppery about it.”

“Mmmp,” she mumbled, eyes watering.

“You can spit it out, you know. Onto the snow.”

“If you’re not up to it,” Amy said unhelpfully.

Sanity had been about to prevail, but if there was one thing that got Missy’s hackles up, it was being treated as a child. I elbowed Amy in the side for that, she poked me back, and a short tussle ensued which only de-escalated at the real and pressing risk of someone getting a drink slopped over them.

“That was… really… good,” Missy lied weakly, having swallowed.

“Hey, you did good,” Megumi said with more warmth than I expected. “You didn’t spit it out. And that’s what matters.”

“Yeah. Yeah. God, it wasn’t so bad at first, but that aftertaste.” Missy wiped her eyes on her sleeve, and took another more measured sip. Her face screwed up again. “Wait. It’s still bad.”

The wind diminished. Over in the distance, we could hear police sirens. A big billboard on the top of a building overlooked the park with a Medhall logo on it. Two handsome, blond, blue-eyed men smiled down at us, clearly happy because they no longer suffered whatever ailment they’d previously had.

“Yeah,” Megumi said, looking up at the sign, “look at those two constipated losers. Bet they’re taking pills ‘cause they can’t get it up.”

There was a sputtering sound from Missy. I just leaned back. “You think they’re dating?” I asked.

“Nah,” Megumi said. “Look at them. They look like Fox anchors. They’re probably fucking the pool boy.” She swirled the contents of her cup. “I really hate those stupid posters. Stupid smug things all over the city. All those happy bags of crap.”

“Looking like they should be sieg-heiling all over the place,” I said.

“Huh?”

“Because they’re blond and blue-eyed and… forget about it.” I sighed. Another thing I couldn’t help but think about after Megumi had pointed those things out. You didn’t see many Asians in adverts in Brockton Bay. Or Latinos or blacks, come to mention it. I hadn’t been looking for it before, but now I was.

“So where did you get this stuff?” Amy asked, leaning back. “And pass me the vodka. I’m going to try mixing it.”

“There’s plenty of places in Little Tokyo that don’t ask for ID,” Megumi said, passing her the bottle. “It’s not great, but it’ll get you drunk. And it’s not like the cops are any good at telling how old you are. They,” she laughed bitterly, “they think anyone Japanese looks the same.”

Something struck me. “Hey, Megumi. Has Makoto been a problem?”

“Huh? What do you mean?”

“I mean, like…” I tried to think of a way to put it. “Well, he hasn’t hassled you or, you know, spread rumours about you?”

Her nose wrinkled up. “I dunno. Haven’t heard from him at all since then.”

“Who’s this?” Amy asked.

“My ex,” Megumi said tersely. “I dumped him just before Christmas.” A stray gust whipped one of her dyed locks in front of her face, and she scraped it out of the way. “Hey, so are you part of the no-boyfriend squad?”

“Me?” Amy snorted. “Yeah. Urgh, I can’t get this stupid bottle open in the cold.”

“Ha! Is it just that all the Arcadia boys are losers?”

“Well, yeah. They are,” Amy said without blinking. “I mean, apart from Roberto. He’s on the swimming team. But he’s just a friend. Also, super gay.”

I vaguely knew of him. He looked really good in speedos. “Wait, seriously?”

“Oh man, yeah. He’s going out with Matt.”

“Wait, dark-haired, black-coated Matt? I have math with him.”

“That one, yeah.” Amy started rooting around in her pockets and pulled out a penknife as she tried to get the foil wrapping off.

“Huh.” I tilted my head, and took another sip. “Didn’t know he was gay. I guess I can see it.”

Megumi slurped her drink. “I have literally no idea who you’re talking about. But… question? For you, Taylor.”

“Yeah?”

“You totally have a crush on Brian.”

I blinked, working my mouth. “That wasn’t a question,” I blurted out, and then silently cursed my stupid brain that of all the things it could come up with, that was the product.

“Oh wow you mega do! You’re turning red! I was just fishing!”

“Wait, seriously?” asked Amy the arch-traitor, giving up on trying to open the vodka now she had easier prey.

“Yeah, she’s totally tsundere for him.” She saluted me with her plastic cup. “Ha!”

“Oh my God, shut up!” I was not turning red!

“Sure thing, Tsunlight!”

“Wait.” That was Missy, who was also apparently turning on me. “What does that word you used mean? Sun-thingie?”

While Megumi explained some stupid word which had no right to exist, I tried not to shrivel up into a little ball and die of mortification. How… how dare they talk about it! Like they knew what they were talking about. I did not have a crush on Portent and it was base slander for someone to say I did and who would have the bad taste to fall for someone who was such an asshole anyway? He was just the worst! A pushy control freak who always told me what to do and never let me do anything and treated me like a kid and anyway he was eighteen and I wasn’t some idiot who’d fall for a guy so much older than me and I wasn’t so shallow to be attracted to someone just because of looks and-and-and…

I groaned, and downed the rest of my cup. It stung the back of my throat, but at least the realisation that I’d just made a mistake helped take my mind off how my so-called friends and Megumi were trying to destroy my life. I sighed, and only then realised everyone was staring at me.

“Not bad!” Megumi said, reaching out to slap me on the back. I sputtered, coughing. “Do you want some vodka now?”

“Hell no,” I growled. I pulled myself up, to glare at the traitors. “And let me get this straight! I do not have a crush on him! I have never had a crush on him! And if you think otherwise, you won’t say a thing,” I jabbed my finger at each of them in turn, “or I will make your lives as much of a living hell as I can!”

“Okay. No more Tsunlight. Got it.”

“Thank y-”

“Just Sparkles.” I flipped Megumi off, and she just laughed at me. Ass.

“I mean,” Missy said carefully, huddling in on herself. What was she scared of? Wait, no, she was just cold because I’d stepped away from them. “I can see how you might find him cute.” A few flecks of snow settled in her blonde hair. “He’s tall and strong and handsome. If you did have a crush on him, that is. But if you did, I could see how you could. Right, Amy?”

“Nope.” Missy nudged her. “Hey, I thought you wanted the truth. No, I don’t. But, you know. Look, I trust Tay if she says she doesn’t have a crush on him. I mean, she bitches about him enough that she clearly doesn’t like him. And God, she goes on about him. On and on. It’s like, hello, Taylor, I’m not actually interested in what he’s done this time, but she just complains about him…”

“Thank you, Amy,” I said acidly.

“... and that is just fine. I mean, I’d prefer she stopped just venting about him, but could you imagine how annoying she’d be if she was actually in love? She’d probably go on about… I dunno what, but I bet it’d be far worse than her bitching. So we should probably just drop the topic. And let her sit down again. Because I am goddamn freezing.”

“Aww. Thank you, Amy,” I said more warmly. “You do care.”

“About staying warm, yes,” she said, glancing away from me, cheeks reddening in the cold.

I sat down next to her, and gave her a cuddle. “There, there, I’m sorry for abandoning you in my role as a space heater.”

“I’m glad you know your place,” she said, glancing back with a faint happy smile.

“So, want a refill?” Megumi asked, offering the bottle.

“Hell yeah!” Amy said, holding out her cup.

“Just because Vicky’s drunk doesn’t mean you have to copy her,” I said.

“Wow, you catty bitch.”

“Look, I’m just saying that we probably don’t want to get actually drunk.”

“And I’m just saying that I won’t get drunk on this when I’ve just had a meal,” Amy countered. “And if I do, I’ll just go Radiant and I’ll be fine when I turn back.” She looked up at the sky. “Man, imagine what stupid shit I’d get if I tried to grow a power for dealing with alcohol. I’m kind of tempted. It’d be hilarious.”

I shook my head. “God. It’d be like… I dunno.”

“A flamethrower like those firebreathers from the movies?” Missy suggested.

“That could do it! Or, like,” Amy’s eyes lit up, “alcohol-fuelled bone-rockets. Woooosh-boom!”

Megumi worked her jaw. “What the fuck? Are you lot just lightweights? ‘Cause I’m pretty sure you shouldn’t be sounding this drunk.”

“Nah. That’s how my power works,” Amy said lazily.

“Huh. I thought you just turned into a giant crystal lady.”

“I mean, I do. But I also have a, like, a ‘slot one badass thing’ thing going on. You know, like Eidolon. ‘Cause I’m even better than loli Legend over there.”

“Fuck you,” I grumbled.

“How does that work?” Megumi asked.

“Okay. So, say I wanted to beat up loli Legend...”

“It’s not funny!”

“Fine, Vista then.”

“I’d win,” Missy said smugly. “I’d maze the hell out of you and hide in scrunched-up space until you timed out.”

“Yeah, you would,” Amy grumbled. “But I just need to think about it, and, like, it kind of feels like a stomach ache? But a good one if that makes any sense. And that lasts for some time, depending on how different it is to what I had already. And shit gets weird if I’m not precise enough. Lasers? Lasers are easy. Or, like, thick crystal armour? Or forefield projectors like the rest of New Wave can do. But I’ve only got one Trump slot, and I can’t choose exactly how it expresses itself. I just kinda shove an idea at it like ‘give me full coverage with lasers’ or ‘I want a way to fuck up vehicles’. Sometimes I just get a ‘can’t do that’ feeling. I can’t ‘become immune to Vista’. She’s just too good at making space go weird. But I could grow sensor-things so I can tell how she’s making space go weird.”

“Wait, you can?” Missy didn’t seem to appreciate that.

“Yeah, I just checked.”

“Hmmph.”

“The less specific she is, the weirder it tends to get,” I added. “The anti-vehicle one was those little floating flesh-pod things with forcefield-wings that homed in on the engines and blew them out, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah. Dunno why Radiant felt that was the best way to do it.”

Megumi took a sip. “So how would you do me?”

“I dunno, but I’m guessing it’d probably, like, thermal conductive stuff to stop your fire burning me. Fire resistance doesn’t do anything weird. I mean, unless it decided to make me go all active-camo on you.”

Megumi’s eyes widened at that. “That’s terrifying,” she said, shaking her head. “And unfair.”

“You wanna call things unfair, tell me about it when you can only use your power for five minutes a day,” Amy snapped at her.

I stepped in before things got bad. She was sensitive about that. “Amy’s got one really good power. Me and you, Meg, we’ve got more range. Like my energy absorption, or the fact that you’re Olympic-athlete fast and strong. You could probably win a medal. If, you know, parahumans weren’t banned.”

“Yeah. It’s just…” she shrugged. I could see how she was feeling down that the three of us had more flashy powers than her. “The offer of another drink is still open.”

“... I probably shouldn’t,” I said, instead of the no-yuck that I was actually thinking. “Mom will get even more on my back if I come home smelling of alcohol. And things haven’t been great with her lately.”

“Man, same here.” Megumi huddled up, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it with a snap of her fingers. Everyone looked at her. “What?”

“You know you shouldn’t do that in public,” Missy said, crossing her arms. I patted her shoulder. She was right, but I didn’t want to start a fight right now.

“Hey, that’s pretty neat,” Amy said. She even sounded genuine. “Wait. Hold up. Taylor? You been fighting with your mom?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Okay, but Emma also says you and her had a fight and…”

“I’m not talking about it!” There it was again, the waves of coiled-in misery waiting for me. God, I thought I was escaping those grey feelings at the Wards party.

Amy’s free arm crept up around my shoulders. “That sucks.”

“Yeah. It does.” I sniffed. “Fuck Purity. Fuck her for doing this and… and for everything else.”

Megumi exhaled smoke into the night air. “Yeah. Fuck her. She killed Masae.” Cold ran through my gut. Megumi had mentioned someone she knew was missing after that attack in Little Tokyo.

“I’m so sorry,” Missy said softly.

“Yeah. She wasn’t a close friend, but she was a friend, and…” Megumi kicked the snow, picking up a fine spray of powder. “What use is being a fucking superhero when she’s still out there?”

“Did you see the email about the priority arrest warrant?” Missy asked.

“Yeah. And what I want to know is why she’s still free!”

“Don’t we fucking all?” I growled.

Amy held me closer. “Just to be clear, it’s just an arrest warrant? Not a kill order.”

I snorted. “Yeah.”

“That’s BS.” She swung her legs, kicking up snow. “I bet they won’t even call us in for help. You know, Crystal was in the area when that shit was going down at the market?”

“She was?” Vicky’s older cousin was just as pretty as she was, and cast from the same mould. They looked like they could have been sisters. I really wanted to get to work with Laserdream some day. She was just… like, so cool.

“Yeah. PRT turned down her help once you three got out. They don’t ask for help from New Wave. It’s your boss. She doesn’t like we’re independent.”

“Of course.”

“Maybe something will happen,” Missy said. “This time.”

Megumi downed the rest of her plastic cup, and hurled it down into the snow. “I bet nothing will! Nothing ever happens to the fucking Empire no matter what they do. Because everyone knows that them and the cops are tight. So they’re going to go on. Go on getting away with things. Go on killing people and fucking things up and… oh no, Purity has an arrest warrant on her that has ‘priority’ written on it on big red letters. Why the hell didn’t that happen earlier? No, she’s not going to get taken down, ‘cause nothing ever changes. Except to get worse.”

A black mood fell over the four of us, out here in the cold. Because it was true. I was fifteen and Brockton Bay was worse than it had been when I was a kid. That halcyon last summer before Purity had entered my life like an errant star had been so much better than my life now. But...

“We should change that,” someone said. And it was only after a moment that I realised that it was me, that I’d said it out loud. My mouth worked for itself, running off resentment and righteous rage, and maybe just lubricated by, like, 30% alcohol brandy. “No, really. I meant, think about it. I’m basically immune to her big blasts, and everyone knows she’s got that glowing Breaker state energy-form thing and what I do best is drain energy. If I could just get my hands on her, I could suck her dry. And you, Amy, you’re the fastest, toughest person in the city when you’re Radiant. She couldn’t pull off the super beam she did to Lung against you, ‘cause not only could you probably take that, you’re fast enough that you could just… just pile-drive her into the ground if she tried to beam you.”

Amy snorted. “I mean, yeah. I probably could. But like I said, your bosses won’t ask for New Wave help.”

I sprung to my feet, pacing up and down in front of them. “We don’t need them. Not for this. We’re friends. And… like, remember what happened with Half-A. We were just at the mall and they showed up. Maybe we just need to put ourselves in a place where ‘Oh no, Purity just showed up, we took that monster down hard, you’re welcome’.” I chopped the side of my hand into my palm. “Think about it! Not only would we be making the city a better place, but everyone would see that hey, you work great with the Wards. People’d have to respect you for that.”

“That’d be nice.” Amy looked thoughtful. She didn’t look eager, but Amy usually avoided eagerness like the plague because it made her look like she might actually care about things. “Yeah. Mmm.”

“It’d also be stupid,” Missy said. “Remember how they screamed at us because of the Half-A stuff? They told us not to engage her, Taylor! That was in the email!”

“Yeah, but are they going to actually care if we happen to stumble into her and take her down?” Megumi stood up, eyes bright. “I mean, they really want her gone. I did read the email. She’s ranked as a Class-A threat! That arrest thing is mega high priority. One step below an actual no-shit kill order.” She took my hand. “I’m in. Purity needs to go down!”

I hadn’t invited her in, and something of that must have shown in my face because her expression hardened. “She killed my friend. She’s killed a lot of people ‘cause she’s a racist fuckwit. You are not leaving me out of this.”

And this was a problem, because she wasn’t like me or Amy. Purity could hurt or kill her easily. But she was also right. She had a stake in this. “Yeah,” I said. “Glad to have you on board.”

“You are going to get in so much shit,” Missy hissed. “Seriously! Why are you ignoring everything they said after Half-A? And with this stupid ankle, I can’t be there to help!”

“Oh, no, see.” I smiled, feeling elated. Things felt like they were moving again. Like I wasn’t just sitting there letting Purity kill people. And I was almost one hundred percent sure it wasn’t the alcohol. “You can help us.”

Missy frowned, narrowing her eyes. “I’m listening.”

“I do remember what they said, Missy. Remember how we got yelled at for not having support? We’ll need someone who can be on the inside. With access to the cameras and the police scanners and the incident reports. And someone who can help us from that end. Even someone who can call it in as a real incident afterwards - because I mean, come on. Portent would just tell us to pull back immediately. But hey, you’re ‘only thirteen’. If you happened to muck up the protocol just a teeny tiny bit, well, that’s not your fault.”

“I like it,” said Amy. She stood up, snow crunching under her big boots. “I’m in. Let’s make like World War 2 and punch Nazis.”

“We’re going to get yelled at,” Missy said.

“Yes. Yes, we are,” I said. “If we can even find her. We might not. No one knows what she looks like when she’s not all sun-glowy. But if we succeed, we’ll have made the city a better place. We’ll have got revenge for all the people she’s killed. Not just my dad. Megumi’s friend. The other ten people she killed at that chopshop. Everyone else she’s killed or hurt over the years.”

I held out my hand. I cast a long shadow towards them, framed by the streetlight that painted me and the snow sodium-orange. And I could feel the tingle in my hands that told me my veins were starting to light up. “So, come on girls. Let’s be superheroes.”

Megumi nodded. She took my hand. “Like I said. I’m in.”

“Me too,” said Amy, wrapping her hand around the pair of ours.

Missy took a breath, and stood up, wincing as she put weight on her ankle. “Okay. I’m in too. What now?”

I swallowed. “We go back inside and act like nothing is up and everything is normal. But we head into the office tomorrow and start planning. I’ll try to get back on active duty so I have an excuse to patrol. And remember - nothing about this on our work phones. Keep everything personal and private. And we only talk about it in person - we don’t put anything in texts or emails or anything like that.”

“Gotcha.” Amy beamed at me. “I can look through the New Wave records, too. See if we might have seen something the Protectorate missed. Maybe people know something about their hideouts.” She paused. “Do we tell Vicky?”

“Not now,” I said. “She’s too drunk. Maybe if things don’t work at first, a Tinker could be super useful. But I don’t want Dean finding out.”

“Right! Okay. Let’s head back inside where it’s warm!”

“And hope your sister’s still got her clothes on,” Megumi contributed with a nasty grin, stuffing the bottles back in her bag.

Amy paused for a moment, stooping down, and then threw a snowball at her. In other situations, it might have turned into a snowball fight but everyone else was too cold and the snow was too powdery so we just went back into the warmth. And for the first time in days, I felt like smiling. They’d have to let me back onto patrols with everything going on.

Chapter Text

“Denied.” One word, flat and short, before I could even make my case. Armsmaster half-turned, already looking to get back to work.

There was a faint smell of ozone in the air, like you got around printers which had been running for too long. The air tasted faintly of coffee, or maybe those caffeinated energy drinks that Dean liked. Every wall was a whiteboard covered in jottings and diagrams I didn’t understand. A mechanical skeleton half-covered in plating menaced in one corner. Something circular whirred on the desk, the centre glowing orange. It had no taste at all. And here I was, walking face first into a figurative wall in my attempt to get back on the patrol roster.

“Sir, I haven’t even…”

“You’re going to ask me to put you back on the active duty roster. I can’t do that. Is that all?”

“Sir, I know I’ve been taken off the roster for two months.” I took a breath. “But the situation has changed.”

“Not in Director Piggot’s eyes. Talk to her, not me.”

I respected Armsmaster. I really did. He was hard-working to the point of monomania, a juggernaut on the field, and if you needed a thing done, he’d get it done. He was the one who had shown up when Missy had gotten shot, his motorbike roaring in with an automated tinkertech doc in one of his bike’s compartments. Yes, I definitely respected Armsmaster as a hero and as a team leader. But I didn’t like him. He was always like this. And I got the feeling he didn’t like me either. It was hard to tell it apart from his normal brusqueness, but he seemed even shorter with me. Maybe it was because my power drain aura could shut down basically everything he did. Maybe it was because PR had given me the same basic midnight-blue-with-silver-highlights colour scheme as him and he felt it was cramping his style. Or maybe it was because I made paperwork for him when I showed, uh, ‘excessive keenness’ as he’d said once.

“I understand that I made a mistake,” I said, and I was telling the truth. It had been a mistake to focus on small-fry losers like Half-A, when she was still out there. She had ruined my life. Compared to her, Half-A’s offences paled. “I’ve learned my lesson.”

Armsmaster sighed. For just a moment, he sounded exhausted and I wondered if he’d slept last night. “What do you want, Starlight?” he asked.

“I just want to help and-”

“Stop that. Just tell me what you actually want.”

“I want to help take down Purity. Sir. I want her in jail. And I want back on the duty register so I don’t feel like I’m going crazy here, not able to help when… when everything keeps on getting worse.” I took a breath, considered whether to go into more depth, and decided not.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “I want you back on the duty register. You keep the PR drones happy and mean I don’t have to waste as many assets on them. But Piggot’s overridden me. She said you’d try this. And that’s that.” He clapped his hands together. “But you still want to help?”

“Yes!” I cleared my throat. “That is, yes, sir.”

“Good.” He stepped over to his computer. “One moment.”

While he typed away, I glanced over at the papers on the desk. Blueprints, printed out graphs, and some kind of upside-down request for someone called Five Eyes. Maybe we were getting another cape. I shouldn’t be reading his notes, though, and folded my hands behind my back.

Armsmaster cleared his throat. “I’m going to give you supervised access to the Evidence Room.”

I blinked. “Excuse me, what?”

“You file your reports on time. I read them. And you kept on talking about the ‘nutmeg’ flavour of Dr Holistic’s tech. Last report: Leet was ‘artificial colourings’. I want you to get familiar with the synaesthetic impressions of as many Tinkers as possible. I’ll want to understand what you’re detecting, some time in the future. And also I’ve transferred some documents on the Empire to your secure folder on the fileshare. I want a summary and analysis on them, from the viewpoint of their observed tactics in the Lincoln Park Market.”

This… this wasn’t what I had wanted. Not paperwork; not makework training exercises. “Sir, I’m just a Ward…”

“You write more clearly than Dauntless, and unlike Velocity I won’t have to chase you down to get it done.”

Was that a speedster pun? No, probably not, because this was Armsmaster. Urgh. This was my punishment for being the daughter of an English lecturer and always punctual with getting my reports in. I got handed other people’s paperwork to do, too. Megumi was bad enough, and now I was having Protectorate things fobbed off on me.

“That’s all,” he told me.

Complaining wasn’t going to get anything more done. I could see it as clear as day. “Thank you for making time for me, sir,” I said.

“It’ll take some time for a PRT staffer to be free to supervise you, so look for the meeting request in your calendar,” he said. “You should get started on the reports today.”

“Will do. Uh. Okay. Um. Goodbye?”

“Goodbye,” he said, attention already returning to the orange-glowing device on his table.

I left, and slumped against the wall, trying not to choke on my disappointment. I hadn’t joined the Wards to be a glorified secretary. 2013 couldn’t come soon enough. Bright side of life. I had to think on the bright side of life, like Armsmaster would. Uh… uh… well, it wasn’t what I had wanted, but the Empire-related documents might have something I could use. Maybe that would serve as a consolation prize. I pushed off the wall, and nearly ran into Velocity.

“Oops! Easy there!”

“Sorry, sorry,” I apologised.

“Hey, no biggy. I’d be wanting to get the hell out of Armsy’s office ASAP. What were you in there for?”

There was no harm in admitting it. “Trying to get back on patrol duties.”

“Why?” He sounded incredulous. “Just take the break.” Lowering his voice, he added, “Mind you, if you want a word of advice, don’t push Armsy.”

“He needs a break. It looks like it’s been a bad day for him.”

“Bad month, more like.” I knew the feeling. “It’s the whole risk-of-red-rating thing.”

“Oh, that.”

“Well, yeah. I mean, it’s the end of his career if it happens. Miss Militia’s, too. And a lot of people on the PRT side of things. If the feds think the city’s a lost cause as things are, whole lotta people are going down with it.”

I froze, the bottom falling out of my stomach. “A… lost cause.”

He shrugged. “That’s something that Red can mean, yeah. For this place, God, I dunno. Might just be that they call some hardass replacement director who’ll make all our lives a living hell until things ‘are better’. Fuck that. I’ll quit and go find some sponsored team if that happens. But I don’t envy Armsy. I’m pretty sure he’s been sleeping in his lab. I’d resign if someone ever promoted me to his job.” He grinned at me. “‘Course, there’s no risk of that, thank God. I’d be an awful team leader.”

He really would. I didn’t say it out loud, but I thought it. He was too easy-going and way too disorganised. “I thought the Red thing was just, you know. Management BS.”

“Ha, yeah. There’s way too much BS in this job. But this is BS that actually matters.”

I nodded in acknowledgment. “Well, he’s dumped some reports on me. So I have to go get started on them today.”

“I mean, it’s probably just makework,” he said helpfully. “Betcha Armsy just wants you to go away and stop bothering him.”

“I don’t think so. He looked really busy and he said this was something he had to get done.” Or at least I was trying to pretend that was the case, and didn’t need the probable facts rubbed in my face.

“Maybe.” He pulled a face, or as much of a face which could be pulled when only his mouth was visible. “Whatever. I have a patrol today and it’s going to suck if the weather gets any worse. Which the forecast is saying it’s gonna. Ever run through a blizzard at superspeed? Fuck that, am I right?”

I nodded to him, and trotted back to the Wards area. I had to re-evaluate things in light of what Velocity had said. I hadn’t realised things had gotten quite so bad. And… yes. I smiled grimly. Armsmaster would appreciate it if someone happened to bring him Purity, wouldn’t he? I didn’t want credit for that. What I wanted was to take her down for Dad and everyone else she’d killed. I didn’t need praise or everyone to cheer me. I wasn’t a vain egotist. So Armsmaster would have every reason to pretend it was an official PRT thing after the fact.

Know your enemy. It was a cliche, but hey, cliches were cliched for a reason. I was more up to date on capes in the Bay than most people, and I did my research, but I usually got access to the censored Wards files rather than the ones the Protectorate adults got access to. So my first priority for writing up the Lincoln Market reports was to review everything I had access to and build up a better picture on what the Empire looked like in structure, and what they’d been doing lately.

Almost immediately I discovered that there was absolutely no way I could review everything I had access to. The things I’d been given before had been the summarised, abridged and refined reports prepared to brief the Wards. But the file dump that Armsmaster had dropped on me was raw. There were archives of scanned documents from the BBPD dating back to when Allfather was in charge. There were monotonous extended logs of PRT operations. There were write-ups from Protectorate members dating back years and - God - I understood more why Armsmaster seemed irked at the quality of some people’s reports. There was no doubt information here that would be very useful against the Empire. The problem would be finding it. Just in the name of sanity, I decided quickly to limit myself to the prior summary reports because reading everything here would be the work of weeks. If not months.

And yet. I had nearly two decades of reports here on the Empire-88. A history of the skinheads, made up of what people thought about them at the time. Of their origins as the Maine Men, a vigilante hero group from the late 80s, and how - my eyes narrowed - they’d clashed with radical left-wing groups like the Woman’s Action Front and CANE. How after the leader Green Minuteman had been killed in 1992, a cape known as Steelmaster had taken over, and the Maine Men had wound up involved in the burgeoning militia movement. Someone with a power that sounded a lot like Krieg’s showed up in 1993. He was calling himself ‘Turbulator’ back then; presumably that kind of dumb name was acceptable in the 90s. There were reports mentioning their involvement in gun-running to Canada and the drug trade, but other things talking about how they were ‘useful’ to the local cops. And then came the RICO case in 1994 for financial irregularities and the Maine Men had disbanded, with Steelmaster formally retiring. Except a big chunk of the Maine Men had then become the Empire Eighty-Eight - and ever-so-unbelievably, their new leader Allfather happened to have exactly the same powers as Steelmaster.

New Wave had nearly broken the Empire in the early 2000s after they’d taken down the March, and the reports from 2003 were talking about them crumbling. A supervillain called Gerthr had turned on Allfather, killed him, and launched a coup. His group, Storm Fist, had retreated - oh, they’d become White American Strength upstate? - but the PRT reports had thought they were on the way out. Until they’d rebuilt under Allfather’s replacement, Kaiser. Like cockroaches. Disgusting, murderous cockroaches. The same pattern came up time and time again in the notes. The cops going soft on the Empire, letting them get away with shit. Intel summaries tagged U//LES speaking about the intel value, which reading between the lines probably meant that the skinheads were feeding the cops information about their rival gangs. Old reports about how they were a useful counterbalance to the March; new ones about how they were a useful counterbalance to the ABB. A nice, comfy relationship.

It was disgusting.

I looked up from my work and checked the clock. Yeah, I’d been at this for a couple of hours. It was nearly lunch, and I needed to stretch my legs. With a groan, I went to push my glasses up my nose, and jabbed myself between the eyes because - of course - I had my contacts in. You’d think I’d learn, but apparently not.

“Ow,” I grumbled, looking around to see if someone else had noticed it. They hadn’t. Thank goodness neither Portent nor Dean were in. What had been up with Portent and the family thing, anyway? And why was he so reclusive about family stuff around us? I mean, I’d accepted it as part of his overall dickishness, but this was the first time the wall had slipped. What did he even do when he was off work - not that I cared! Not that I was interested! Stupid Megumi and her nonsense about crushes!

I stepped through into the main area heading in the direction of the kitchenette, my footsteps nearly silent on the carpet. Megumi’s laptop was blaring out another stupid power-tier video, but she didn’t really seem to be paying attention. It was just background noise.

“... I wasn’t going to come in today,” said Missy, curled up on the couch next to her. “Not when there’s a blizzard warning and all. But I just couldn’t face hanging around the house. Mom has me until New Year, but her new boyfriend is there and I hate him. He’s such a creep. And she was doing that whole thing where she goes on about how Dad’s new wife is a slut and a… and other things, so I just came in.”

“I get you,” Megumi said.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” She drew in a hollow breath. “Shit’s been bad at home since… since I got my powers. Bad for me. Not bad for anyone else.”

Oh crap. I shouldn’t be here. Not standing here at the back of the room, listening in on the conversation. This was private. Personal. Missy was opening up about her home life, which was rare enough, but this was the first I’d heard of any mention of this from Megumi. Did even the Protectorate know things were up with her? I shouldn’t listen in on this.

But I did, as Megumi continued. “Powers suck, you know? I mean, I… things were… I wish I didn’t have mine. I mean, I wouldn’t get rid of them now that I have them, but… I wish I could bring back all those people. Not the guys. But everyone else in the… the place. I mean, it wasn’t my fault, I didn’t mean to and it was fucked that the fire safety was so bad in the area but…”

“I know,” Missy said. “I… I mean, it makes me feel bad sometimes. With you and Taylor around and she… she had that thing happen with her Dad and you and that Tower block and… and it makes me feel… feel fake. ‘I got superpowers because my parents got divorced’. You know? No one died. And lots of people’s parents have a bad break-up and hardly anyone gets powers from it.”

God, I really should step in. Nothing good ever happened from talking about origin stories. But if I stepped in I’d have to tell them that I’d been standing here, eavesdropping, and then what if either of them got upset? Butterflies churned in my stomach. I couldn’t face falling out with Missy too, on top of everyone else in my life.

“I might’ve thought something like that before… all this,” Megumi said. “But not now! Like, they talked about that in all those parahuman briefing things they made me sit through. And they were mega boring - seriously, so boring - but I did mostly pay attention. And… like. Family stuff sucks too. Especially when powers are getting thrown about like they’re a good thing. They’re not something to throw a fucking party about.”

“A... party?” Missy asked. She glanced over her shoulder to look for eavesdroppers, but I was hidden by the angle and the bulky fridge. “What do you mean?”

“Mom’n’dad,” she said. From my position, I could see her hunch up, shoulders and head dropping. “They’re so goddamn happy about their daughter having ‘superpowers’,” her voice took on a sneering tone for the word, “and being in the Wards, and bringing in a paycheck. Like it’s a good thing, what happened to me. Like we oughtta be grateful for it. I heard Mom say it was the best thing that’s happened to us since we wound up in America.”

I winced. That was... ouch. Yeah, I didn’t even know how to approach that. No wonder she was so sullenly angry all the time - and no wonder she’d been sleeping in the Wards base at every opportunity. If someone had been happy about what happened to Dad - had tried to tell me that getting my powers was a blessing for the family - I might literally have blasted them in the face. Even now. And Megumi’s Trigger was fresh in her memory. Not to mention it was her parents doing it. I couldn’t even imagine Mom celebrating what had happened to me.

Missy must have been having similar thoughts. “God. I know what that’s like. Mom and Dad used to fight about who I took more after and one of the things that… that Dad said once was that I had to be like him because he was a superhero for putting up with her and…” She audibly swallowed. “I’m so glad I have the Wards. I know there’s a bunch of poor kids over in, like, the Mid-West whose parents are going all beauty pageant child star on them.”

“Oh shit, yeah, what’s that show. Dream Heroes?”

“They should make that illegal. Those poor kids. No one should have to go through being treated like… like a show pony!” Missy’s voice rose. “And those parents should be in jail! But that’s what parents are like. They think they own you. It’s like… you know, when I said that to Taylor, she made a joke about the Thirteenth Amendment not covering parents.”

Ah. Yes. I had done that. In my defence, Amy had been there at the time and she’d laughed. Megumi just snorted. “She’s such a weirdo. Um. Also, what’s the joke? She does talk about law stuff a bunch and expects you to know it.”

“That’s the one about banning slavery. And she’s not weird.” Thank you, Mis- “I mean, she is, but in a good way. She really believes in being a hero, even more than I do. I think a bunch of it is because of her mom, who’s super cool and really nice.”

Smarting somewhat from the casual betrayal, I nevertheless relaxed. They were back into safer territory. I’d found out that Mom’s facade was made of lies, but I wasn’t going to tell Missy any of that. I’d just sneak out and then walk loudly back in and let them go ‘Oh, thank goodness she didn’t hear any of that’. I turned to-

“Hah! Yeah, she really does. I mean, I guess that’s what happens when you get to only see superheroes as a good thing.” And there it was; a looming, yawning, maw of a statement.

“What do you mean?” Missy asked the question I didn’t want anyone to ask, and yet wanted to hear.

Megumi let out a breath through her teeth. “Heroes never did much for me. Like, even before I came to America. Capes didn’t do shit to stop Kyushu.”

“You... you were from there?” Missy asked, and I paused. It wasn’t exactly surprising - most of the Japanese refugees in the Bay had come here for one really obvious reason. But the way she said it made me think it was more than just second-hand experience.

“I was five. We lived in Kitakyushu. Like a lot of survivors. It was right by Honshu, so they could get us out. I remember the rain.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper. She wasn’t looking at Missy. “Heavier than anything you’ve ever seen. Like being underwater already, with the whole sky beating on your head. And the noise. The roaring. Not that Leviathan roars like… Godzilla or something like that. But the roar of a tsunami. The rocking of the ferry. Not much else. But then we came here, and everything was worse from then on.”

“Oh. I can’t imagine what that was like.”

“Yeah. Better hope it stays that way. This city sucks, but I wouldn’t wish Leviathan on it.”

This was headed in a bad direction, and I decided to stop it before it got any worse. Heading back down towards the mini-office, I opened the door quietly, and then slammed it shut.

“Hey, has anyone else eaten?” I called out. “Wanna go grab lunch?”

And if Megumi was more scowly than usual when I stuck my head in the room and Missy was curled up and quiet, at least I’d put a stop to that conversation.

I insisted we eat in the Wards common room, where we’d get a mask-up alarm if anyone was about to walk in on us. There hadn’t been a sign of Portent or Dean today. I wondered if everything was alright with the former, and the latter was probably still hungover. But that was no reason not to take care.

“So,” I said, as I broke the seal on my drink. “Armsmaster didn’t let me back on patrol.”

“Bluh,” Missy said, heaving a sigh as she picked through her sandwich and carefully removed all the tomatoes and cucumber. I didn’t know why she insisted on ordering the chicken salad if she didn’t like half said salad, but that was an old argument. “He wouldn’t even let you get back on a little bit earlier?”

“No. Apparently Piggot’s laid down the law.”

“Urgh. That sucks.”

“I’ve got my first patrol just after new year,” Megumi told me with a gleam in her eyes. “They think I’m trained enough to go be a hero.”

“Bully for you,” I said.

“I know, right?”

“When do we tell her that, like, ninety percent of patrols are as dull as dishwater?” Missy asked me in a stage whisper.

“Maybe we should let her find out for herself,” I replied.

“You two suck,” Megumi said, taking a vicious bite out of her burrito. “Ftop burryin m’.”

“Swallow before trying to talk,” I said. “But he gave me a bunch of work to do. And part of that is - get this - writing a report on the Empire-88.”

“Oh?” Missy perked up. “You sound happy.”

“He gave me way more access to stuff than we usually get as Wards.”

She clapped her hands. “Oooh! Give me the deets!”

“The problem,” I said, sipping my drink, “is that there’s way too many ‘deets’. I’ve just been reading the summaries. But even that… you know they started as a vigilante hero group?”

“No way!”

I explained the origins I’d found, and when I was done Megumi shook her head. “Hah. Really not that different from the ABB. People see those fuckers as vigilantes who help protect us. Just like those Maine Men. It’s just they were white so they got the cops going easy on them. But, y’know… Lung’s people don’t have any real fracture lines? The Empire sound like they’re three groups welded together.”

I’d had thoughts in the same direction. “Partly it’s that they have more capes, but I think it’s also from how Kaiser rebuilt them.”

“Huh?” asked Missy.

“Well, I mean. Just look at the make-up.” I started to count off on my fingers. “We’ve got the core group - Kaiser, Krieg, Purity, Menja. Used to be Fenja too, and in the old reports, Kaiser replaced someone called Heith as the second-in-command and she had similar powers to the giantesses. Just like Kaiser has similar powers to Allfather and Iron Rain. They’re the centre. Most of them have been doing it for a long time - since the 90s. And the files think there’s some family ties in there, because… I mean, look at New Wave and how they’ve all got similar powers too. But then there’s the newer ones. Like Hookwolf.”

“Hookwolf’s a fuck,” Megumi said instantly, brow wrinkling up. “He’s like Oni Lee. He’s just in for fighting and killing. And it’s him and his lot who show up most often in Little Tokyo to fuck stuff up for lulz.”

“Yeah. Him, Stormtiger and Cricket used to be a little villain gang of their own. Then in ‘07, they teamed up - but they’ve always been their own little thing, according to the reports. In fact - get this - one of the recent reports thinks the reason the Empire’s been pushing so hard against Little Tokyo is that Hookwolf is gaining power inside the Empire. And Krieg… he’s been doing this for twenty years, more or less. And Kaiser’s not exactly young, either. He’s got to be in his thirties or even early forties.”

“Ah.” I could hear the satisfaction in Megumi’s voice. “That makes sense. The older guys have to look strong when there’s someone younger who wants power under them. And… you know what this means? This is great news for us.”

I blinked. “I don’t follow.”

“Don’t you see? Purity’s in the core group. And she’s pretty fucking powerful. Hookwolf’s gonna want to see her taken down, because that weakens the boss. Makes him more powerful.”

Missy gestured, sandwich in hand. “You’re saying he won’t show up as reinforcements if you get into a fight with… her?”

“Yeah. That’s what I think.”

Huh. “Good catch,” I told Megumi warmly. “Anyway, yeah. And there’s another little grouping in the Empire, making stuff even more complicated. So, apparently there’s this group upstate called the Herren Clan. Ever heard of them?” That got two shaking heads. “Basically, they’re the racist redneck mob. All about ‘the family’. And them and the Empire have interests in the meth trade, and White American Strength is going after the Herren gun-running ops so the Empire and the Herren allied and as part of that they provide the Empire with people and get cash in return. So that’s Victor and Wunjo. Part of the reason they focus on,” I searched for the right words, “loan-sharking, illegal casinos… not quite white-collar crime, but that kind of thing… anyway, intel thinks Kaiser isn’t sure he can rely on them 100% if things come down to the wire.”

“So they also might not show up if we go after Purity?” Megumi asked, leaning in.

“Depends - but the reports definitely think they wouldn’t be willing to go all out for a full-on throwdown with the PRT.”

“Any other groups?” Missy asked. “I… I’m actually feeling better about this whole thing. I was scared that if you went after Purity, suddenly the entire Empire would show up.”

I shook my head. “No. The other capes come and go. And drift in and out a lot more. They lost a pair called Night and Fog a couple of years ago, for example - they just left and have been seen in Boston. Same as Doctor Holistic and Crusader. They just seem to be people on their side. They were apparently super happy to get Doctor Holistic too, because they’d been without a healer in their gang since Amy’s mom took down the last one in 2004.”

Missy pursed her lips. “You think you can copy me the files?” she asked. “I want to read them too if I’m going to be running support for you three.”

I shook my head. “No. I can only read them remotely. Can’t copy them.”

“Shit. Well, tell me if you find anything else interesting.”

“Will do.” I stretched. “So… how have you two been?”

I caught the look between the two of them. “Okay,” said Missy.

“Yeah. Actually, something came up. Maybe I should replace my blue bangs,” Megumi said, twirling one around a finger. “You know? ‘Cause some other girls at school have them and I’m thinking, maybe I’d look better with red. It’d go with my costume. Or maybe get rid of them. What do you think?”

Oh no. My great enemy. Fashion advice.

After lunch, I started work on the report for Armsmaster, starting to turn my hand-written annotations into something neat and written up. Well, that was the theory. In practice, I spent nearly an hour trying to get the stupid Protectorate template working because it really didn’t like my attempts to put my name as the author. After emailing IT, it turned out that Wards weren’t accepted as valid authors by the Protectorate document template, which was why it kept on failing validation. In the end, I just decided to put Armsmaster’s name there and then just sign my name at the end of the document. And then the damn thing crashed first time I tried to save it. Which understandably did a marvellous job at killing my motivation to get anything done.

That was just life. I was a cape who was part of a federal organisation. We had invincible superheroines, We had honest-to-God UFOs. We had a goddamn supertech elevator which was just the most pointless thing ever and I didn’t understand who’d even built it or maintained it. What we didn’t have was an IT department who could make a document template which could draw from the list of both the full Protectorate members and the Wards.

And once again my mind returned to Purity, like water spiralling a drain. Purity was one of the core members of the Empire. She’d been doing this a long, long time. She’d first shown up in the Empire in ‘99, and there’d been a few police records of her being an independent vigilante for a couple of months beforehand. Her - a vigilante? It didn’t make sense. She was a mass murdering monster! How could she even think she was a hero after everything she’d done? What would her younger self say if she could see what she’d become?

She’d probably only been a little older than me. Those ancient reports speculated she was probably only in her mid-to-late teens. She’d triggered for whatever reason, and then she’d gone out to try to be a vigilante hero. And then she’d joined a gang of supervillains and just spiralled down and down and down. Treated the slippery slope like a water park’s flume. Until she was wading hip-deep in lakes of blood.

Why hadn’t she just joined the Wards? Could there be another world out there where she was a respected Protectorate hero and I was just a normal girl with a family?

I tried to put those thoughts out of mind. There was no point to trying to understand a monster like her. Something like that might make me hesitate. It wasn’t important. Not like the tactical information.

Her deployment patterns had changed over time, I’d discovered. She’d disappeared for about half a year after shooting me and Dad up, then reappeared again, focusing on pushing back the other gangs. The running theory on the files was some kind of injury, possibly a bullet or laser hitting her by chance during that same fight and forcing a long recovery. Pity it hadn’t hit somewhere more serious. More people would be alive if it had killed her instead of just forcing her off the front lines for a while.

Still, unfortunately she’d come back, and she’d been more cautious since. Her attack on Oshima Motors had been the first really big thing she’d done since she’d killed Dad, and word on the street was that she’d been demoted from Kasier’s second-in-command. The recent intel was really lacking, which was... weird compared to how she’d been before. Maybe she really had been hurt, or maybe she was on the outs with Kaiser. Hah, maybe she’d missed and blown up some skinheads. It wasn’t like she took much care to aim.

Or - I skimmed through another few paragraphs of analysis - apparently she might be trying to make a breakaway faction of her own? That made a certain amount of sense. She had nearly as much experience as Kaiser and maybe she’d gotten sick of being his second-in-command. Though... oh, no, they’d written that off after the strike against Lung. That kind of coordinated tactical set-up for the Lincoln Market takeover implied that she’d managed to get some status back in Kaiser’s eyes - and would probably be getting more, given how well it had gone.

Which meant I needed to take her down soon, or she’d get right back to where she’d been two years ago. And what she’d been doing back then, too.

“Bluh,” I said, forehead on my desk. Maybe this was just make-work. Maybe it really didn’t matter and Velocity was right. Would this report even get read? My dark thoughts were interrupted by my phone buzzing. I checked my work cell, but nothing. It was my civilian phone instead.

I checked the clock. Technically I could leave any time I wanted. I wasn’t on duty, and this was just me volunteering to help out, which was the kind of thing the Youth Guard got really tetchy about if they found out it was happening too much. And after the sheer soul-draining agony of trying to get that template working, I wasn’t much inclined to volunteer any more of my time.

After saving what little work I’d managed, I called Amy. “Yo.”

“Where are you?” She sounded terse. Stressed, even.

“Still in the office, technically.”

“OK. Good. I’ll meet you in Boomer’s - you know, the one up the street from your office. Ten minutes.”

That did not sound good. “Is it family stuff?” I asked gingerly.

“Something I have to talk with you about.”

Ten minutes? She had to be downtown already. Which meant she was probably hanging around here, expecting to wait until I got out of work. This could be bad. I shut down my machine as fast as I could, and pulled on my winter coat even as I waited for the elevator. I ignored Battery’s attempts to talk to me on the way out, and made it to Boomer’s Coffee in just under nine minutes. The wind was picking up and howling through the streets, whipping the tree branches around as I passed them.

Amy was waiting for me there, staring out at the falling snow lit up by downtown lights. I hurried over to her. “Is everything alright with you?” I asked quickly. “What happened?”

“It’s… this is seriously weird, Taylor,” Amy said. She bit her lower lip. “I got fan mail.”

“... I don’t think that’s that weird so-”

“No, shut up. Shut up and listen.” No humour in her tone. She looked around and lowered her voice. “I got fan mail from Dox. She wants to meet up. And,” she slapped a printed-off voucher for an internet cafe down on the table, “she wants to meet today. This evening.”

I picked up the voucher. It was for a place called ‘Reality Bytes’. On the back, someone had written something with a purple glitter gel pen. And also dotted her ‘i’s with hearts.

“Hi Star! Super big fan! Love your work! Great fan of all your police brutality, so I want to help you commit more! But don’t worry, it’s against Nazis! Radiant better do her job passing this on, or I’ll just be sooooooo heartbroken.

Or, to put it another way, wanna know something about Purity? As your biggest fangirl, I totally want to meet you one-on-one. <3

Love,

Dox xoxox”

I put it down, hands shaking, jaw clenching, breath quickening. “Fuck,” I breathed.

“Yeah. Yeah. That is what I said,” Amy said, nodding. “What are you going to do?”

I should report it. I should hand this in and report it to the PRT and do what I was meant to do. But this was Purity, or the promise of something about her. And I knew Half-A had clashed with the Empire a few times. It had been in the documents.

“It’d be against the rules to go talk to her,” I whispered. I swallowed, and met Amy’s eyes. “Hey, you haven’t really met Megumi, right? I reckon I should introduce you. And then we can go out and find something fun to do together. Maybe involving an internet cafe. What a shame Missy can’t come due to her ankle. I guess she’ll just have to stay at work, but we can call her if anything happens.”

Amy gave me a flat stare. “So… you’re going to bite.”

“Of course not. I’m just doing something with friends.” I took a deep breath. Just doing something with friends. And if some smart-alec supervillain tried anything, I’d have plenty of back-up. I should tell the PRT. I wasn’t going to, though. I needed this.

“She said to come alone.”

I snorted. “Like I’m going to do that. She’s with Half-A. I’m not going to walk into a trap because they want revenge for the mall. And that’s why I’m going there with Megumi - and you’re going to be waiting outside. You haven’t transformed today, right?”

“Right. But why can’t I come in there with you?” Amy squared up to me.

“Because she knows who you are. She might not know Megumi because she’s new.”

“I guess that makes sense. Though I’m not waiting outside in a blizzard. I’ll find a shop or fast food place.”

I reached out and squeezed her hand. “You’re our trump card. If she’s got Uber and Leet with her in ambush, that’ll be when you bust in. And then smush their loser faces into the ground.”

“Well, when you put it like that,” Amy squeezed back, with a not-quite-pleasant smile, “I guess I can help out.”

Chapter Text

Reality Bytes was a seedy internet cafe and arcade north of Downtown, where the rent for the shops had fallen low enough that places like it could survive. It was past sunset by the time we arrived, and both the street lights closest to it were broken. “Competitive LAN Play” repeated an orange ticker-tape display in the window, interspersed with “Pay by the Hour” in smaller font. The neon signs hung over the sidewalk, advertising cash-for-gold, dive bars, arcades and resale shops. Snow was piled up in the corners of the street, broken up by patches where the heat from the steaming sewers had melted it.

I checked my work phone, shielding it from the snow that was falling in big fat wet clumps as we huddled in an alcove from the wind.

Good. She was in position as per our agreed cover story.

“Hey, this isn’t a bad find,” Megumi said, adjusting her scarf so it covered her nose properly. All I could see of her was a tiny band of exposed flesh, and those two framing blue bangs. It muffled her voice. “I might have to check out this place on my own.”

“Might not be the best idea,” I said, rubbing my hands together as I tasted the air for any tang of Tinkertech. “If things go south here…”

“Nah, I mean this street. These arcades don’t look terrible.”

“You do this kind of thing?” I was mildly surprised.

“Well, yeah. They’re places to hang around with friends out of the house.” She nudged me. “After this shit is over, we’re going to the arcade together. I wanna see how well you do.”

“Odds are we’d be attacked by Oroborous,” I said morosely. “This hasn’t been my year for ‘doing things with friends without supervillains showing up’.”

That drew a cackle from Megumi. Her phone buzzed, and she checked it. “OK, that’s Amy,” she said. “She says she’s in the KFC across the street. I’ll go in first and rent a machine. Wait ten minutes, then head in. Like we agreed.”

“Yeah.” That was the plan. Megumi was going to head in first and pretend to be a regular customer, and she was the one who had Amy on speed-dial. I turned my cells off. If Dox was a technopath, I wasn’t going to let her pull her tricks on me through my own phone. I swallowed. “Play it safe, Meg. And don’t be a hero.”

Her eyes creased up like she was smiling at me under her scarf. “Megumi. And how can you tell me not to be a hero? Isn’t that what we are, Sparkles?” She waved off my protests. “Yeah, yeah. Trust me, I’m the one who knows places like this. I’m not going to be dumb.”

The wind picked up, howling up the long street which led all the way to the ocean. Some of the signposts in the streets buzzed and flickered, casting halos in the falling snow. I couldn’t wait until it was lighter in the evenings. Endless dark got depressing. I leaned against a shop fronting as the timer on my watch counted down. Across the street, a trio of men stumbled out of a bar advertising ‘Real Mexican Tequila’ in red lighting. I tensed up for a moment as they looked my way, but presumably they didn’t see anything worth crossing the street for.

Closing my eyes, I focused on the blended tastes of the world around me. When it was this cold outside, my energy sense got sharp enough that I could even pick out the warmth of individual people outside. Meaty heat from the buildings and their heating systems; the fizz of soda-electricity all around me. But in amongst it all, the sickly-sweet artificial colourings and greasy fast-food flavour of Leet’s work. I couldn’t pick out where it was, exactly, but it was there. Which meant someone from Half-A was here too.

My watch beeped at me. After glancing over my phones to make sure they were off, I checked myself in the glass of a nearby shop. I’d borrowed some of Missy’s in-costume product that straightened her hair, I’d thrown a generic dayglo waterproof over the top of my coat, and the set-up was complete as I pulled out the scratched toy Alexandria helmet from my bag and put it on. I’d never got around to returning it so it was mine, and at least this way Dox would definitely recognise me. And then I headed in.

The reek of stale sweat and imperfect personal hygiene was like a hammer to my nose. The floor was black and tacky from spilled soda, the walls polished metal greasy with fingerprints. A demon-faced suit of life-sized red armour scowled at anyone who stepped inside, next to a black-carapaced bug-like alien with a worryingly phallic head. There was a poster of a superheroine up on the wall, and it would have been called pornographic if it hadn’t been Narwhal who dressed like that all the time anyway. She was really letting the heroine side down. And then there was the thrum of tens of desktops, the whine of their screens, the blare of arcade machines and the clack-clack-clatter of fingers on keyboards.

“Can I help you?” asked the anaemic-looking guy behind the front desk. “And, uh, you sure you wanna come in wearing that dented toy mask?”

I placed the voucher in front of him. “I’m here to see someone,” I said, not letting go of the printed paper.

He checked it. “Oh. Right.” Just a hint of unease in the way the corner of his mouth quirked down, but no surprise. Maybe the PRT ought to take a closer look at this place. “That’s okay. Your voucher entitles you to one hour of play, over on machine 13. Just check the ceiling for the numbers.”

Nerves humming, I paced slowly towards the seat I was assigned. Some of the mostly-boys here glanced over at me, but they seemed more interested in their games. I saw Megumi and caught her eyes. She nodded at me. At least she was okay. And - ah - up ahead, I could taste Leet’s artificial colourings. I didn’t sit down at the seat for 13, but only looked at its webcam.

“Well, I’m here,” I said.

An IM client popped up. “Hi, Starlight,” it said. The colourings were close.

I leaned over the keyboard. “You didn’t have to bring me all the way out here,” I typed.

“Well, no.” I knew that voice, coming from behind me. “I didn’t. But I’m just your biggest fan and I just wanted to really talk to you about what a gosh-darn positive example you’re making as a role model for young girls.”

No one who used the word ‘gosh-darn’ meant it. I turned, slowly, fingers twitching. There she was. Dox. Leaning against the wall, arms crossed.

“Hi,” I said, and gave a meaningful glance around the room. “Lovely place you have here. It suits Half-A perfectly. Did Leet pick it out for you?” I remembered the arguments between her and the boys I’d heard, so I’d decided I was going to get a few jibes in about that whereever I could.

“I know this probably isn’t up to your government-funded standards,” she said, tone as sweet as aspartame. “But it’s just so hard to rent a properly outfitted meeting room for this kind of thing on short notice when you’re an independent businesswoman, you know? You government sorts have it so easy compared to private entrepreneurs like me. We’re really the backbone of the American economy.”

I looked her up and down, taking in every detail I could. This was the first time I’d actually seen her in person, and her costume had changed since the security cam footage which was all the PRT had on her. Her eyes were slightly below mine, and if I had to guess she was a couple of years older. A black skull mask for the upper half of her face, revealing bright violet eyes that had to be coloured contacts, framed by loose blonde hair. There was an eye-like camera lens in the centre of her forehead, tinted the same colour as her contacts. She wore a tan-coloured coat, belted at the waist, and from the sickly sweet scent she had tinkertech hidden under it. Maybe it was her gloves; black, but with glowing violet veins. I didn’t know what they could do, but I’d want to de-power them if it came to blows. My eyes widened as I saw a band of flesh revealed between her black stockings and the bottom of her coat. She had to be cold like that. And her shoes were strange things, more like foot-gloves, with individual toes. Maybe she would be taller than me in normal shoes.

“Nice to see you’re checking me out, ‘cause I do put effort into this look,” she said, “but this isn’t a date. This is a work thing. Let’s keep it professional between us.”

“You wish I was checking you out. I was just admiring Leet’s work,” I countered. Though if it wasn’t for those weird shoes, I wished I could get away with wearing something like that. Her coat was just tailored enough to tell me she was hiding a better figure than I had under it. And I immediately saw that if she had to make a run for it, she could dump the mask and the coat and she’d be just another woman on the street. Emma would want to know about her style. I would have to tell her if - when - we made up. “Did he also stop you from wearing a pair of full-length tights? Are your legs cold?”

I got the feeling that I’d landed something, because there was just a subtle tightening of the muscles around the edge of her mouth. “Well, you know, some of the more stylish of us have to make sacrifices for fashion. Where’s your pretty blue-and-silver suit, Star? You don’t mind if I call you Star, right? This hobo-chic really isn’t doing you any favours, and using Alexandria’s helmet in place of your own? What would PR say? You didn’t even dress up for me!”

“Is there a point to this?” I asked, shifting on the sticky metal floor.

“Oh, Star, Star, Star! I’m just having a joke! A laugh! You really shouldn’t take everything so seriously!” She smiled sweetly at me. “Come on, let’s head over to the arcade cabinets. We shouldn’t distract the people who are playing here!”

“I’m not going to a second location with you,” I said.

“Yeah, okay, but they’re just over there.” She pointed over my shoulder, and I shifted around her so I could look over there while keeping an eye on her. She didn’t appear to be lying. Yet. “Oh! You’re so mistrustful, Star! So suspicious. So mean to treat a fan like this!”

She was trying to get under my skin. And succeeding. However, she was just using words rather than a knife, so I’d put up with it for the moment. “Okay. Let’s move this, then.”

It was even noisier in front of the cabinets. The sound of engines from Cross Trax 2, the gunshots from Steelhead: Mutant Warrior, and pinking of the pinball machine all blended together. She took up a position in front of a cabinet called Death Punch IV Alpha, and hit a few buttons until it went into Demo mode. I squared up to her as on the screen two masked fictional capes took up their positions on either side.

“You said you knew something about Purity,” I jabbed.

“Mmm hmm. And you must really want that, Star. Why else would you have come here to talk to a dangerous villain like myself? I mean, I could be here to set you up for Uber and Leet to get back at you. The boys are pissed.”

I shook my head. “You wouldn’t have done this if you thought I was going to flake. But I did what you said.”

“So, here’s the thing, Starlight.” Dox managed to find a hereto unknown plateau of self-satisfaction, the game screen lighting up half her face. “You didn’t follow my instructions. You didn’t come alone.”

Crap. “Mmm.”

“I’m a technopath, Starlight. Oh, you were very clever turning your cell off, but you’ve got Radiant outside. It’s why you’re so confident. And why you’re willing to walk into a supervillain’s lair.”

“Just an insurance policy in case your Half-A buddies were looking for revenge. Or in case you decided to double-cross me.”

Dox laughed. “Very good. But I’m monitoring the PRT traffic. You didn’t tell them. It’s just you and your unsanctioned, probably-illegal rogue op. So I suppose I can let you off.”

I glanced over at the men on the computers. Some of them were watching me, and more than that, they looked away when they saw I was looking at them. So that was her game. She also had her own people here. I couldn’t see Uber or Leet, but Half-A did have some unpowered henchmen. The briefing papers said that they sometimes got Leet’s old tech handed down to them, but all the artificial sweetener-taste in here was coming from Dox.

“You’re still taking a big risk, so you want something,” I said, feeling a prickling run down my spine.

“Maybe it was just a fishing expedition and I’m surprised a big fat trout bit.” I must have frowned. “I joke, I joke! You really need to work on your sense of humour, Star. You’re not fat at all! Actually, what’s going on is this,” she leaned in, the light from the screen playing across the left side of her face, “Purity is a psychotic bitch. I might be the robber in the little game of cops and robbers we’re playing, but Purity is someone who grabs a real knife and starts stabbing all the other kids.”

My lips curled back. “So, what? It’s bad for business?”

“I’m a good citizen!” she insisted, sounding hurt. “I just want to take down a mass-murdering neo-Nazi!”

“Try something else. If you were just after that, you’d pass the information straight to Armsmaster, say.” I frowned at her. “Also, you’re not a good citizen. You’re a thief, a robber, and you send monsters to attack a mall.”

“Well, I’m less harmful than a lot of others!” Dox said, not even bothering to try to refute what I’d said. “Look at, say, Max Anders.”

“Who?”

“Oh, he’s just the CEO of Medhall. The pharmaceutical company? Gee, Star, how can you not know that?” She let out an annoying giggle that had to be a pretence. “But the government calls me a criminal just because I steal things, but how many people has a CEO like that hurt? I’m just a small widdle fry when there are big, hungry fish out there who you should be arresting instead.”

She clearly wanted me to go ‘huh, you have a point’. But that was dumb. For one, I was pretty sure that said medical company hadn’t unleashed mutated cyborg pets on a mall, and for two, there was a difference between ‘being a CEO’ and ‘being a super-criminal’. Though given she dropped his name, I wondered - was that related to her trigger? Why would she just pick some random CEO as an example of ‘someone who was worse than her’?

“I don’t believe you,” I settled on.

“Harsh.” Dox leaned against the arcade cabinet while the sound of grunts came as one of the capes kicked at the other. “Try this one on for size, then - we clashed with the Empire-88 a couple of months back, and I want to hurt them.”

Ah. Now that I could buy. That had been in the intel reports I’d read, so she wasn’t making it up.

“Yeah, I do hate having to be honest around you.” Dox rolled her purple eyes. “You’re a pain in the ass for someone who’s only got a Thinker rating because of some weak-ass ‘sensing sources of energy’ fringe-benefit.”

Weird thing was, I was starting to get how she worked. She only complimented me if she was trying to deflect or mislead me. “You’re trying to distract me.”

“Wow, do you treat all your fangirls this way?”

“Only the supercriminals.” I exhaled. “So, what do you want to tell me about Purity?”

“It’s not so simple,” Dox said, folding her hands behind her back. “It’s a question of the unwritten rules, you know?”

Unwritten rules were worth less than the paper they weren’t written on, and I said as much.

“It matters to me. I don’t want to wind up with a bullet in my head because the Empire found out I was a tattletale. So I have a few things I want from you. For one, keep my name out of this. There are enough Empire-sympathisers in the cops and even in the PRT that I don’t want my name in the system. It’d be bad for my health to be subjected to a gangland execution.”

“I can do that,” I said cautiously. I wasn’t exactly planning to tell the Protectorate that I’d been in contact with Dox. “What else?”

“A favour.”

“What favour?”

“Nothing yet. A future favour. Information similar in scale to all this. I tell you where Purity is going to be,” she tapped the forehead of her mask, “and in the future, you pay me back. It’s really important to you. I’ve read your files.”

“How?” I demanded.

“Oh, Star, Star, Star. You think the PRT servers are 100% secure? That someone, oh, maybe a mid-ranking official won’t take his work out on a laptop and then happen to get close enough for me to have a poke around.” She waggled her fingers at me, and grinned. “You have a lot of faith in federal IT procurement.”

I glowered at the accidental reminder of how annoying the template issues had been earlier today. Great. So idiots were accidentally leaking info by taking unsecured machines near Little Miss Technopath. “I can’t just leak you info.”

“Pretty sure you can, Star. No one has to know. And it’s only fair. I’m telling you about another supervillain. Do you think you can take her down without this? Or will the PRT keep running around, chasing her and not finding her.” The screen lit up with a blue-and-white energy blast, and the brightness played over her features, a gleam in the eye-like lens of the camera in the centre of her forehead. “Just like they’ve run around for… oh, years. Purity’s killed before. Lots and lots of times over the years. She’ll kill again. You know it. I know it. The PRT knows it.

“But they’re not going to catch her, because you don’t believe in the game of cops and robbers - but they do.”

“Bullshit.”

“Oh, really?” Dox’s smile was the fall of saints. “Star, if they wanted to take down Purity, they’d have called in Alexandria or Legend years ago. But they haven’t. Have they?”

They hadn’t. Damn her. I… I needed this. But I couldn’t betray my friends. And. I tried not to show any of the inner conflict I was feeling, but from her expression she could see it. My stomach churned with butterflies. I just needed to find a way to... “So I’ll repay you with information on a villain,” I tried. That had to be alright. I didn’t care if she used the info to carry out a heist on ABB illegal casinos or steal from the mob or whatever.

“Mmm. Don’t worry so much, Star. You can trust me. I’m just your super mega fan!” It didn’t help at all. “And one last thing.”

“What?” I asked, almost out of patience.

“Just tell me that you needed my help for this.” A little note of cruelty there. “That you can’t find Purity on your own. Ask me really nicely. Beg me.”

My mouth pursed into a tight line. My hands balled into fists. “Why are you-”

“Because you caused me problems in the mall and you think you’re so clever. Because you want this information so badly you’re willing to come to little old me.” She crossed her arms. “I’ve put time into working out how best to make you suffer for the trouble you caused me, and I realised this was it. To make you know you need me, hero. And when you take her down, you’ll know you couldn’t have done it without my help.”

The acid in her voice was almost enough to make me recoil. Was this the real Dox under the playful and really annoying mask? Or just another lie? Dox was like the reports on the Empire; too much information and too much noise for me to pick out what mattered.

“I’m waiting. If you want Purity. Beg me.”

Screwing my eyes shut, I tried to shut down the cringing yawn in my gut. It didn’t matter. It really didn’t. She was just a jumped-up supervillain who had information I needed. So it was alright to say, “Please tell me this, Dox. I can’t find it out on my own.”

“Hmm.” She tapped a gloved index finger against her violet lips. “I’m not sure you really mean it…”

“Pretty. Please,” I grated out. “I need to know where to find Purity. And you’re the only one who can tell me. Because you’re the best at this.”

“Well, since you asked so nicely…” Her voice was sweet and playful again, drained of its venom. She dug into a pocket, and passed me a folded piece of paper. “You see, Purity is going to be active on New Year’s Eve. With the bad weather front moving in and the blizzard warning, things won’t be clear enough for her to do anything before then. There’s a warehouse in the Docks she thinks is engaged in the smuggling of white girls out overseas - out to buyers in Africa. She’s going to come charging in, looking to stop it.”

“If you know about a place like that…” I said, looking at the paper. An address in the Docks, and a company name, and even an estimated time. New Year’s Eve. It made a weird kind of sense. Purity was very obvious against the sky - but with fireworks going off and the PRT and Protectorate with people on leave, she’d have less chance of being spotted, “... well, why haven’t you told anyone?”

“Star,” Dox said, both patronising and sarcastic. “It’s not real. It’s what we technically call a ‘lie’. A deception. A falsehood. Purity, you see, is even more stupid than you are. She wants to believe that immigrants are selling girls to Africans, because she’s all about that ‘securing a future for our white race’ BS. And I happen to know the identity of a crooked cop in the BBPD who’s been feeding her info for a couple of years now. So I dangled a big fat fake story in front of him, and he bit the wriggly worm. Thank me. I did it just for you, because I’m such a fan.”

“Bully for you,” I said, trying not to sound too annoyed.

“It was easy to put it together. I can’t believe the PRT never figured it out. But all I had to do was check the BBPD’s network, cross-reference Purity’s activity against entries into your centralised logging system, check for network variability and wouldn’t you know it… oh!” She clapped her hands. “Were you trying to do the same thing, Star? Trying to work out if there was a way to draw her out of hiding. Oooh. Such a shame you weren’t good enough to put it together.”

“I guess the BBPD is an open book to you. One written in crayon.” In the Wards, you got to hear what the PRT and the FBI and other federal agencies thought about city cops. It wasn’t pretty.

“And in very big letters. Their network security is awful, and you don’t even want to know how bad they are at password hygiene. They store the passwords in plaintext, Star. Plaintext!”

“One question?” I said, narrowing my eyes. “You’ve talked so much about your powers. Been way more open about them now than you ever have been before. Showed up here in person, too. Why?”

She laughed at that. “It’s very easy, Starlight. But I guess I overestimated you. I thought you’d be able to work it out yourself.”

“And deny you the pleasure of lecturing me about it?”

“Oh, you,” She sounded almost friendly. “Very well, Star, the reason I’m telling you this is because I know you can’t tell the PRT any of it. All the info you’ve found out from me about my powers is stuff that will get you in deep shit with your bosses if you tell them, because they’ll ask you where you found it and, you know, I don’t think they’ll accept ‘I read it online’ as an answer. If you tell them you met up with me like this, they might kick you down to probationary status. Maybe even kick you out of the Wards entirely.

“So, yeah, I’m telling you special secrets about how my power works that I’ve never told anyone else. Because I know it’ll eat at you that you can’t tell. And that’s hilarious.”

She wanted me to call her a bitch. Oh, I knew that. I was - had been - friends with Emma. Dox was needling me. She won if I reacted. And she was rubbing it in my face that she had dirt on me. So it took everything I had, but I gritted my teeth and forced myself to smile at her. “It’s good to hear my new friend is having fun,” I said. “You know, with a power like that, you should really put it towards heroic purposes. You could always join the Wards. Just think; you could have a team that isn’t a pair of misogynistic shitbags. And a costume that doesn’t leave your thighs cold in midwinter.”

I was sure there was a sickly note to her smile. I decided to count that as a small victory. “And deal with someone as boring as you? No thank you.”

I checked the paper again, felt it out for any hint of Tinkertech or energy, and then put it in my pocket. “Well. I’d like to say it was a pleasure doing business with you.” But it’d be a lie, I didn’t need to add.

“Just think of me as your friendly neighbourhood source of cheat-codes,” Dox said, giving me a pretty little grin. “Remember, Star, you owe me.”

“When will you ask for the info?”

“Dunno! I think a lot of favours just get better when you sit on them for a while, you know? Like fine wine.”

She better hope it was fine wine. Some things aged like milk instead. “If this turns out to be an Empire trap or Purity doesn’t show, it’s off. And I’m coming for you.”

“My my, so paranoid, Star. I thought we were friends!” she said in a faux-hurt tone, then winked. “But I’m dealing in good faith here. If Purity doesn’t show, well, we’ll see where things go. Have fun on your illicit black-ops raid, Star! Bye bye!”

I wanted out of here, and once I was away from the clamour and the racket I sucked down breaths of cold air. I was willing to forgo the warmth of my aura to wash the taste of that stinking internet cafe from my mouth. My heart pounded like a drum in my ears, and I could feel my cheeks glow. She was just the… the most infuriating human being I had ever come across! Like Emma at her bitchiest, turned up to eleven, and then made really, really smug. And she was as pretty as Vicky, too! Why were there so many gorgeous blonde girls around? It wasn’t fair for those of us who were skinny brunettes!

With a huff, I tried to put that aside. I had the information. That was all that mattered. I stepped into a side alley to take off my helmet and the top layer of day-glo coat and stash them in my bag. The snow was getting even heavier, so I crossed the street to the KFC while I was waiting for my phones to boot up.

“You got it?” Amy asked, around a mouthful of fries.

“If we can trust it,” I said, pushing the paper forwards. “Dox says she set up Purity with fake info to lure her out. Down in the Docks, New Year’s Eve.”

“This pfftink’s,” she swallowed, “stinks. Why’s she doing all this?”

“She says… a lot of things. But the one which sounded most true was that they clashed with the Empire a few months back and she wants revenge.”

“Figures.” Amy offered me a fry.

“Thanks.” I ate it, watching as Megumi left the cafe. “I’m not ruling it out that Half-A is up to something. They might be setting us up. Or they might be planning to attack somewhere on New Year’s Eve and they want us nice and distracted.”

“Yeah. Oh well. If the villains want to stab each other in the back, I don’t care.”

I looked over at her food. “So…”

“No, buy your own,” she said, following my eyes.

“Come on, Amy, just one or two…”

“Get your own!” Amy pulled her fries away from me. “By the way. Taylor?”

“Yeah?”

“You look good with straight hair.”

I raised my eyebrows at the rare compliment. “Really? I thought it looked kind of weird.”

“I mean, it doesn’t look like you do normally, but the way it gets longer when straight… it suits you. It frames your face. And goes well with your hairband.”

“Hah. Too much hassle,” I said. “There’s no way I’m straightening it with tongs and damaging it. Split ends are a bitch with curly hair. And Missy’s stuff is expensive. I borrowed it for today, but there’s no way I’m spending… god, it’d probably be fifty dollars a week and it comes out as soon as it’s washed.” I wound a lock around my finger. “Look, it’s already starting to wear off. It’s springing back to curls.”

“Yeah. Fair. Just… like, I guess it looks good for special occasions. Not that I care how you do your hair, of course!”

I gave Amy a friendly pat on the back for her valiant attempt at fashion advice and normal human conversation, and stole another of her fries while she was distracted. “Well, thanks anyway, Ames.”

Megumi entered, and dropped into the seat on the other side of me. “Phew! That was tense as fuck. Pretty sure some of the guys in there were with her. But I saw her give you something. What happened? I couldn’t hear much over the noise of Death Punch IV Alpha.”

I recapped things, then checked my work cell. No new messages from Vista while it had been off. I quickly sent off an update and got a response back nearly immediately.

Amy had clearly been thinking. “New Year’s Eve is really soon.”

“I bet she’s going to hide among the fireworks,” Megumi said. “But yeah. We gotta be ready. Let’s get some food and talk things over.”

Once Megumi and I grabbed something to eat, we tucked ourselves away in a back corner, turned off our phones, and got to planning.

I slipped in the front door. It had been hard-going on the way back with the wind gusting that badly. The buses were running a slow schedule, and everywhere outside there were gritters and salters on the roads.

“Mraaaa,” said Paw Marx, glaring up at me. He looked hungry.

“Oh no, you can’t pull that on me,” I told him. “I bet you’ve been fed already. Haven’t you? And you don’t want to go outside, because it’s cold and snowy and if I let you outside you’d start whining as soon as you got there. So stop it.”

“Close the door, Taylor,” Mom ordered from the other end of the hall, poking her head out of the kitchen. Light streamed out into the dark hallway. “You’re letting the heat out.”

“Oh, oops.” I nudged Paw Marx back so he couldn’t try to escape, and closed the door. “So, before you get on my back, I went out with Megumi and Amy.”

“Where?” Her tone was careful; over-polite. For all Mom was complaining about letting the heat out, things were no warmer inside.

“An arcade.”

“And why is your hair straight?”

I checked it. It was starting to re-curl, but I hadn’t washed the stuff out yet. “I was bored at the office so Missy put her costume stuff in my hair.”

“It doesn’t look good on you.”

I exhaled, my chest feeling tense and the hair on the back of my neck on end. “I was just trying it. So, is there anything else you want to interrogate me about?”

“I’m just asking questions,” Mom said, her lips curling up in the way they did when she was hurt and being guarded.

“Maybe you can break out the car battery and the jump cables if I’m not answering to your satisfaction, then,” I retorted, lips curling up. “I mean, if you’re going to make this an interrogation, you should do it properly.”

Mom sighed. “Why are you being like this?”

“I am being ‘like this’ because I was just out with friends and I suddenly get back to find the Spanish Inquisition waiting for me!”

“Well, why didn’t you ring me to tell me you were going to be out late?”

“Why didn’t you call me if you wanted to know where I was?”

“Because half the time you never pick up your phone when you’re at the office so what’s the point!” she snapped. “You weren’t even meant to be in today! All I got this morning was a ‘Going to hang out at the PRT with the others’!”

“Yeah, well… well, I’m back now!”

The awkward silence dragged out. “Dinner’s going to be in ten minutes.”

“I ate.”

“Taylor!”

“I was out with Amy and Megumi! They were hungry! I’m going up to my room to change and wash this stuff out of my hair.” I stomped up the stairs, pausing to add, “Is that alright with you?”

“You can go up and get changed and cleaned up, but I want you downstairs. Even if you’re not eating, you can try being a normal human being instead of… of a raging teenage monster who’s acting like this!” Mom blurted out.

“Fine!” I stormed off upstairs; chewing on my lip, hands twisting in my pockets. I kicked the bag with the toy helmet in it under my bed, then slumped down onto the mattress, not even bothering to turn on the light. The soft glow of the display of my alarm clock lit up the room in shades of blue-tinted shadows.

The note from Dox was in my pocket. Such a heavy thing for a folded-up piece of paper. There was still a part of me that wanted to tell Mom about it. But just a part, overruled by the rest of me. She dared lecture me like she did after the Half-A thing? Yes, I was angry - and unlike her I was angry for the right reasons! I was going after the real criminals! The neo-Nazis! And when Purity was out of the way and safely locked up then I could try to rebuild my life without her presence there. I could tell Mom that I’d gotten revenge for Dad, and she’d understand. And Emma, too - without Purity poisoning everything, I could make everything better. I’d even apologise to her, even though it hadn’t been all my fault, so I wouldn’t have to live without her.

New Year’s Eve. I’d wrap up everything. And then I’d be free next year. And I’d take my lumps from the PRT and deal with whatever happened in the aftermath. But I needed Purity out of the way. I needed to be free from her presence. Her influence. The memories.

The wind screamed outside.

And maybe Dad would forgive me.

Chapter Text

New Year’s Eve slipped by with all the speed of an anchor in a tar pit. Gram and Granddad would be coming round on New Year’s Day for their annual visit, driving up from New Hampshire. Mom had tried to get them to put it off because of the snow on the roads, and Gram had ignored her. So of course Mom was up at six, hurrying around and fretting about the state of the house. She was overdoing it as always. It wasn’t like they didn’t already know we still hadn’t finished unpacking from the move. And with a fifteen-year old in the house, it wouldn’t be all that surprising if it was a mess.

But Mom cared about Gram’s opinion. A lot. Every year, she’d go into this whirlwind of compulsive cleaning and tidying when their visit drew near, trying to make sure everything was spotless and there was nothing Gram could possibly disapprove of. She was a strict, stern woman, kind of like Amy’s mother. The sort of person you felt was judging you and finding you wanting regardless of what you were talking about, and who always had to be in charge of all decisions or she’d come up with a ceaseless stream of criticisms. Granddad was nicer, a calm, soft-spoken historian who Mom had inherited her love of books and literature from, but his health had been declining over the past few years, and even when I’d been a kid, Gram had been the one who led the conversations and ruled the room.

... looking back now, I thought I could make a guess at why Mom had gone off the rails at college.

But that didn’t make it right! Not when she’d been burning down buildings and making excuses for murderers and... and...

I growled, slapping the dusting cloth down on the mantelpiece over the electric fire and swiping it around with more force than necessary. I’d been awake since six as well. Not because of Mom - although she had dragged me out of bed at seven and given me a pile of cleaning chores.

No, I was humming with nerves because of this evening. The blizzard had passed us overnight, just like Dox had predicted. Everything was set for the plan we’d made, the four of us, and what we were going to do after dark. Every hour was torture, and the seconds ticked by agonisingly slowly. Each time I checked my watch, less time had passed than the last. I was trapped in Zeno’s Paradox, and the clock hands seemed like they were never going to catch that taunting, stationary “4”.

I checked again as I put the clock back on the freshly dusted mantelpiece. 11:33.

Urgh.

Paw Marx skittered off the couch at my frustrated groan and bolted from the room. He’d been doing that all morning, spooked by the aura flickering agitatedly beneath my skin. When I checked, the veins on the inside of my wrist were glowing again. It had been happening late into last night, making it impossible to fall asleep. I didn’t want to be dusting! Or moving boxes around, or vacuuming the carpets, or... or any more of this pointless make-work that wouldn’t impress Gram anyway! I wanted to be moving! I wanted to be doing something! I wanted it to be four already so I could go out and meet up with the others!

Growling again, I looked around the room, decided it was as dusted as it was going to get, and stomped upstairs loudly enough for Mom to hear. She didn’t call out to stop me. Our relationship was currently about as frozen as the world outside, and if there was a single solitary silver lining to that, it was that she probably wouldn’t want to risk the extended conversation and possible argument that nagging at me to do more chores would entail.

I locked my door, settled myself down on my bed, and returned to what I’d been doing last night. Looking at photos. Not the photos of Mom in college. I’d seen enough of them. These were the photos I’d been sent up to get, that horrible afternoon.

The ones from my childhood. The ones with a wide-eyed, gawky, talkative little girl who didn’t know what it felt like to be hunted through a marketplace full of Nazis and skinhead militia. Who’d never been dosed with Tinkertech tranquiliser or forced to put down mutated animals in a darkened mall. Who didn’t know what it was like to trudge over the rubble of a broken tomb for eleven people, or the burnt one of fifty more.

That little girl couldn’t taste heat or track electric wires by scent. She didn’t know police procedure or legal codes. She went everywhere arm-in-arm with her best friend, and they shared their secrets freely and relied on each other when they were sad. She trusted her mother and thought she was the smartest, gentlest person in the whole damn world.

She had a dad.

The edge of one picture singed, curling up, and I swore and hastily dropped it. The damage was done, though. Mom was still there, on the left of the picture, and I was being swung between my parents’ loving hands in the middle. But the man on the right was obscured by the black singe mark of too much heat applied to the fragile Polaroid, blotting out his face and upper chest.

I swallowed against the pang of loss - there were many other pictures, but every one was precious - and forced my aura back down, still as tense as a wound spring. I stayed there, turning through the album’s pages with the utmost care, as the morning light bled away to afternoon, and the afternoon began the long, slow descent towards dusk.

At half past three in the afternoon, I stood. Mom knew I was meeting up with Amy and Megumi to watch the fireworks. I had a curfew to be back by, which I was probably going to miss.

But it didn’t matter.

By the time Mom caught up with me to scold me for being late, I’d have done what needed doing.

A grey sky stretched from horizon to horizon; lighter towards the west, nearly black over the ocean. The wind had let out, but there was still an unpleasant breeze that clawed at the back of the neck and crept up through the cuffs of jackets. Snow was piled high, and trees had fallen down on some of the roads by the seafront.

The warehouse Purity was targeting was near the foot of Captain’s Hill, close enough to the apartment fire from November that I could see its blackened skeleton from our look-out point on a bench halfway up the hill. It was small for what I’d think of as a warehouse; a single-story concrete building with an A-frame roof and locked metal doors, only two or three times the footprint of my house. Hardly the sort of building I’d believe was playing host to a bunch of poor innocent white girls being shipped out to Africa as slaves. But then, I wasn’t a gullible Nazi.

It was nestled up next to one of the train lines that fed into the big interchanges up in the Trainyards, off to the left as we looked towards the Bay, sandwiched between the rails and the park around Captain’s Hill. From where we sat on our bench - dedicated to someone called Rosalie Davis, according to the little plaque - we could look down across the frozen pond and the open grassy area where people played softball during the summer. The train line on the other side was one for the industry and the docks rather than people, and things were barely running over the Christmas break. Rusting carriages mouldered in sidings, abandoned as the city’s factories shut down.

We weren’t the only ones here. Captain’s Hill was a popular spot for festivities, and there was a fireworks display being set up for later at the top of the hill. The field had been cleared of snow to make space for an unlit bonfire, and now the drifts were piled up at the edges in mounds that reached up to my neck. The paths were thickly salted, and Megumi’s boots crunched as she swung her legs back and forth.

We’d arrived for stake-out at four in the afternoon, bundled up and prepared to wait. Dox’s fake source had said the girls were being shipped out at eight, and she’d said Purity would wait until after dark. Unwilling to risk missing her, I’d gone for the conservative approach and come early. Better to be bored for a few hours than lose our chance to take down a mass-murderer. Right now, the park was still mostly empty, but crowds would be trickling in later. Another point in favour of showing up early, I guess. We had first claim to the bench.

Of course, the downside of showing up early was that four in the afternoon on New Year’s Eve was still cold as hell.

“Hell is hot,” Amy said, when I made that remark. “Which would be really nice right now.”

“Not the centre of the ninth circle,” I told her smugly. She elbowed me in the ribs for that, but it was worth it to educate her.

“You don’t have to act extra nerdy to make up for how you don’t have your glasses on,” she grumbled.

“She’s not acting extra nerdy. She’s like that always,” Megumi said.

She seemed fine, shedding heat from her own power in little puffs of superheated breath, but Amy was cuddled up so close that she was practically sitting on me, despite her layers and layers of black coats and black sweaters and black thermals. I threw an arm around her back to keep her warm as the sun dipped low in the sky and the long shadow of Captain’s Hill stretched out to engulf the field and swallow the warehouse. The western sky was tinted rust-red, and the shadows of the trees uphill stretched out toward us like grasping, spidery fingers, rustling in the offshore breeze. I sighed, shifting a little to get Amy to stop crushing my thigh and wishing I’d brought a book.

“You two trying to fuse into one person over there?” Megumi scoffed at us. She was smoking a cigarette in quick, tense puffs and tapping her foot, already impatient after only fifteen minutes or so of waiting. “If you were any closer you’d be in her lap.”

“Fuck you. It’s not my fault you’ve both got powers that keep you warm,” Amy shot back. “It’s freezing out here. And Taylor’s less likely to set me on fire.”

Megumi scowled, but shrugged off the barb, returning to scanning back and forth across the sky. I kept an eye out, but I wasn’t hopeful that she’d be showing up soon. “It’ll be a couple of hours yet, I think,” I said. Still, it was worth checking. Putting an earphone in from where they were dangling over my collar, the cord safely under my outer layers, I reached into an inner pocket and dialled the group call. Megumi and Amy had followed my example, and I heard the echoey sound as both of them picked up. “Missy,” I asked. “You hearing us?”

“Loud and clear,” she chirped. “Gee, guys, you know, I’m really bummed out that I can’t be out there with you in the freezing cold for hours and hours waiting for the fireworks to start. Instead I have to sit in this warm room next to the minifridge full of snacks. It’s a real shame.”

“Ha-de-ha,” I sighed, cranking my aura up a fraction and hanging up to stop Amy getting it into her head to start a bitch-war with our mission control. She certainly looked pissed at Missy’s tone, though I thought there was probably more truth in the sarcastic jibe than Missy wanted to let on. She really had wanted to be out here with us, and if being smug and comfortable kept her happy back at base... well, I wasn’t going to complain.

Amy and Megumi did not share my stoicism. They stayed quiet for another half-hour of increasingly obvious boredom before starting to fidget, and I had to remind them twice about not wasting phone battery on games to pass the time. One of my big worries was that Vicky would call and show up to hang out - and worse, bring Dean with her. That was a nightmare scenario that I hadn’t come up with any way to avert. Hopefully she was enjoying herself enough that she wouldn’t bail and come looking for me or Amy, but not so much she’d decide we’d need to have fun there too.

“Oh, she’s at Dean’s,” Amy mentioned when I expressed those worries. “And, y’know, given she didn’t invite me, she has plans.”

“Firework plans,” Megumi said, grinning like Paw Marx if someone left the food bag out.

“Probably not just that,” Amy said darkly.

“Do… you not know what a firework plan is?”

“You’re going to tell me even if I tell you not to, aren’t you?”

“Just like a firework, they’re gonna go bang.”

“Shut up!”

That was good info, because that meant we wouldn’t have Orbital or Gallant showing up. And yet somehow I really hadn’t wanted to hear that.

At four, the park was nearly empty. By five, the sun had set and the crew were testing the sound stage up by the fireworks display at the top of the hill.

By six, people were arriving in force. They came from all over the city for the Captain’s Hill display. It was one of the nicer ones, and it was early enough in the evening for kids to come too. By mutual unspoken agreement, the three of us brooded on our bench and gave aggressively sullen-teen looks at anyone who looked like they were thinking about trying to steal it. It was a good position, halfway up the hill where people weren’t inclined to linger and nobody bothered looking too hard at us on their way up to the top. I watched the families stream past - little girls sitting on their dad’s shoulders, mothers telling their children to share the candy from the stalls on the field below, couples with arms slung around each other’s waists.

The bonfire below caught with a woomph and a loud chorus of cheers as the first fireworks started rising over the city. Not proper displays, just people at home letting off their own now that it was dark enough to see. By the light of the fire, I could see the people who’d been clustering close step back from the heat thrown off by the orange-yellow flames. Wood smoke drifted our way, bringing a faint nostalgic smile to my face. I remembered coming to festivals just like this one back when I was a kid. Back when Dad was still around to take me.

Something caught my eye in the dark sky, a bright spot among the fireworks displays that wasn’t fading or rising or falling. I scrabbled for Mom’s ‘borrowed’ binoculars, finding the white light, and adjusted the focus to confirm.

“Girls,” I said to the others, fumbling at my phone’s quickdial. Missy picked up immediately. “I’ve got eyes-on Purity. She’s south… south-west-ish. Over there. Above the right-hand side of the Boardwalk, heading this way.” A distant boom reached us as hundreds of red darts scattered out in a giant sphere and began to fall back down towards the ground. “Just in front of that big red one. Look to the side of it.”

“Got it,” Amy said. Assured that I wouldn’t lose it, I glanced down at my watch. Twenty to eight. Later than I’d thought she’d show up, but it was her.

“Missy, what’ve you got?” Megumi asked. She hadn’t spotted her yet, eyes still flicking across the skyline, but she hadn’t forgotten our ace in the hole back at base. “If she’s where Sparkles says she is, she’s coming in from Downtown, over the south docks.”

“Nothing right now, but she might just not have been spotted yet. Wait, no, hang on.” The pause scraped across my nerves like nails over a chalkboard for ten unending seconds before she came back on. “Yeah, okay. I’ve got something bright overhead on the Cedar and Boyle junction traffic camera, heading your way. That’s probably her. Go kick her ass.”

I reached into my bag and pulled out the scuffed and scratched-up plastic helmet. Settling it on my head, I traded a look with Amy and Megumi.

“Remember the plan,” I told them. “Bring her down. She needs to know why. This is justice. We’re not like her.”

Megumi bared her teeth in a quick flash of white, and fastened on her cat mask from the Japanese market, the white and red standing out like a ghost in the gathering gloom. Like me, she wasn’t wearing her Wards costume. We weren’t doing this as Wards.

“She’s a villain,” Amy said. She’d been glowering more throughout our wait, and now looked up at the approaching glow with more than a little relish. “I’m not going to treat her with kiddie gloves. I’ll put her down, and we can worry about how hurt she is then.” She looked at me. “Worth it if it gets a villain off the board, right?”

“... right.” I didn’t like how much like Mom’s justifications that sounded. But I didn’t have time to worry about it, because Amy was already changing, growing upwards and outwards into the crystalline giant that was Radiant. Fluted grooves and holes covered her in a textured surface unlike her usual armour, and I resisted the urge to touch the clear, stiff gel that filled them. Purity could fire whatever she wanted at Radiant - like this, she’d proven capable of ignoring the strongest blast I was capable of throwing at point-blank range. “I think-”

The thunder-boom drowned out what I’d been about to say. I’d only ever seen Alexandria move like that before. There one second and gone the next in a sucking rush of buffeting wind. Her sonic boom drew screams from everyone around us. In an eyeblink she was out past the field and the fire, over the distant rooftops.

Purity met her halfway with a helix-blast that lit up the hill and drowned out the shadows from the bonfire below. It didn’t stop Radiant - I was willing to bet nothing could, at that speed, and her fluted skin scattered the heat and force in every direction like a blockage in a water stream. But as I watched her travel up the beam and burst it as she went, I realised what we’d missed.

“Shit,” I whispered, and took off after her. “Amy, wai-”

I wouldn’t get there fast enough, though. The force behind the beam didn’t hurt Radiant, but she had nothing sensory expressed - and like an idiot I’d forgotten about how much brighter Purity was than me. I didn’t get dazzled or blinded so I hadn’t thought about it. But Radiant came out of the beam at an angle, eyes full of light and sparkle.

She missed by half a foot and rocketed past at supersonic speed, close enough to toss Purity in her wake but not enough to stop her.

But I was in the air now, and she was coming my way. “Purity!” I yelled. “Surrender now! This is-”

The PRT, I cut myself off before finishing. Shit, no, I wasn’t acting as a member of the PRT right now. I was acting as a vigilante. “We have you outnumbered!” I yelled instead. “Stand down!”

She ignored me. I didn’t waste time or try charging like Radiant had; the plan was already fucked. Instead, I led off with as rapid a volley of starbolts as I could muster, as dense as I could make them. I rarely risked this kind of fire, even against gang members and villain capes, but here and now I didn’t hesitate. She was a murderer. She deserved it. It even felt sort of good to be able to cut loose into the sky and not worry about hurting anyone who didn’t have it coming.

And it didn’t matter, because she was too fucking fast to hit. She swung to the side in a wide arc, jittering in the air like a fly. Even leading my shots, I couldn’t hit the shining silhouette in the middle of the glow. Radiant had stopped with the same casual dismissal of inertia that had marked her take-off, but she hung uselessly in the air. Was she hurt? Blinded? Whichever it was, the moment passed, and she swivelled in the air, reorienting herself. I braced myself for the charge.

This time, she didn’t overdo it so much. She came in fast - far faster than me, faster even than Purity, but not so fast that she couldn’t manoeuvre. But Purity knew she could be blinded now, and for all that we’d planned to exploit her weaknesses, she wasn’t letting us. She kept swerving, kept avoiding my fire, and returned it - not at me, but at Radiant, more light than force, aiming at her face, her eyes. This close I could taste her - bubblegum, coating my tongue and sending me back to that day, the gum I’d been chewing in the gas station before everything started exploding around me. It only made me angrier, and I span to track her, escalating to two-finger beams, then three, then firing with my whole fists, as dense and wide as I could. She fired back, and I ignored the taste as white beams curved into my aura, swallowed by the flaring arcs of plasma. Others sailed past, beyond my draining range, her aim suffering from her speed-

“Shit, watch out!”

A wall of air buffeted me, and I tumbled head over heels before stabilising. Radiant caught me, cursing. She must have almost run into me, blinded by Purity’s beams again, and only barely managed to avoid a collision. She stabilised herself quickly, and let me off into the air again. But Purity was already fleeing, swerving low over the train line and shedding altitude to duck between the buildings.

We pursued. Wind whistled through my ears and flattened my aura against Radiant’s crystalline chest as she tucked me into the crook of her arm and blurred with speed. All she had to do was get me close enough to Purity like we’d planned...

... except she couldn’t.

Radiant was bigger, faster and stronger. With me right next to her, she was immune to Purity’s blasts. But - as much as I hated to admit it - Purity was just better at flying than we were. She'd been doing it for a decade, and it showed. Amy and I had only had our powers for a couple of years - and Amy could only be Radiant for five minutes a day of practice, max. She bulled through the air in straight-line charges, pushed from within by unstoppable force, as fast as a rocket and as single-minded in her direction.

But Purity just moved to where she needed to be. It was the difference between two fourth-graders splashing around in the school pool and an Olympic swimmer. She didn’t have to be faster than us. She just dipped down and threaded her way through buildings and train cars on the feeder line, forcing Radiant to drop me as she smashed her way through containers and clipped the corners of walls. I rose up, trying to keep pace, feeling a sinking feeling start to form.

We were running out of time.

“Stay still!” I heard Radiant bellow from somewhere ahead of me. “Fight me properly!” Her impacts were sending up huge bursts of powdery snow, and I’d lost track of Purity’s bright glow amidst the obstacles and crap.

“I’m not here to fight you!” I heard Purity yell as I rose higher still, trying to get a better vantage point. “I’m here to save people!”

I was taken aback at how... how normal she sounded. Just like someone you’d hear on the street. The surprise didn’t have time to fade before it was overtaken by a surge of resentment that flickered through my aura in half a dozen yellow-white arcs of plasma. How dare she sound so normal? She was a monster! She should sound cruel or shriek or sneer or something!

A pause. I couldn’t see her light - and from the fact I couldn’t hear any smashing sounds, neither could Radiant. “Is that what you told yourself?” she called out. It was hard to attach normal tones to Radiant’s voice, but I could hear the mockery. I followed the sound and found her on a crumpled train car that looked like a drinks can someone had stepped on. “You don’t even know why you’re here!”

“Radiant!” I called out, hoping she could hear me. “Don’t tell her things! She’s trying to waste your time!” If we let on that we knew why Purity was here, we might wind up having to explain how we knew. And admitting to our deal with Dox was not something I wanted coming up when we got chewed out for this.

“You’re just a New Wave rich idiot!” Purity yelled from somewhere near the warehouse. I dropped down to hear better, watching Radiant’s head turn slowly, triangulating. Purity was just at the edge of my energy-sensing range, and so there that she was swamping it. “Rubbing your money and powers in everyone else’s faces!”

Radiant smashed her fist into another empty train car, caving it in. I winced.

“Yes, I used to be with the Empire, but I’m not anymore!” Purity continued. “I’m a hero! Independent! I’m after slave traders! They’re selling girls to Africa! So help me or fuck off!”

“Vista? Did you get that bullshit about being ex-Empire?” I said.

“I heard. But I’m not buying it.”

Neither was I, and from the snort over the phone, Megumi felt the same way. As for Amy...

“Oh my god, you dumb bitch!” Radiant gave a derisive laugh, stalking towards the warehouse slowly, her feet scarring the ground. Trying to get another response to home in on. “African slavery rings? You’d have to be a moron to believe that kind of conspiracy BS! And bullshit you aren’t still with the Empire! You took out Lung for them! You’re a villain, we’re heroes, and you’re beaten. Give up.”

Silence. Then, a sudden streak of light below me. Not from where her voice had been coming from, either. She’d run out of places to hide, and apparently she was smart enough not to try escaping Radiant on the straights. Unfortunately, she’d chosen to flee towards the festival crowds instead.

“Flare! She’s heading back your way!” I yelled, and pushed everything I could spare into flight, dropping out of the sky as I tried to intercept her. Bubblegum exploded over my tongue again, and for a second I had her! I ripped away at her corona of white light and I felt her power on my tongue-

And then she was gone, momentum taking her back out of my range before I’d drained more than a mouthful. She caught herself in the air as if she’d done nothing more than skip across a pothole, and blazed away at speeds I couldn’t match.

Fuck. Had she done that just to gauge the limits of my range?

“I’ll get her attention!” Megumi snapped in my ear. I forced a little more into flight as I shot back towards the field, but I was right up against the stupid fucking limit of what I could output. What was the point of being able to take energy in so fast if I couldn’t send enough back out when I needed to? The fireworks were rocketing up from the top of the hill - had they even realised what was going on down here? - and painting splotches of bright colour across the smoky orange and shadows of the bonfire-light with each set that went up.

The crowds in the field were oo-ing and ah-ing at the show, huddling around the bonfire, buying food from the stalls, hemmed in by the high snow banks at the edge of the field and not paying attention. Had they thought this was all part of the entertainment?

I was trailing Purity by seconds, but she was already coming in over the frozen pond, stooping lower towards the crowds facing the wrong way. I had no idea where Radiant was. I couldn’t fire at her for fear of hitting innocents. And whatever she was doing to do-

The bonfire burst upwards in a plume of chilli-spice red that filled my eyes and drenched my tongue, and for a few seconds nothing mattered except the hypnotic glow. It was so strong. Stronger than anything I’d seen Megumi do in testing - stronger than anything since I’d stepped into that room a month ago and lost six minutes of memory as I walked right into the fire.

Purity’s course shifted, a bright white moth drawn to the roaring flame, and Radiant punched down from a pyrotechnic sky and missed her by less than a foot.

She hit the surface of the pond so hard that it shattered like a bomb had gone off under it. Hard enough that the hail of ice fragments made it through my aura without melting, stinging my chin and scoring chips and marks in my plastic helmet. Hard enough to kill, if that dive had connected. Even though it hadn’t, the mental punch of the fire and the shockwave and the hail of ice-shrapnel tossed up were enough to daze Purity. She began to fall, her smooth flight becoming a parabolic arc downward. I traced it in slow motion, my heartbeats timed to the flickering lights above as the screams from the crowd began. She’d clear the pond - barely - but I couldn’t tell if she’d hit the edge of the concrete-gravel path around it, or the thick snowdrifts just behind that. Radiant emerged from the freezing water, aiming upwards, arms coming out to either catch or crush-

It didn’t matter which.

Because that put her right under the strongest Blaster in the city.

Night became day, and the pillar of light turned a frozen pond into a cauldron of boiling steam.

I’d never seen Radiant hurt before.

Oh, I’d seen her scuffed up occasionally. Blemishes. Scratches here and there. She’d tackled Fenja once, back before Lung had gutted her, and that had cracked away a thin layer of crystal where the sword had hit. Like an onion where part of the skin had been torn off.

But it had never gone beyond surface damage.

This was more than surface damage.

I lunged down towards the water to pull her out. My aura stole the heat from the steam, leaving me dew-speckled as I plunged into the scalding clouds. I couldn’t see for shit as I flung my senses out, searching, seeking. There. Radiant’s huge form loomed in my fog-blurred vision, huge and solid and terrifyingly limp. I latched onto a cracked arm that protruded out of the water and poured as much effort as I could into pulling her up and out.

She flailed a little as I half-carried, half-dragged her across the mud, while rain began to pound down around us as the water flung up by Purity’s blast came back down. By the time I’d hauled her to the edge, she was flailing sluggishly, and I let go rather than be clipped by a bone-breaking accidental swat. Mud and snow went splattering in every direction as she collapsed across the pond-side path.

She was a horrifying sight. Whatever good her laser-scattering expression had done, it hadn’t been nearly enough to stop a blast of that scale. The uppermost layers of her crystalline body had been melted clean away - and the layers beneath that too. Layers and layers torn away, exposing the complex network of fluted capillary-channels of glass-like gel that ran below the surface. Those were cracked and heat-scarred now, and the clear material turned the milky whitish colour of overstressed plastic. And beneath even that, I could see spiderweb surface fractures over half-exposed shapes that looked skeletal, right where the damage was worst and the most material had been burnt away.

If I’d been looking at a human, I’d have called them dead on the spot. But even as I landed, Radiant was stirring, sitting up with a groan.

“Jesus Christ,” I whispered. “Are you…”

“Fuck me. Nearly had her. Stupid distracting fire,” she muttered, and even that ear-hurtingly resonant voice was cracked now, more like shaved ice crunching around a tuning fork than the clear finger-on-a-wineglass it usually was. As I watched, crystalline layers started to creep back to cover up the organelles. “And aaaaah. That actually hurt.”

“It... it looks like it, yeah,” I muttered, looking around. We were separated from the bonfire by the high snow banks piled up at the edge of the field. Beyond them, the sounds of a panicking mob of people terrified out of their minds were beginning to pick up in screams and yelling and the sounds of massed movement. The long shadows the bonfire cast on our side of the drifts were drowned out by the light of my aura, which was bright enough and hot enough that the mud was drying out and cracking under my feet as the nearby snow melted. I screwed my eyes shut, took a breath and pulled it back in to just above skin-level. Then I looked up.

No Purity. She’d been falling, peppered with ice shrapnel and dazed by Megumi and the near miss. She’d shot Radiant. Then what? Where had she gone? She couldn’t have gotten far, and I couldn’t see her in the air...

“Hey! Quit sitting around, she’s getting away!” Megumi’s voice barked over the phone as the screams and yells got louder. Red light and a chilli tang flared again, and they quietened down. Megumi started yelling something about evacuation to the crowds, painfully loud, and I winced and stuck a hand in my pocket to turn the volume down.

“Getting away where?” I asked, raising my voice to be heard over Megumi’s. “Stop yelling so loud! Which way did she go?”

“Down! She landed and stopped glowing. Now get over here!”

Shit, had... had Purity actually gone down and turned off her power? No... yeah, that actually made sense. The fireworks had stopped abruptly with that big blast - if she took to the air now she’d be super obvious. And with Flare to distract her and me still able to fly, she couldn’t lose us easily. Not while she was glowing, without fireworks to conceal her. So hiding in the crowds made sense.

But that meant she was on the ground. She was powered down. She was hurt.

She was running. And it hadn’t occurred to me to plan for that, because Purity didn’t run! She’d fought Lung - beaten him, too! Why would she run from us?

“Fuck, fuck, no, come on!” I looked back at Radiant - no, at Amy. The last of the crystal was flaking away, though at least she wasn’t hurt underneath it. She was furious though, teeth bared and face twisted in a ferocious scowl. “Goddammit! No, fuck that, I’m not going down after one fucking hit...”

She struggled to her feet, and I dampened my aura further and helped her up. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine! Which way’d she go?”

“She’s in the crowd somewhere, powered down,” I started off towards it, skirting around the snowdrifts towards the noise and the chilli-lasagne aftertaste of Megumi’s power. Tasting for bubblegum.

“Urgh. So she’s chickening out? Whatever, fine.” Amy panted a little as she kept up - Radiant was a physical god, but Amy wasn’t really one for staying in shape unless forced. “Fine, wait up, hang on. Here, just... charge me back up. She’s on foot, Radiant can catch her easy, then we win.” Amy stumbled to a halt and held out her hand, wiggling her fingers. “C’mon, hurry up, she’s getting away!”

I stared at her for a long moment. At the urgency in her eyes. At her outstretched hand.

“... no,” I said.

Her expression flickered. “What do you mean, ‘no’? She’s getting away, didn’t you notice? Juice me up and I can get her!”

“But I can’t.” The damage she’d taken was horrific, and I bet it would take a lot of energy to fix. If I helped her recharge now, even if I chowed down on a mains cable, I’d be weak enough to be out of the fight. I’d miss her getting caught. I’d miss dealing with her.

Amy stared at me in mute incomprehension. “Star, stop fucking around,” she ordered. “Come on, I need this.” She grabbed at me, and I stepped back, catching her wrist before it could touch skin and reflexively twisting it into a joint lock. She gasped, pawing at my hand, but I caught that one at the wrist as well and held her there, hands safely where they couldn’t touch my skin.

All across her palms, the pinkish-red cilia waved like fronds of seagrass in the current, twisting their delicate little stalks this way and that in search of living flesh. They were gentle, for what they were. It never hurt. All you felt was a tingling sensation as they wormed through the skin and drank your blood. A tingling sensation, an artificial high, and a wave of fatigue and weakened powers.

There were reasons we’d never told anyone about this part of Amy’s power.

“Taylor...” she whispered. I’d never stopped her before. Not with the stakes as high as this. I’d turned aside joking requests, but she’d never tried to drain me by force, and I’d never used force to stop her.

“I know,” I said, ignoring the sinking feeling of another friendship on the edge of ruin. This was going to fuck us up later, when the shock had worn off. But she was right. Purity was getting away.

“I know you need this, Ames,” I said, and swallowed down a dry throat. “But I need it more.”

I shoved her lightly, just enough to send her stumbling back.

And with her furious scream following me, I turned and ran after Megumi and the murderer.

Chapter Text

I made for the field in a straight line. My feet punched down into the wet, powdery innards of the snowdrifts, but I didn’t slow down or change course. I didn’t care what was in my way. Not when I was so close.

The dark of the evening was lit up fully now by firework displays going off all over the city, reds and blues and greens splashing over the white of the snow and the dull green-brown of the muddy, frozen grass. A fat, red-faced man almost knocked me over as he barged past, shepherding two daughters Missy’s age and a younger son. I caught myself on the slick mud and pushed back up, ignoring the stinging pain in my hands, and shoulder-barged through a group of college-age girls huddled up in stylish coats. I could smell cordite and wood smoke even before I fought my way over the snowdrifts that encircled the steaming pond.

But all other smells were crushed under the overpowering stench of bubblegum. It coated my tongue like Vaseline, sickly-sweet and so intense I gagged as I breathed in. I’d never tasted anything this strong before. I could almost scrape it off my tongue like a waxy, clinging layer. It was too strong. I couldn’t sense where she was in this. Not with the aftertaste of that blast slathered thick and cloying over the whole of Captain’s Hill. She was powered down and on the ground and injured and I’d have her if I could just get close, but I couldn’t find her. Not from the air in the middle of a crowd, and not like this.

“Flare, I’m on my way!” I shouted over the clamour of the crowd, holding in an earphone with one hand. So many people, shouting, screaming, calling for loved ones. There was too much noise to hear anything in response. All I could do was run.

Drawing on just a hint of flight downwards gave me enough traction to start making headway, but it wasn’t fast enough. I could hear Megumi yelling in Japanese over the line, but it wasn’t at me and I couldn’t understand it, so I ignored it. The bonfire was a blazing orange pillar spewing smoke up into the night. Whatever Megumi had done had left it burning hotter and fiercer than ever.

Around it was absolute chaos. It wasn’t a stampede, but only because there was too much free space and too many choices of direction for one to start. Around the edges of the field, families were dragging screaming kids away to their cars. Some people were just running, without any clear direction beyond ‘away from the pond’. Others had cameras out, or phones. Fuck, they’d be calling this into the PRT. Our cover from Missy was about to expire in the worst way possible, because what Purity had done would be choking the PRT lines with calls.

“Star, Star! Can you hear me?” I was far enough away from the wall of sound that I could make out Missy’s voice. “Talk to me!”

“Vista, calls coming your way, Purity nuked Radiant and blew the hell out of the Captain’s Hill pond under her,” I snapped, raising my voice over whatever Megumi was still saying, and heard her swear.

“I know! I know! Flare already told me that! Where’s Radiant?”

“Out of charge.” Shit. Knowing Amy, she’d cut her connection in a sulk. I had to believe that. I had to. I’d feel guilty about it later.

“Vista, where are the cameras!” Megumi interjected. “Where is she?”

“I’m trying to find her, I am! There’s no traffic cameras in the park, you know!”

“Just... do what you can, okay? Flare, I’m coming from the pond, where are you?” I saw an old man go down, either slipping on the mud or tripped by all the pushing and shoving going on, and my elbows came out long enough to fight my way over to him and help him up again as Flare answered.

“Near the bonfire! Get over here, I’m on her tail!” She broke off into more rapid Japanese for a moment. “She’s still in costume! I don’t care how, just catch up!”

My breath rasped as my arms and legs pumped. My power more than my trainers kept me upright and moving on the slushy, slippery ground. There were too many people moving and too much confusion for me to pick up on anyone specific, and both Megumi and Purity were short. I jinked to the right, dodging a couple keeping a close grip on their wailing infant and clingy pre-teen, and took the slope down in two long strides. There were abandoned rugs at the bottom of the slope and discarded bags of chips that the firework-watchers had left behind.

Smart move. Cape fights involving Purity were bad news. I knew that well, I thought darkly as I shoved my way through a gabble of slightly-older teenagers. Someone shouted at me, but I was through and moving before they could do anything about it.

Fuck it. Shouldering my way past groups of panicky festival-goers wasn’t getting me anywhere; I was a skinny teenage girl and there were too many people determined to flee the park. It was too dark to see my helmet, and even if it hadn’t been, people weren’t going to recognise me as a Ward. Most were too freaked out to look at me at all. I wasn’t Starlight at the moment, and that meant people weren’t going to move out of my way unless I made myself obvious.

I gave up any pretence of subtlety. Pulling on enough aura to make my eyes burn and my veins glow and my hair light up in a blaze of yellow-white under the helmet, I bounded forwards in a long, leaping stride, propelled forwards as much by my flight as by my feet. The leap took me over the heads of the people running for the edges of the field, and lit me up enough to be impossible to miss. Those around my landing site got out of the way very, very quickly, stumbling over each other to clear a space.

Well, most of them. “Starlight! Are you Starlight?” It was an African-American woman, wrapped up in a hot pink puffer jacket and an oversized hat tied under her chin. “Are you after Purity?”

“Yes! Where did she go?”

“She was going that way!” She pointed over towards one of the pines growing in the park. “On the ground! She wasn’t glowing but I know that costume - she’s got brown hair!”

“Thank you!”

“You tell Armsmaster that!”

I didn’t slow down to answer. But other people started calling out things.

“She went that way!” shouted a woman Mom’s age.

“Purity’s heading towards the gate.” That was an elderly man, lost in his oversized, out-of-date coat.

“Go get her, Starlight!”

“Fuck her up!”

“Take her down!”

“You got me out of that mall! Thank you! And good luck!” I thought for a moment that might have been one of the women from the underwear shop, but I was past her too quickly to be sure

Sometimes the pressure of everyone’s expectations felt like it was crushing me. Not now, though. Now the pressure was a wave that carried me on. They knew me; they recognised my aura; they thought I was going to save them. Protect them.

And I was.

I rose, my aura blossoming around me like the fiery cloak of a meteor, and took to the air in great bounding leaps again.

I headed southwest out of the park and into the bottom end of the Docks. Once I was clear of the crowds, my bounds levelled out, becoming lower and longer - less like I was hopping around in lunar gravity and more like running on one of those airport moving sidewalks. Each step took me gliding three or four yards as my flight held up most of my bodyweight and pushed me forwards, and I shot along the side of the road that bordered the edge of the park at speeds I’d have trouble matching on a bike. I could go faster by flying, but not much faster. And this way kept me close to the ground, obscured by the buildings and glowing as little as possible. I didn’t want her to see me coming.

Despite this blatant cheating, Megumi was still somehow staying ahead of me. People threw around words like ‘peak human’ when talking about her physical abilities, but it was another thing to see it in action. She was somewhere out ahead of me, running at a dead sprint that she wasn’t tiring out or slowing down from, and from the cursing coming over the group call she’d lost sight of exactly where Purity was. I was honestly kind of impressed she had the breath to spare.

I leapt up to cling to a lamp post, feeling my lungs burn. From up high, I looked for any sign of Purity - nothing. “Vista,” I said, tuning out Megumi’s voice and raising mine to cut over it. “Purity’s powered down and running back the way she came, southwest towards Downtown. She’s wearing her white bodysuit and she’s got brown hair when she’s not in Breaker mode. I’m on...” I glanced down at a street sign, “... Harding Avenue. Can you find her?”

“I’m already looking,” Missy replied. “Flare, where are you now?”

“Linwood Street, but I can’t... urgh!” Megumi sounded pissed, but at least she’d stopped swearing. “I lost her! And nobody around saw her either! Starlight, get your ass over here mega fast and help me find her! We are not letting her beat us here!”

“Starlight, take off and follow the next street over on your right until you get to the T-junction, then go left,” Missy filled in. I could hear her typing and clicking away in the background. “That’ll get you into the area she was last seen. I’ll scout ahead on the traffic cameras for you. Flare, send up some fire into the air so she has something to home in on when she’s close.”

I hesitated only for a moment before throwing myself into the air again. I wanted to take her by surprise, but that would be pointless if we lost her altogether, and Missy had a better picture than I did. I had to trust her. I wasn’t among crowds now, either, so there was no need to hold back my aura for fear of harm. The bow-shock formed around me as I hurtled upwards and over a row of buildings then blazed south along the main road, a living firework to match the ones exploding above me like brightly coloured dandelions.

“Star,” Missy said in my ear. “Calls are coming in about Purity. And you two are on her tail. Shall I kick it up to Mister Crypsis?”

I stayed silent for a moment as I flew. Ahead of me, red-edged bursts of white fire rose over the rooftops, flashy and attention-grabbing. Maybe everyone else thought they were fireworks, but Purity would know otherwise. I swung towards them, cutting across blocks to shorten my trip, cursing how slow I was in the air. I was catching up, but not quickly, and Megumi still had a substantial lead on me as she hunted for wherever our target had disappeared to.

What had Director Piggot said after the mall? If I’d called it in, they’d have sent backup to support us while we trailed them to their base. We wouldn’t have been allowed to beat their faces in. But we wouldn’t have been cut out of the operation, either. And we’d have been forewarned about any nasty surprises the PRT knew about and we didn’t.

There was no chance we were getting out of this without being chewed out this time, no matter what I did here. So the question was, how much did I care about learning from my mistakes?

And then there was the other little thing. Mister Crypsis was on desk duty tonight. He wasn’t a Mover. He didn’t have anything like Armsmaster’s bike or Dauntless’s boots. So it wasn’t like he’d be able to interfere. And there’d been mention in Monday morning meetings about him being sloppy when on the hotdesk...

“... escalate it,” I decided. “But tell him we’re in hot pursuit. This is our chance to take her down for good. We won’t break off her trail, not while we’re this close.”

Silence over the line, save for Megumi’s harsh breathing. Then a short, decisive exhalation from Missy.

“Got her. She’s on Grant Boulevard, heading west. Just crossed the intersection with Madison. Back towards the docks. She’s doubled back on herself. And… she’s cutting across the street. She’s just stepped into the Little Apple 7-11 - I repeat, the Little Apple 7-11 on Grant Boulevard.”

“Got it,” I grinned, altering course. “Well done Vista. You got that, Flare?”

“Yeah. I know where that is,” Megumi said. “Sparkles, get overhead and see if she goes out the back. I’ve been kicked out of that place. They thought me and my friends were shoplifting when we weren’t doing anything wrong.”

“You think it’s an Empire place?”

“Yeah. You should have heard what he was calling us.”

I floated down to check the nearest street sign. I was on Madison Avenue, which meant I just had to follow it up to Grant. “On my way. I’m on Madison right now.”

“Cool. I’m moving,” Megumi said.

“Stay safe,” Missy said. “I’m going to go handle Mister Crypsis. I might not be able to talk. Don’t let her get away this time. It’s her fault the Empire hit the market and laid me up like this.”

“God, I wish you were here. This would be so much easier with you,” I said fervently, flying at street-light level.

“Yeah, don’t you know it. OK, I’ll tell you when I’m free to talk again.”

I had to slow down to check the signposts at the intersection - God, this was so much easier in daylight, and I was so glad I had my contacts in - and at the third intersection along, I had Grant. I ascended up above the buildings, and floated over the street.

“I can see you,” Megumi’s voice crackled in my ear. My aura was causing static down the line. “OK, what’s out back?”

I reported on what I saw - a narrow loading area, a few parked cars in cramped spaces and big dull green plastic bins heaped with snow. There was a depot for a supply company back here, lights off and closed down for the night. “There’s been enough people coming down the back that I can’t tell if anyone’s been walking here,” I said - ah! I sniffed. “I can only smell the sewers and the bins out the back, though. No bubblegum, and she was still reeking of it.” I lowered myself down onto the low roof of an extension, and let my aura fade so I wasn’t lighting up the area. “I’m watching the back.”

“I got the front. Hey, Vista? You there?” No response. “Uh… I dunno. Sparkles, can you… do your sense thing to see if you can pin her down?”

Closing my eyes, I tried to feel for her energy - but there was nothing. She either wasn’t transformed, or she’d already gone. Speaking of energy, though, all the nervous energy coiled up in me was still there. I was trying to sit here on the snowy roof, patiently and calmly, and it was torture. I’d been running, been chasing and now? Nothing. My hands were trembling, but not from the cold. “Nothing,” I grated out.

“OK. OK. We’re waiting here, then, I guess, until Vista gets back.”

“We should do-”

“Do what? The plan was we’d have Amy here! Now we don’t!”

“That doesn’t mean-”

A police siren started up outside. I could hear it twice, once in real life, and once a delayed noise coming down Megumi’s line. I had no idea whether it was something connected to what was going on here, or whether it was just another crime on New Year’s Eve. But after a few moments, the back door banged open, and a woman in a day-glo waterproof and a woollen hat hurried out.

I could still see the white bodysuit, pretending to be trousers poking out from under the coat.

“She’s here. Just come out the back door,” I snapped. “In a new disguise. Bright yellow rain jacket and a wool hat. I’m-”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure!” I could taste her.

I heard Megumi start to move and an automatic door chime. “Hold up. I’m coming through,” Megumi ordered. “Hey, you! Let me out the back! Protectorate business!” From the crackle, she’d just conjured up a ball of fire in her hand.

Tuning her out, I aimed at Purity, levelling my hand at her back. I could just blast her. But… I shouldn’t. I was a hero. Heroes didn’t kill people like assassins. And she had to know. Had to look me in the eye when I made her know she was a monster.

“Okay, I’m back!” chimed in Missy. “What’s happening? What did I miss?”

“She’s making a run for it.” Well, a fast walk, but who was counting?

“I told Crypsis that you’d called it in, and were chasing after her,” Missy said quickly. “They’re going to probably try to call you and find your cell’s engaged. I don’t know how much longer I’m going to be able to do this. He hasn’t locked me out of the Wards console yet. Hope he forgets!”

Dammit. I had to bring this to a quick conclusion. And this was now official, or official enough. She was making her way across the slippery ground of the back side of the buildings, heading back around in the direction of Madison Avenue. Probably going back into the crowds, where we wouldn’t be able to follow her.

No sooner had I thought that than she ducked under the pole at the entrance to the truck depot, and headed into the unlit area.

“Purity’s gone into Walson Roofing Supplies,” I reported. “It’s just out the back. Vista, got any reports on that place?”

“Walson… Walson…” I could hear her fingers clack away and all the time Purity was moving away from me. “One ‘L’... uh. One of their delivery drivers murdered a guy earlier this year. Over in Ormswood…”

Where the New York refugees lived. Maybe another Empire connection? Trying to avoid glowing too much, I kicked off and floated behind one of the vehicles, peeking my head out from behind it. Thank you, Alexandria and your dark costume design for a subtle helmet. The door at the back of the 7-11 banged open for the second time in as many minutes, and I saw Purity turn her head back and duck behind a wheelless truck up on cinderblocks.

“Nearly there, Sparkles,” came the voice in my ear. “Where did she go?”

“She-”

And white light lit up the night, as Purity transformed into her glowing state.

“-’s making a run for it!” I yelled. Then I didn’t have breath to spare, because all the nervous tension I’d had waiting was free. I levelled my hand at her and let the power rush forth. She’d heard my shout and twisted in mid air, her palm already glowing. But I was faster and-

My orange beam and her white beam collided in mid air, and skewed off each other. Things exploded around us. A pile of stacked PVC piping, slagged and ruined by the beam which had sliced right through them. Tar-coated roof joists, igniting in the heat.

Shit. She was one of the people whose Blaster powers bounced off mine. It was a thing, especially for people whose attacks weren’t things you’d find in nature like Megumi’s fire or the metal that Kaiser used. Laserdream’s did, and so did some of Vicky’s ray guns. But why did she have to do it too?

“Goddamnit, leave me alone!” yelled Purity, keeping her hand levelled at me. She knew who I was. Knew that if she blasted me, I could eat it. Which meant her beams were her defence.

Respond to that bullshit? No. With a grunt I punched my other hand forwards. Maybe she could parry one shot, but not two. The veins on my bare hands lit up as I funnelled more of my reserves into them.

Crack! I lashed out, and she parried my first strike, but my second blast was already creeping its way down my arm. She was moving, too, flitting around like a mosquito. My second blast scored its way across a parked truck, and the third she parried again, redirecting both blasts into the ground.

Heat washed over my head and Purity had to throw herself down to avoid the ball of fire which would have hit her if she’d kept on trying to ascend. And she wasn’t used to its attention-grabbing nature, but I was and I caught her in the gut with a low-power burst that I’d snapped off. It knocked her out of the air and she skidded on her back along the icy ground.

Her glow intensified. I could only taste bubblegum.

“Watch o-” I yelled at Megumi in warning and threw myself in her direction.

The noise and a sudden rush of meaty heat slammed into me like a fist. Something had exploded just in front of me, and while my power kept me safe from the heat the pressure knocked me off my feet. The world in front of me was on fire, spewing out of the ground twenty feet into the air. Purity had hit something with her wild blast and I could feel that she was on the ground too.

Winded, gasping for air, my back probably badly bruised, I floated up in the air and tried to get my legs under me. With one shaky hand, I scanned the area, looking for movement. Purity was on the move, behind the piles of lumber and snow-covered tarps. Keeping low, not flying - probably for fear I’d shoot her out the air. She couldn’t hide. Her light cast long shadows, brighter than the fire, which was spreading ferociously among the building supplies. I flinched as something else exploded - maybe oil, or varnish?

“You okay?” Megumi called out, back against a metal cargo container.

“Fine,” I wheezed. The fire might spread, but I couldn’t quench it. Not without someone shutting off the gas. If I just took away the heat, it’d be leaking gas into the air and if Purity shot again... “Just winded! Think… think she hit gas pipes! Get the fire trucks out here. Did you get that, Vista? You’re going to need to get them to shut off the gas too.”

“Yes, I did!”

“She’s running!” Megumi yelled out. She sprinted past the fire like it was an everyday thing, and my warning died in my throat as I remembered that I wasn’t the only one immune to flames. Purity was in the air again, cutting through the narrow alleyway which ran alongside the main building. “Follow me!”

I kicked off, and we gave chase again. And Megumi was moving faster than me, damn it - faster than I’d seen her manage in the laps she’d been running during her induction in the Wards. Had she been holding back then? Up ahead of me she leapt a man-high chain-link fence without breaking stride, kicking up a cloud of snow where she landed. No, wait, that wasn’t snow. That was steam.

I was a shitty flier, but I could still fly and she was out-pacing me. Now I was looking for it, I could taste the chilli-flare of heat as she kicked up, bouncing off the walls onto the rooftops. Each footstep, another burst of steam behind her. And she was speeding up. We were over the rooftops now, and with a gout of flash-boiled steam, Megumi leapt across the road to the next set of buildings. This time, I could see the exhaust-flicker of flame from her hands and feet. She landed without breaking her stride, and she was off, dropping down out of my sight.

“Hey, I’m losing you!” I called out, ascending to try to follow the lights - but Purity was keeping low and I couldn’t pick out her glow.

“Can’t stop!” She wasn’t even breathing heavily.

“Just follow her!” Missy’s voice crackled in my ear. My aura was interfering with the signal, which meant my battery was probably draining fast.

“Yeah,” I grunted, trying to steer in among the narrow low-rise buildings. I flew on, but I was painfully aware I was falling further and further behind. And soon enough, I’d lost them. “Flare, where?”

No response. “She’s dropped out of the call!” Missy said. I could hear her worry. “Do you think she’s hur… no, no, I’ve got her on camera! She’s on fire!”

“What?”

“She’s literally on fire! Did you know she could do that?”

“No!” But her cell probably didn’t have a ‘fireproofing guarantee’. “Okay, where do you see her?”

“I’ve… got her on the Eastermore bridge over the train tracks, heading north. She’s… yeah. And there’s Purity. Drones, drones, are there any drones... “

“Vista! Directions!”

“Let me just… okay. I have a map! Get to the train tracks, then follow them until you get to the bridge! I’ll try to find her again!”

“Yeah!” I tried to squeeze more speed out, and the orange lights along the tracks whipped by. Rather than risk the bridge, I bounced over it, briefly hearing shouts of surprise from the drivers stuck in New Year’s Eve traffic there.

And then fire; red, with a white tinge. Up ahead, from the forecourt of a car dealership. The gout of flames grabbed at my attention and I nearly flew into a streetlamp. Something exploded. Smokey orange, not white. Maybe a car with a tank full of gas. Not Purity. And I could taste bubblegum and there was a fist around my heart and…

“Missy! What happened?”

No response. My aura was burning as bright as it ever did. No no no, had that spike of fear just wrecked my link to Missy? Or was she just distracted - or had the PRT shut her down? Was Megumi all right?

I approached the scene, balancing one hand on the other, aiming down below. There - white light. Purity. Hand out, her palm glowing as bright as her hair. The burning wreckage of a car, close-by, clouds of black smoke erupting from the burning wreckage. A burning car - but no! This was a dealership, and it was New Year’s Eve. No one was here. No one had died there, trapped in the car. Unable to get out.

And facing her, Megumi; her fists in that boxer-like pose that meant she was ready to blast something. Radiating so much heat off her that I couldn’t just taste it, I could literally see the heat haze. Not on fire, despite what Missy had said, but all around her, the snow was melting off the cars. There were scars on the asphalt. Steaming streaks of burnt-dry concrete. The big glass windows of the dealership had shattered inward, and glass gleamed in the streetlights like little stars on the dark ground.

Flare was holding off the strongest Blaster in the city. So much for ‘C-rank’. And now I was here.

“Back off, Starlight!” Purity yelled up at me. “If you go near her, I blast her.”

“If you blast me, she blasts you!” Megumi shouted at her. “And that’s if I don’t get you first! Flank her, Star!”

“Don’t be an idiot!” Purity yelled. I think the comment was aimed at me, but she didn’t take her eyes off Megumi. “I know I can’t touch you, Starlight! But if it even looks like you’re going to try to take me down - or get in the way to shield her, we’ll find out who’s faster as a Blaster! Me or her!”

I paused my descent, keeping my hand levelled at Purity. Overhead, the dealership sign cast a faint green light over the scene, but it was lost among the other lights. My orange; Purity’s white; the pyre of the burning car. Cars around me. Fire crackling. Purity’s glow. The bangs and cracks in the distance. “You hurt her? I kill you,” I yelled, voice ragged. “I will smear you all over the asphalt, I swear to God!”

“Star! Chill!”

“I-”

“No, shut up! And chill! No one is going to be shouting about killing!” Megumi took a deep breath. “Use your brains, Purity,” she said, shifting slowly from side to side. There was only a small crack in her voice that told me how scared she must be. “I m-might be new, but I know what the Protectorate does to Ward-killers. They will find you. They’ll take you down hard. And by the end of it, you’ll be dead. Or headed to the Birdcage with enough of a guard even the Empire won’t be springing you.”

“Just let me go! Or I’ll do it!”

“This is not a problem you can blast your way out of!”

Purity did not say a word for long moments. The fire crackled and in the distance cop cars and fire engines wailed. That must have been weighing on Purity’s mind. If she waited too long, Dauntless might show up - or Velocity, or Battery, or even Armsmaster on his bike.

“This doesn’t have to end in a fight,” she said. “Just let me go. Your bosses won’t care.”

The sheer chutzpah was breath-taking. I didn’t have words. “There’s a warrant out on your Empire ass,” Megumi said - and I could hear the stress-creaks in her voice. She wanted to growl it. And her anger was ramping up her heat. Her clothes were charring.

“You don’t understand.” From overhead, I could see how the shadows streamed away from her. She cast no shadow herself, but the edges of the lines of the cars were as black as pitch. “I’m not with the Empire anymore. Kaiser is a bad man. I left.”

“Liar!” The word tore itself from my lips, and I drew back a hand to-

“I’ll do it!” she yelled up at me, keeping that glowing palm on Megumi.

“Chill!” Megumi snapped at me and I could hear the fear in her voice. “But she’s right. You are a liar. You’re just another Empire thug!”

“I’m not! Not any more! I… I realised Kaiser didn’t… that he considered me a weapon. I’m an independent hero now! I have been for… for a year now!”

“You’re his second-in-command!” I yelled at her.

“I was. There are plenty of good people there. People who just want to make our country safe. But… but he isn’t one of them. Kaiser uses people. Until they’re all used up. So I went alone.” The wind was picking up, and her glowing hair shifted. “I didn’t mean to… when you’re fighting a monster like Lung, you have to go all-out. It was an accident.”

“An accident.” At the heart of her fire, Megumi sounded cold. Something white fell off her, to the ground.

“Your mask’s off,” Purity said. Mine wasn’t, which meant - oh no. Megumi was giving off enough heat that the elastic for her cat mask must have broken. And she’d thought about that to get a ceramic one, but hadn’t thought about the…

“So?” Megumi’s voice had a mocking twist to it. “What are you going to do about that?”

“If you don’t let me go, I’ll tell…”

“Tell them what?” I felt the heat from Megumi intensify again. “You think your racist ass can tell me apart from anyone else? It’s night and it’s dark. And like your people always say, we ‘all look the same’.” She took a step forward. “You don’t get it. You really don’t get it.”

Purity’s attention was on Megumi like a laser pointer, and I realised something of what she was doing. She was making herself the target. Making herself the centre of attention. Just like her fire made people look at it. She was setting things up so I could take the shot.

“You talk this shit about how the Empire has ‘good people’ in it and the problem is with Kaiser. Who the fuck are those ‘good people?’ Hookwolf and his thugs, who go down to Little Tokyo and break things ‘cause they want to? Or Krieg and his meth dealers? One of the only good things the fuckers in the ABB do is keep the Empire’s meth out. Or is it all the shitty footsoldiers who won’t hesitate to beat the crap out of people who go down the wrong streets?

“Or is it just you who’s the good person? The good person who kills and kills and kills and only sometimes means to. The rest of the time, there ‘just happened’ to be someone in the blast zone.”

Purity flinched back. “What happened at Oshima Motors was an accident…”

“Bullshit it was. You went down there looking for a fight. Like you came here looking for a fight. I heard what you were saying to Radiant. You believe any bullshit story that gives you an excuse to shoot at blacks or Asians, anything that makes us the bad guys, even if it’s fucking stupid. And you make excuses for the Empire, how they’re not actually that bad, when they’re the worst group in the city. If you’d thought for three seconds you’d have known that ‘slavery ring’ stuff was mega dumb, but you wanted it to be true. You want reasons to hurt us. When Lung showed up you hit him with everything you had. You could’ve run away. You’ve been busy showing us you can run away easy. You just didn’t.”

“Lung was-”

“Masae Aihara! That name means nothing to you.” The hood of her coat caught fire, burning with a black sooty flame. “She was my friend. And you murdered her! Because that’s what you do! That’s all you ever do!”

Purity didn’t say anything at all to that. Just as well. Between the two of us, someone might have snapped. My hands were shaking and my knees felt like jelly as I floated gently to the left, making it harder and harder for Purity to keep track of both of us.

“But don’t ask me,” Megumi said, something vicious in her tone. The fire spread across her clothing. “We followed you through the crowd ‘cause everyone was willing to pick you out. White, black, latino, us and everyone else. All unified in wanting you gone. They hate you down there. They hate your murdering ass. You think you’re so pure? You think you’re a saviour? A hero?”

“I am a hero!”

“You’re no hero. Never were.”

“I quit the Empire!”

“And that’s why you ratted them out and turned them in, right? Burned all your bridges? Helped get Kaiser behind bars? Stopped calling yourself ‘Purity’?”

“It’s not that simple!”

Megumi was a figure of living flame now, wreathed in fire that dripped from her hands and burned behind her in footprints that sunk into the asphalt. Each step she took forwards, Purity took one back.

“Whatever you say. Villain.”

“I am not a villain!” That was a scream, almost as pained as if Megumi had singed her. “The Protectorate is corrupt! It just cares about looking good! About sucking up to political correctness! If it cared, it’d be going after Lung, not me!”

“Lung didn’t kill ten people. You did.”

“Trying to take him down! He shouldn’t be in America! Him and all his gang!” Her hair flickered, dimming for just a moment. “The Protectorate won’t fix things. So that’s what I’m doing!”

“Fixing things. By doing exactly what you did as part of the Empire.”

“If the government did it, they wouldn’t need people like me to keep America safe for our children! But they’re not getting rid of the real problems!”

“No one needs you!” Megumi shouted, speaking for me. “You’re the real problem!”

“Well, of course you’d say that. You’re one of them!”

I felt the words land, and shielded my eyes against Megumi’s reaction instinctively.

The flames roared. The burning cars, the smoking asphalt - all the fire I could see streaked in towards her, and in a split-second she went from a burning human silhouette wrapped in a fiery cloak to a bonfire the equal of the one at Captain’s Hill; ten feet tall and blindingly bright. The red corona was even taller. She leashed it quickly, pulling the flames back down, and the giant plume was already contracting by the time I finished flinching.

But I wasn’t the only one there. And Purity was twitchy, on-edge, and a racist bitch who saw all Asian people as threats.

Megumi flared, and Purity fired. The spiralling beam punched clean through her bonfire impersonation and took her full in the chest, sending her flying backwards into a car. The windscreen crumpled inwards as she hit it, leaving her draped across the hood and roof, half-falling in onto the dashboard.

But that was all it did. A reflexive, panicky blast from Purity, in the heat of the moment, at someone she saw as a threat. And it had landed with the force of a linebacker’s shoulder tackle.

I’d been right. She was low on power. And in that frozen instant, as I looked at her and she looked from Megumi to me, I knew it and she knew it too. She was low on power, she couldn’t put me down like she had my teammate, and hiding as a civilian hadn’t worked.

Her whole body blazed white and she kicked off into the sky, my palm-blast missing her by a foot as she shot upwards. And with the last of her dwindling reserves, she fled.

“Fuck,” swore Megumi, gasping for breath as I flew down to see if she was okay.

“What happened to you?”

Megumi looked like she was wearing a black bodysuit, under the… no, not under her clothing. Under her skin. The top layer was gone from the force of Purity’s blast, which I realised with horror hadn’t been as low power as I’d thought. And lurking below it was grey-black musculature which gleamed like a diamond, shot through with bright red capillaries.

She waved me off angrily as I tried to get a better look. “No! No! Get her!”

“You-”

“If she gets away, this’ll all have been a mega waste of time! I’ll live! Go! And blast her for me!”

Chapter Text

Behind me, white light rose into the sky, trailing red. I forced myself to ignore its allure. Megumi’s distress flare wasn’t meant for me. She’d be fine.

Up ahead, white light fled from me. I stared at it, refusing to blink even though my eyes were watering. Purity was mine. She’d killed so many people. She’d killed Dad. She’d killed all those people at Oshima Motors. She’d just tried to kill Megumi. She wouldn’t be fine. Not once this was over.

Karma’s a bitch.

Now it was just me and her. She flew over streets packed with New Year’s Eve traffic, trailing white light. She wasn’t as bright as she had been, and her glow hugged her more tightly. It pulsed and guttered like a dying candle flame. I followed - orange-yellow, still dimmer - with my aura tear-drop shaped. The street lights flickered as I passed. I could hear raised voices below us, but the cries were doppler-shifted in my wake. Purity wasn’t going anywhere near as quickly as she had earlier, but she was still out-pacing me.

I descended, just a little bit, until I was flying at the level of the shop signs down the centre of the street. From this angle there was nothing behind her, so I pumped energy into my hand and took the shot. My starbolt was a weak, pathetic thing that hit her like a hard slap because I had only so much output to go around and I was putting nearly everything into my shitty flight. But it did hit her, and she flinched in the air, looking back at me.

Purity shouted something. I couldn’t hear it and she had nothing worth listening to anyway, so I shot her again. This time I got her in the face, and she lost her balance in the air for a moment.

After that she started making herself a harder target. No more straight lines; she flitted around, making it harder for me to line up a shot. Trucks got in the way as she wove through the gridlock. I struggled to line up a blast which would go harmlessly into the air if I missed. I still managed to clip her a few times more, but I really needed to be stationary - and preferably on the ground - to take her down.

I rolled out of the way of a looming delivery truck, and retargeted Purity, who held up a glowing hand at me. A warning. But then she had to pull to the left to dodge the protruding frame of a construction site and that let me clip her in the leg.

I wasn’t hurting her. Not really. But I was still slowing her down. And that was something I desperately needed. Put bluntly, my top speed was barely above what I could manage on a bike, while she was a match for Laserdream. If she went full out. But she couldn’t. She was clearly tired from the guttering of her light and slowed by her need to dodge the obstacles at building level, but she wouldn’t head up higher. I didn’t understand at first why she was keeping low, below the level of the apartment buildings, but then it struck me. She didn’t know we’d started this as just three girls with Missy on comms. She thought this was a big combined op by the Protectorate and New Wave working together. She was probably afraid that Dauntless or Amy’s family were up in the air, looking for her flare of light. So she was trapped down in these brick canyons, jinking down side streets and dodging trucks, street lights, and my righteous attempts to knock her out of the sky.

And despite all that, I was pretty sure that if she just went in a straight line, she could leave me behind. But she didn’t. She kept on trying to lose me behind buildings, stopping when she thought I’d fallen behind. Probably hoarding what little energy she had left in her reserves. But that kind of cent-hoarding didn’t work when I had her scent.

Ahead of me, Purity took a hard right turn and I lost sight of her behind an apartment building. I followed, and she wasn’t ahead of me. But - ah! The bubblegum trail was there, and she’d taken another right at the end of the next block, doubling back on herself. Rather than play her game, I pulled up into an ascent, and caught her brilliant white light reflected off the buildings behind me. I was back on her trail! Staying up high, I had the advantage, and I could follow in straight lines where she was trapped by the grid layout.

Purity paused at an intersection, and I took my chance. Dropping down, I landed with a heavy crunch on the gravel of a rooftop and levelled my right hand at her, supporting it with my other arm. I had a clear shot, I wasn’t pushing most of my energy into my flight, and there was nothing in my way. The starbeam I sent her way was as big as anything I’d ever used before, and so bright it was white at the core and left a lingering trail of orange motes in the air.

And she dodged it. She fucking twisted in the air like a fish in water, warned by the flash of light against the glass of the windows, and let it shoot harmlessly past her out over the bay.

“Leave me alone!” she hollered over, arms out as if for balance, hovering in the bright light of an illuminated Medhall billboard. Down below, I could hear the shouts of people who had seen the flashes overhead. “This isn’t your fight!”

“Yes it is!” I screamed at her.

“The government’s using you! I don’t want to hurt you!”

My hand trembled, shaking from how much energy I’d forced into it. “You just tried to kill my friend! I sure as fuck want to hurt you!”

“I’m not your enemy!” She took a deep breath, hanging there in the bright lights. “It’s New Year’s Eve, kid! Go home to your family!”

I saw red and opened up with both hands, going for quantity over quality. I just had to wing her with one hit, just one, and she’d see that she might not be my enemy but I was damn well hers! My shots smashed into the smiling faces of the billboard and she was up and off, moving like a hummingbird as she jinked away from my lines of fire. I was trying to trap her between my two barrages of shots and it wasn’t working, why wasn’t it working, why the fuck was she so good at dodging?!

She fled, and I pursued. Once we were on the move again, most of my output was going into my flight and my shots were weak and often errant. Through the red-tinted anger, it crept in that something was wrong, some little detail that wasn’t adding up. We were over Downtown now, I could see the shape of the PRT HQ off in front of me, with the Bay behind it, and the looming spike of the Medhall tower over to my right...

Wait a second. That was what was wrong. We’d changed course! We’d come from Captain’s Hill, the Bay should be on my left, not in front of me. She was turning us in circles! A moment of clarity shot through my red haze of fury, and I swore. Of course she wouldn’t beeline straight back to her base with me following, I was a giant glowing beacon! She wouldn’t risk leading me back to her safehouse, she’d just fly in circles trying to lose me until she ran out of power!

... and... shit. If she did that - if she thought to go to ground again - then without Missy in my ear and in Downtown she might actually lose me. I couldn’t risk that.

No. I exhaled, tasting my own blood. I’d bitten the inside of my cheek. Megumi had been right. If she walked out of this, everything would have been a waste. I needed to be like a… a wolf. I had to let her run, and follow her trail. Yes. Just like I’d tracked down Half-A. Tailing Uber back to his lair. And she’d only do that if she thought she’d escaped.

I threw a few more bolts at her for good measure, then slowed down a little, letting myself fall behind. The next time she glanced back, she saw she’d opened the distance and swerved down a side-street. I didn’t follow her. Instead, I turned hard towards the snow-encrusted dark shape of one of the tallest office buildings, ascending at a rate of several storeys a second. Just as I reached the top, I pulled my aura in completely and landed on the flat roof with a crunch of snow underfoot and not a glimmer of light.

My heart clenched as I grabbed for Mom’s binoculars, and for a moment I panicked - but no, I’d tucked them into a pocket. I didn’t even remember doing that. Stomach churning, muscles as tense as a wire, I took up position at the railing in the direction she’d been going, eyes wide open. Looking for any traces of white light, or a star-bright figure.

The sounds of the city surrounded me like a constrictor wrapped around the dark of the evening. Ventilation units buzzed, doors slammed, traffic rumbled, the offshore breeze rattled around the buildings. A huge firework exploded overhead, a colossal blue starburst whose trails burst in a hundred more rapid-fire pops and sent green sparks falling down like confetti. Over towards the Bay, streamers of sparkling red spiralled up into the sky one after another, and I could hear the whistling of white comets rising up behind me, leaving smoke trails after each ascending star.

One minute. Nothing I could see, not among the bursting fireworks that sounded like the city was turning into a warzone. Two minutes. Still nothing, and a yawning fear of failure. Three minutes, four. The fear holding me like a vice. Wanting to move. Wanting to throw myself off the roof and try to find her trail again. Jaw clenched so hard it hurt.

The relief when I saw a little too-low, too-fast star was something palpable. A little joyous “Got you,” escaped from between my teeth.

If I were Purity, I wouldn’t run home. I’d go back to civilian mode, and ride the city buses until midnight. I wouldn’t go near anywhere Empire-owned unless I had allies waiting for me there, let alone back to my lair. But I had a gut feeling she didn’t want to do that. She’d tried to talk me out of chasing her. She was low on energy reserves and the reports claimed she recharged from light, so she couldn’t feed off mains lines like me. Maybe she had a tanning bed somewhere for recharging. Maybe not. Either way, she needed to get home.

Lifting my binoculars, I tracked her path. She didn’t take a direct route, but from my vantage point high up, I could see her light in the dark streets when she dipped below the buildings.

Down below, she rose up above the streets again, a little glowing figure scanning the area around. Did she think I’d given up? That I was just going to forget everything that she’d done to me? Everything she’d inflicted on me these past few years after she murdered Dad? Even everything she’d done tonight, because she’d thrown two blasts this evening that could have murdered my friends.

I could feel the plastic of the binoculars digging into my palms. My knuckles were so white they hurt. I forced myself to relax, just so I’d stop trembling so much and risk losing her.

No. Some things couldn’t be forgiven. No forgiveness. Only justice. Justice, so she’d never hurt anyone ever again.

I followed my personal morning star, relocating whenever she started to get too far to track her reflected light. And she wasn’t stupid. She followed a big loop around, leading me to an ugly renovated tenement on the southern side of Downtown. From the snowed-under rooftop garden of a nicer apartment block, I saw the flash as she landed on the roof and transformed back.

How many people had seen that flash before? Purity was about as un-stealthy as you could get. In that giant pile of reports I’d looked through, had there been a mention of this place which had just been overlooked? Or was it just that people didn’t call in sightings of Purity? Maybe they just bought into the Empire’s bullshit.

I stuffed the binoculars back into my outer pocket. No need for them now. I knew where I was going. My aura flared around me and I kicked up into the sky, rising up fast and coming down along the same angle she had. She wasn’t on the roof anymore, which was both good and bad. It would have been nice to have her right there to blast, but this way I at least still had surprise on my side. And if she did see me coming, she wouldn’t be able to fly away as easily from inside.

I came down on the apartment roof in a three-point landing. I’d hit too hard, and the jolt of the impact echoed in my bones. But that didn’t matter. Not when I was so close. The ground up here was icy from snow melting, then freezing again. And there - right in the centre! A still-liquid puddle, steaming in the cold. Melted where Purity had touched down. There were footsteps leading from it, towards the red door with the RFID card reader. I raised my hand, and without breaking my stride yanked the power from the magnetic lock.

Just at the door, I paused. And then I raised my palm to the sky, and let loose a powerful blast directly upwards. People from all over the city should be able to see that, and hopefully someone from the Protectorate would. Just in case things went wrong, she wouldn’t be able to cover this up. And then I stepped inside.

It was bright on the other side of the door. Humming fluorescent strips painted the ugly interior in harsh shadowless light. They made the wet footsteps easy to see. Hands shaking, I followed them around the corner to the elevators. All I could taste was bubblegum. I glanced up at the floor display, and it was heading down. I could feel her. Like she was in the same room as me, flaring like a sun. Feel her moving away from me. Trying to escape.

A few steps took me to the stairwell, and I vaulted over the plastic railing. The grey concrete walls blurred upwards as I not-quite-fell, the shadows cast by my aura dancing as I passed each flight. My heart beat like a drum in my ears. One floor, two floors, three floors. A yelp from a kid sitting on a landing with a handheld console as I passed him, but I paid him no further attention.

Purity’s descent had come to a stop, and now she was moving away from me. I landed on the railing in a crouch, perching there as I tried to get a sense of directionality. No, she was still below me. One more floor down. I dropped, and left the stairwell.

I raised my hand to push the door open and found it glowing from within. Not just the veins and arteries, though they were pulses of lightning under my skin. Everything was glowing. Like all my blood had been drained out and replaced by aura. There were shadows in my hand, and it took me a moment to realise that the darkness within me was the shadow of my bones. Where I’d touched the door, the paint was singed and blackened. I could feel the power, so close below my skin. So easy to release. And I was going to release it, as soon as I got my hands on Purity.

The carpets in the corridors were brown and orange stripes; the walls were cream and none-too-clean. Overhead, the lights flickered and died as I passed them. The burn of my aura was the only light around me. Ahead of me, my eyes painted spotlights where I looked. Behind me, blackened footprints marked my steps.

There! Around the corner! The sound of a door slamming. I sucked in air through my teeth. I had her trail. The air sizzled from my presence. Crack-crack-crack went the blowing bulbs.

I paused by a door. 509. The bubblegum-taste here was thick enough to chew. I could feel her. On the other side of the wall. In among the soda-tang of the power grid and the meaty taste of the heaters. Just on the other side of that door. Moving around, maybe pacing? So close.

My breath rasped in my throat as I put my ear to the door. Why was my heart so loud? Why did my ears roar like the sea was trapped inside? It didn’t sound like there was anyone right by the door. The fizz of a television, much easier to pick up than its faint mumble. The meaty heating, blinding me to whether there were human bodies in the warmth in there. But I could still taste her. Not quite by the entrance.

“... need to go.” A woman’s voice. Hers. “I’m going out to a friend’s.”

She was just here to pick something up, then. I brushed my fingertips against the door on the other side from the keyhole, trying to feel where the hinges were. I couldn’t. Lock it would have to be, then. Or, really, the wood around the lock. Why cut the metal when I had another choice?

God. I was prevaricating. After all this time, after everything I’d put into this, after years of seeing that day in my nightmares and of the nagging guilt that maybe it was my fault Dad was dead, I was putting it off. I was scared. My stomach yawned; my hand trembled. This was what I wanted. This was what I was going to do. Not just for Dad. For everyone else Purity had killed. I was taking her down, one way or another. So she couldn’t hurt anyone else.

I levelled my hand at the lock.

Light. Light and noise. The door splintered and the lock came flying out of the frame, hitting the ground with a thud. I shouldered the door, but she’d put the chain on and that slowed me down just long enough while I sliced that off too. Long enough that Purity had put her head back into the entry hall, mousy-brown and wide-eyed and looking almost domestic.

If she wasn’t half-way out of that white costume. If I couldn’t see the big bird tattoo on her right arm and the muscle and the scars.

She saw me, and her eyes lit up. It wasn’t a metaphor. The white filled them, blazing like a flashlight even before it touched her hair but I was in, I was in her house and through the door, past the half-full shoe-rack and I was probably snarling but I couldn’t tell you. I wasn’t thinking clearly.

And maybe she wasn’t either, because she threw out her palm at me, and it was so bright that all the walls were as white as snow. The white light filled the world in front of me, but I ate it up, chewing down on the bubblegum, trying not to choke on the taste. And it spluttered out and it was gone. And I was still there. You could see where my draining range was, because there was a clean line along the walls where the off-cream paint still had its original colour. Ahead of that, it was bleached, and the plaster underneath was cracking away.

For a moment, there was silence. I don’t know what she saw in my eyes, glowing as orange as the afternoon sun, but I saw consternation in hers. I advanced, the bow wave of my aura brighter and sharper than it had ever been before, jets arcing out of it like the strands in a plasma ball. One strand licked at the single lightbulb in the hallway and it shattered in an explosive burst of sparks which all fell towards me and died in my aura. I could see the open door of a bathroom behind her, and two doors on the left. She’d leant out from the closer one, and now her gaze turned back through it. Oh no she wasn’t going to-

She turned tail, slamming the interior door behind her.

“No way!” I screamed. I wasn’t walking anymore, but the floating equivalent of two steps took me to the flimsy barricade she’d put in my way.

I didn’t bother with a cutting beam. I just slammed my whole aura into it, ripping the hinges from the walls and filling the air with bone-dry plaster dust. The entire door caved inwards, detaching from the frame and toppling forwards. Purity was off to the side, unfortunately, and she had a baseball bat. A fucking baseball bat. She’d murdered entire buildings full of people with her killing beams and now she was going to try to fight me with a baseball bat.

Unfortunately, I had to take that more seriously.

“You’re not meant to do this!” she screamed, swiping at me with an overhead diagonal blow. I dodged backwards, letting the doorframe stop it for me. “When the masks come off, you stop! You don’t attack people in their homes! That’s not how it goes!”

I saw red again.

“Bullshit!” I fired a bright yellow-white full-palm bolt, right at her chest, but she was quicker than I expected and flung herself out of the way, stumbling. I advanced through the door, my aura blazing hot enough to singe the wood and blacken the wallpaper. It was a long rectangular room, a kitchenette in the half near me, a couch and TV in the half next to the balconet window on the far wall. A pudgy boy about my age was sitting on the couch, an oversized pair of headphones around his neck bleeding out tinny music. He was halfway through pulling on his shoes, wide-eyed at my sudden entrance. There was a baby next to him, maybe a year old, maybe a little more, but I didn’t have time to care. Not with her within draining range and right in front of me. They’d just have to deal.

“All those people you’ve blown up, do they not matter?” I yelled, bringing my hand up to fire another blast at her. But the close range worked against me as much as for, and she forced me back again with a jab of the bat and another wild swing that clipped my wrist and sent a jolt of pain vibrating up my arm. It didn’t matter. Nothing else mattered. Only making her pay.

“Did you let them go home?” I shouted at her, dodging back to avoid another swing. She was wide-eyed now, backing up, frightened - or maybe taken aback by the emotion in my voice. I could feel myself crying; the hot tracks of tears barely made it halfway down my cheeks before evaporating in the heat of my aura. Above me, the ceiling charred as the loops of plasma arcing off my body licked at it. The boy clutched at his head, letting out a thin keen which was drowned out by the screaming infant beside him. “Did you stop when you saw they didn't have masks on?”

“That’s different!” She flared light at me, trying to blind me like she’d blinded Radiant and it did nothing at all.

“Don’t talk to me about how it’s supposed to work! Don’t talk to me about leaving people alone!”

“If you don’t stop-” She grabbed a plate off the arm of the couch and hurled it at me. It missed and shattered against the kitchen cupboards, splattering red bolognaise.

I swiped my hand across my body, and a trail of yellow-orange followed it off to the side, carving a smoking line through the interior wall. “You didn’t leave me alone! You didn’t leave my dad alone! You burnt him to death right next to me!

“Murderer!”

I heard a gasp from the boy on the couch, and out of the corner of my eye I saw him stagger as I launched myself at her again. My aura flared to draw in her light, her hand came up to blast me in a futile act of muscle memory, and I tasted victory as I aimed at centre-mass and-

Chapter Text

-I hit the floor. Without thought, my body slapped the ground like I’d been trained to and I rolled away, colliding heavily with the white bulk of the fridge-freezer. My ribs certainly felt the impact. But they hurt less than my head.

Wha… I screwed my eyes shut, feeling like someone was pushing their thumbs into the back of my eyeballs. Circular, looping, helical shapes danced against my eyelids. What had happened? I’d just been about to - Purity! Where was she? I tried to focus on the world in front of me, despite the too-dark lights and the way my brain didn’t want to look at things close up. What had she done to me? Was she getting away?

But no, the vaguely white shape slumped against a wall was probably her. I certainly heard her cursing as a chair went clattering to the floor and the white shape fell back against the wall.

My aura was down and my veins weren’t glowing. And when I tried to force power into my hand, there was a faint, sad splutter of light that I couldn’t sustain. Worse than that, though, I felt like I’d been wrapped in cotton wool. I could still see, but I felt blind. I could barely smell, barely taste. I grabbed up at the door handle of the freezer, man-handling myself to a position crudely sprawled over the half-open door. It was halfway down the wall, butting up against the couch where the kitchenette half of the room ended and the lounge half began. I could hear the toddler shrieking only a couple of feet away, adding another spike of pain to the ones already driving through my skull.

“Won’t… let you get away with this,” I mumbled, more an affirmation to myself than a thing I expected anyone to hear. I tasted blood as I bit my lip to force myself to focus - and why wasn’t it healing? My vision was clearing as my eyes felt less like they were being gouged out. Purity was trying to pull herself upright with the aid of her baseball bat, on wobbling knees. The boy was sagging down off the couch, crying softly. I couldn’t think about that right now, though. I could apologise for traumatising him later. After I’d dealt with the murderer.

Yes! The murderer! That was… that was what mattered. That was why I was here. And nothing else mattered. I managed to swing my hand over towards her and - nothing! Just a faint swirl of colour round my hand! It was like my arm had gone to sleep from leaning on it, only it was my power that had gone to sleep. That had never happened before. It had been a constant presence ever since... ever since the first time she’d attacked me. And now it was gone.

“I… d-don’t know what you did,” Purity gasped. “Just… just leave me. And my family. Alone.” Strands of white flickered in and out of her mousy brown hair, moving in oddly looping patterns like a weird screensaver. She was trying to blast me, too, and having even less success than I was. I was at least mostly on my feet. She was still trying to get off her knees.

Wetting my lips, I tasted the air. There was just a hint of meaty heat, barely a hint of soda in the ceiling - but the lights were on. So there had to be power. I yanked at it, and got only a flicker from the ceiling lights. “You’re… under arrest,” I managed, bluffing with everything I had. With a thud, I accidentally pulled out one of the freezer trays. Frozen peas poured over the ground.

She was propped up against the wall between me and the window, a flickering white silhouette in front of the Downtown view. Without her glow, I could read her expression. Her head swung between me and the kids uncertainly. She wanted to run, but she didn’t want to leave them, and she couldn’t grab them both and get out before I could blast her.

I pushed off the fridge-freezer and stood, finding my footing. With each breath, I could taste a little more. Smell a little more. Escape from the weird numbness of my senses. I followed her gaze to the boy and the little... girl, I thought, from all the pink. He was a picture of shock, blond hair limp with sweat across his forehead, round face slack. She was screaming, and though most of her was swaddled in a blanket I could see she had Purity’s mousy hair and something of the boy’s features in her face.

“Hey,” I said sharply. “Kid.”

He looked up. His face was drawn and dazed, and he stared at me like he barely registered I was there.

“Go. Out,” I said, and jerked my head behind me. “Take… take the baby. Away.”

I wasn’t Purity. I wasn’t. And that meant I wasn’t going to hurt people like she did. Only her.

“No!” Purity snapped. “Theo! Don’t you… give me Aster!”

“I…” he began slowly.

“Out!” I ordered, feeling stronger. “You. Her. Out. Get to safety!”

“No one is taking her!” Purity’s glow was strengthening, and more than that, it was becoming more consistent. But I could taste the gum again. “You go, Theo. But give me Aster!”

He stared between us groggily for a beat longer, eyes lingering on me, then scooped up the screaming girl and darted past me with a “Sorry,” dashing out of the apartment to who-knew-where. I let him go, but Purity jerked forward as he went, one hand coming out like she was going to stop him, or maybe just try to protect him from me. I moved forward to meet her, my aura surging forward to sap hungrily at her halo of light, and she flinched back as he vanished around the broken, heat-blackened door frame.

We stood there, the murderer and I, in the broken remains of her life to match the broken shell she’d left of mine. Her eyes flicked between me and the hallway, judging her chances.

“Now it’s just you and me,” I said, throat raw. “You killed my father. I’m not going to hurt your kids. This is between me and you.”

“I never-” she started, then broke off. “Oh. Was it the... the Kendell Square fight, two years ago?”

I felt the hum of the electricity around me - the fridge, the oven, the microwave. The kitchenette was small, packed into the corner at this end of the narrow room, but that meant the mains-fed outlets were all within my draining range. My aura flickered around me, hot and furious sparks flashing and dying without reaching the ground.

I felt cold.

“Yes.”

“I’m sorr-” she started, and my hand came up before she finished the second word. Hers snapped up too, as fast or faster than mine. Yellow-orange slammed into white before I could swallow it up. The hungry pull of my power only dragged her helix towards my starbolt, then cut out entirely. They ricocheted off each other with a blinding flash and a crack like thunder, and blew a two-foot hole in the drywall between us. I caught a glimpse through the gap of a double bed and a wardrobe, and yanked on the flames licking around the edges of the broken plaster. They died slower than they should have, only fading to embers.

She didn’t move. I didn’t move. Our hands stayed up, and tension hummed in the air between us. In her right hand, she still held the bat, raised and ready to strike. Her guard was up, and blasting obviously wouldn’t work, but the deflection had settled us both back into that wary waiting state. My powers still weren’t working right, and it looked like she had the same problem. Who would get back to normal first?

She took my continued silence as an invitation to keep talking.

“It was a fight with the ABB,” she said. Her words came quickly, spilling out of her with desperation in every syllable. Maybe desperation to buy herself an escape. Maybe desperation to justify her crimes to me.

Maybe to justify them to herself.

“Lung. And Oni Lee. He’s a monster. He uses those copies as suicide bombers. I had no choice.” Her hair was solid white now, so bright it bled all the colour out of the surroundings. The lights flickered overhead. “I didn’t mean for the fight to spill out into the street like that. I didn’t know there were people there.”

White people, she meant. Her kind of people. I flexed my fingers, feeling sick to my stomach. Tasted the soda-pop of the wiring in the walls. Not long now.

“I was really sorry, after,” she babbled. “That’s why I quit the Empire. It was… it wasn’t the only thing, but I felt really bad about it, and that got me thinking about it. About why I was doing it anyway. My- Kaiser, he didn’t understand, he was angry, but not for the right reasons. Only because the ABB capes got away and he had bad press. I saw what kind of man he was and I know I was stupid to not see it before but he really is a bad man. I can’t undo what I did, but I changed.” She stepped forward, left hand still ready to fire, but lowering the bat slightly. “I changed. I’m not with the Empire! I’m just an independent hero!”

I let my aura harden again. Let the bow shock form, the ellipsoid of heat-shimmer and crackling filaments that protected me from harm and looked like the leading edge of a meteor hitting atmosphere. The pine veneer of the cupboards charred and blackened. All I could taste was her power on my tongue.

Purity stepped back, her entire posture tense and coiled up, the light in her hair solidifying.

Was she telling the truth? I doubted it. She was a lying, self-justifying bitch, and I couldn’t trust a thing she said. I’d already seen that with all her attempts to talk her way out of it. That little girl had been young enough that I wouldn’t be surprised if she was why Purity had taken a six-month break after murdering my dad.

But even if she was telling the truth, it didn’t matter. Because she hadn’t changed despite her claims to be a ‘hero’. She was still murdering mothers and fathers, daughters and sons. Megumi was right. If she’d actually changed, she’d have turned herself in. But no. She’d still flown out to Oshima Motors two weeks ago and killed eleven people, then came back here and made nice with her kids because she didn’t see her victims as important.

No. She had no right to my forgiveness, just because she ‘felt bad’. And no right to anyone else’s forgiveness. Words wouldn’t fix what she’d done. And would keep on doing if I let her go.

An eerie calm settled in my bones.

“You murdered my dad two years ago,” I said quietly. “You murdered eleven people the week before last. You tried to murder two of my friends today. Flare’d be dead if she wasn’t tough. Even if you mean it when you say you’re sorry about my dad, you killed Flare’s friend, too. She told you so. And you blasted her into a car for it.” I looked her in the eye. “Can you even remember her name?”

She said nothing. My jaw tightened.

“Yeah. I didn’t think so. If you really regretted killing people by accident, you’d have said all that to her. But you didn’t. She said the same things I’m saying, and you shot her for it where you’re trying to talk me down. And you called her ‘one of them’.” My hands balled into fists. I let out a shuddery breath. The taste of fizzy soda in the walls was strong enough now. I gave it the faintest of tugs, and didn’t let my face change as I felt it respond.

“I’m giving you one chance,” I said. “Turn yourself in. No one else has to get hurt today. It’s more than you gave anyone else.” It was more than she deserved. And maybe I knew she wouldn’t take it. She’d had the chance before.

Her expression wavered. The desperate, wide-eyed look she had crumpled, then wobbled. Then solidified.

“I am sorry,” she said, and her voice was hard now. “But I’m doing all this for-”

She raised the bat again, swinging it around - but she wasn’t quick enough. I was already flexing my aura, and there was no way she could dodge the wall of force. It slammed her into the drywall and the impact forced a pained grunt from her. Plaster dust showered down from the ceiling like off-white snow. The windows exploded, the glass showering outwards. That gave me a moment to rip everything I could from the power grid around me. My headache receded as kitchen appliances sparked and died, and the lights flickered wildly until a fuse somewhere burst and all the power died.

It didn’t matter. I’d fed well today from everything she’d been throwing around and I had plenty of power to return. She slapped the wall hard, punching off it to lunge at me and I stepped back from the first blow and slugged her in the gut with a snapshot palm blast. She tripped, but didn’t hit the floor as her flight kicked in. Didn’t matter. I slammed her again with my aura and knocked her back into the drywall. Orange sought out white and she was dodging again, jittering between blasts with micro-bursts of speed. But then she hit the corner of the room and she was out of space to run.

Her hand flashed white and she parried the first shot. I hissed, the nerves in my arm tingling, and the second and the third slammed into her right shoulder. With a choked scream and a clatter, the baseball bat went flying out of her hand and got lost somewhere behind the TV.

A firework burst outside, washing the floor near the broken window in red for a moment and tinting her with a bloody halo. The cold wind blew in hungrily. She clutched her right arm, her breath rasping, her brilliant white hair falling around her in a straggly mess. Blood smeared her shoulder and she was hunched over and gasping from the gut-shot. I could see the bruises forming from where I’d clipped her with low power shots in the chase. Then I brought my hands back into a guard position, clenched my fists and advanced with all the skill that Portent had mercilessly drilled into me in the PRT training rooms.

The tables had turned. In this cramped apartment, she couldn’t dodge like she had outside and I was between her and the exit. Neither of us could really fly in here. She knew I’d just eat anything she threw at me. But she was still fast, and I - unlike her - cared about ricochets. She’d be trying to parry more now she knew she couldn’t dodge everything.

I could see the shadows of my bones in my hands again. Sparks played over my skin. I inhaled, tasting her power as I ripped it out of her. The light formed a visible stream, flowing from her hair and eyes and earthing itself into me. If she didn’t do something, she’d be sucked dry - and she knew it.

“Get out of my way!” she yelled, throwing herself at me.

I took the first blow on my guarding forearm and felt the bone-deep impact. She knew how to throw a punch. I had height, but she was much more solidly built than me. But I wasn’t going to let her past me. I’d sparred with Portent, who had over a foot on her as well as being just as fucking annoyingly good at dodging. And unlike Megumi, Purity didn’t have powers making her tougher or stronger. Plus, every moment she was close to me, I was draining her powers and healing from it.

A second blow slipped past my guard and skidded off the Alexandria helmet. I stepped in, ramming my elbow into her gut. She coughed and staggered back, fists raised. I sucked in a breath and pushed my advantage, tucking my aura in like a coat layer. Glowing arcs of plasma danced across my skin. But they didn’t expand any further than that. The light and heat stayed within an inch of me, enough to blunt impact but not a full coronal layer.

Purity snapped off a blast at me, trying to parry a shot that never came. The light vanished into my aura, and she followed it with a leg-sweep and a quick shove to trip me.

I slid back out of reach with perfect balance, legs fizzing with channelled power. It caught her off-guard. Purity liked to fight at range, and ran from anything that got close. She’d never needed any other tactics until now. I swung around to block off her escape. It wasn’t flight, and it didn’t need to be. Not when my aura kept me upright and balanced, and let me skim across the floor like it was greased.

She gasped for air, grabbing for a chair. I shifted my aura and smashed the thing to kindling. While she reeled, spitting out splinters, I hooked my foot around in a snap-kick. Purity tried to dodge with a shift of footwork, and I followed up with a feint at her ribs. I misjudged her reach and she grabbed me by the wrist, yanking at my arm. My shoulder flared in pain and I pulled back, but she yelped too. My touch burned. Her hand on my wrist reddened and blistered, the smell of burning skin creeping in past the bubblegum. I grabbed her before she could pull back, and dug my fingers into the fresh burn.

The scream had the words “Let go!” in it.

“No,” I growled, and redirected my thrust vector down.

Suddenly, Purity wasn’t trying to throw off a skinny teenage girl. She was trying to throw off a skinny teenage girl who weighed twice or more than she should. She was a grown woman, bigger and heavier than me. But she wasn’t as big as Portent. A moment of pain was all it took for me to pull, turn, lever and throw.

She crashed into the corner of the fridge back-first, screamed, and crumpled to the floor. I scooted back from a kick as she scrabbled among the detritus my aura bursts had thrown to the floor, and she grabbed for a knife - but it slipped out of her burned hands as she gasped in pain. I blasted it away to the other side of the room and advanced, but now she had a frying pan in hand and I had to dodge as she hurled it at my head. It glanced off my arm, sending a shock of agony up from my elbow, but the light coming off her hair and eyes fell towards it. By the time I’d sucked in a shocked breath, it felt more like a hard knock than anything serious. And she’d run out of things in reach to throw.

My muscles burned, but I saw my chance and took it before she could roll or scrabble upright. She swept her leg around, trying to scoop my legs out from under me, but she still hadn’t realised what I was doing. I was held up more by flight than by physics, moving more by aura than by muscle. I hopped over her clumsy kick and came down hard to slam my knee into her stomach.

She folded up around me, retching, and tried to claw at my eyes, but another aura pulse slammed her hands and head back to the floor and brought out an ugly sunburn rash over every inch of bare skin. The tiles cracked, and now-thawed peas splattered over the walls. What breath hadn’t already been driven from her by my knee to her stomach was forced out by the bow-shock pushing her down, and she gasped and struggled for air, her reddened face turning redder as she stared up at me bug-eyed.

“Please-”

I closed one glowing hand around her throat and punched her in the face as hard as I could. And then punched her again, and again, and again, until her broken nose leaked bright red blood all down her burnt and swollen cheeks, until her eyes were puffy and her jaw was off-centre and I felt something give under my knuckles. Maybe teeth. Maybe a cheekbone. Whatever it was, it made me pause.

“You don’t get to beg!” I screamed in her face. “You never listened to anyone else begging! You never stopped!”

She kicked uselessly, trying to claw at me with bloody fingers. I looked down at her broken face, straddling her, ignoring her flailing legs and gasps for air. My hand was still tight around her neck, and I could smell burning meat now. I could feel her pulse under my fingers, hummingbird-quick. She wheezed pitifully, her halo flickering and guttering - but I had skin contact, and her power was nothing compared to mine. I was gagging on the thick and cloying bubblegum, but I drank and drank it down and the white light stayed died. She had nothing left. Her hair was mousy brown again and the bubblegum taste was fading. The only light in the apartment was my aura, and it licked at the surfaces, scorching whatever it touched. The cuts on my knuckles were already closed.

“Stay down,” I snarled at her, opening my free hand right in her face with the biggest, brightest starbolt I could muster ready to fire. “You don’t… after all this. After everyone you’ve hurt. Everyone you’ve killed. You don’t deserve to live.”

She was trembling. I wasn’t sure she could even see me through her swollen eyes, and her face was covered in blood and burns and bruises. Smoke from the smouldering wallpaper filled the room. My weight on her chest held her down, but she’d stopped even struggling to get up somewhere around the fourth punch. Bright light coruscated above us where my aura lapped at the ceiling, and the stuttering booms and cracks of fireworks going off echoed in through the broken windows. My hand was hot and harsh on her throat as I kept my siphon open, ripping the power out of her and leaving her helpless. My starbolt wobbled inches from her nose, its orange-white light flickering across her features like firelight.

A tear ran down her cheek. Mixing with the blood and the drool.

I’d cried too, in the car. She’d kept shooting. Kept killing. Let the fires keep burning Dad to death, as she’d flown off without a care in the world. Dad, all broken, as the fires got closer. Burning. And she’d flown away. Leaving me there. And for two years I’d been left with the awful, awful fear that maybe Dad had been alive when I’d got these powers. That not only had I not saved him when I lashed out and got out of the car, but… his death had been my fault.

My starbolt brightened, feeding off her bubblegum light, feeding off my hate and guilt. Swelling and bulging in my palm into something bigger than I could ever normally fire. So bright it was solid white. The blood on my hands and knuckles gleamed like rubies. She tried to twist her head away from my hand, but didn’t dare open her mouth. One eye was swollen shut and the other’s pupil was pinprick-small. I would be justified, if I fired. I would be right. She’d killed before. She’d tried to kill tonight. It would be self-defence.

From down the hall, I heard a baby’s cry. The little girl in the pudgy boy’s arms. The family of a murderer. For a frozen second, I almost, almost let the bolt go on its way.

Self-defence. Mom’s voice echoed in my head. I had to be honest about my motives. And she’d said that violence corrupted everything good and I’d screamed at her about not caring that Dad was dead because my guilt was so tied up in knots.

I could kill her now. It wouldn’t make me like her. She was a mass-murderer. I was avenging my dad. I’d already left the rules of the Wards behind tonight to catch her. I could decide her fate as a vigilante too.

I looked down at the broken, barely-conscious woman beneath me. I didn’t close my eyes or look away. That would be cowardice.

“You don’t deserve to live…”

I closed my hand slowly on the bloated, pulsing starbolt, quenching its glow.

“You don’t. But I’m not you,” I whispered. “I’m more than what you made me.”

I rolled off her and leaned against the fridge, exhaustion catching up to me from wherever I’d left it in rage and vengeance. I kept my hand on her skin and my siphon open as approaching sirens wailed in the distance, under the fire-lit sky. I felt sick and everything hurt and my eyes were blurred with tears and I still wasn’t sure if that was the right thing to do. Everything was all twisted up inside. But I’d made my choice.

It was over.

And the sound of a familiar motorbike drifted in through the broken windows.

Chapter Text

All the lights in the upper half of the stairwell were dead, and long shadows clawed their way up from underneath. The guardrail at the landing was gnarled and twisted, plastic globules solidified from where they’d oozed down the metal. The stink of burnt carpet drifted in through the fire door.

Theo Anders leaned against the dirty wall, feeling numb, and tried to let the music from his headphones drown out the noise of the fight. Aster squirmed in his lap, wailing at the top of her lungs, and he was glad about that. Her screaming was more noise. Something that could form a protective shell of normal sounds that meant he didn’t have to listen to the violence happening so close.

Maybe he should get further away. But his legs felt like jelly. It was all he could do to sit here and gasp for air. Only an idiot would take the elevator when there was a cape fight going on nearby, but he couldn’t manage the flights of stairs. There was a pressure headache right behind his eyeballs that left his vision greyed out.

The hallway shook, and dust pattered down from the old ceiling. He could hear breaking glass. More than that, he felt the shock through his back and bottom, and his ears popped. That was probably Starlight. Kayden didn’t do anything that made that kind of pressure wave. Aster obviously didn’t like the feeling in her ears, because she started screaming even louder. He just rocked her, trying to shut out the noise. His music swelled in his ears, punctuated by the sound of things breaking and the bursts of fireworks out in the city. He couldn’t tell the difference. Somewhere in the distance, a woman shouted something. It might have been Kayden. Might not.

Through the fog in his head, he realised he didn’t recognise what was playing. It was an instrumental and he normally deleted them when they were on an album. But more than that, he was sure he’d never heard this song before. Two similar, counterpointed melodies spiralling around each other, dancing around the upper registers. One growing increasingly strong, dominating as the other faded. More concrete dust shook itself loose from the ceiling and drifted down onto him.

“There, there,” he muttered uselessly to Aster. “It’s alright. It’s going to be okay. I promise.”

It was a lie. Nothing but a lie. Nothing could be the same. Not anymore. His only escape was gone. Kayden’s civilian identity was blown, and that meant whether she won this fight or not, he’d lost. Even if she killed Starlight - the Protectorate would know. The Empire wouldn’t be able to cover it up, and this was Kayden Russel’s apartment. The government went after Ward-killers with a sledgehammer. And Kayden would have murdered a girl who was maybe only a year or two older than him.

But that was what she did. She was nice to him. But he knew about how much blood there was on her hands.

They’d be trapped in their father’s house. Their father, with his loyal men. Their father who treated people like his toys. Aster was too young to know what he was like, but she’d learn. And - his chest heaved, and he sucked back a sob - what would happen to him? Without this pressure valve…

The noise had stopped. Had died, his brain suggested morbidly. Did he dare look? Or did he just stay here with a crying baby, and try to drown out the world with his music, now simplified down to just one melody?

Theo didn’t - couldn’t - make up his mind, for fear of what he’d see. But as the seconds ticked by, he began to suspect how it had ended. If Kayden had won, she’d be out here, looking for Aster. Not for him, except that Aster would be there too. And now there were other voices that he couldn’t focus on, not compared to the music, which was growing and swelling again with another element that hadn’t been there before.

“Are you hurt?”

He looked up - and up - at the cacophonous blue-and-silver power armoured-man on the stairs, pausing by him in passing. He knew that design. “Armsmaster,” he croaked. “Sir. Starlight… Purity… she…”

“Are you hurt?”

“No, but…”

“Which way?”

“Ap-apartment 509. But the noise stopped.”

“Thank you.” The man passed him, feet heavy drums on the building’s floor. Servos reverberating like strings, his power supply a soft thrum. The noise helped remind Theo of something, and he reached into his pocket to change songs.

When the PRT agents came, they found him still sitting there. Listening to music that didn’t need his headphones. They weren’t plugged into anything. His music player had fallen out of his pocket back in the apartment. And he was still too out of it to object when they told him that he and Aster needed to come with them.

There was a smell to the back of the PRT van, Theo decided. Something he couldn’t quite place. It wasn’t the rich leather and hint of old spirits and perfume that was his father’s car. It wasn’t Kayden’s battered truck which mixed the scent of paint, varnish, and - since Aster came around - diapers. It wasn’t even like the smell of the school bus, all indifferent-cleaning and old food. His nostrils flared. Hot metal. The smell of over-used printers. Something chemical. Something mechanical.

Nothing human. Nothing lived-in. Not with these plastic-coated walls and the low ceiling and the harsh white lights. There weren’t any windows.

He balled his pudgy hands. This wasn’t a place for people like him. And it certainly wasn’t a place for Aster, who was still grousing on his lap. The PRT agents in their faceless masks and their heavy armour were, he was pretty sure, judging him. Her cries mixed with the sound of the sirens overhead, with a rising and falling which almost sounded melodic over the hum of the engine. Theo felt light-headed. He kept on losing focus as he stared at the armoured figures.

Then there was Starlight. Starlight, in a borrowed PRT helmet but still wearing regular, torn, civilian clothing. Dried blood on her mouth; bruises on her hands. Her eyes hidden. He didn’t know if she was looking at him, behind that metallic visor. She wasn’t reacting to Aster’s screaming. She just sat there like a toy whose batteries had run out, legs pressed together, hands folded on her lap. Much less motivated, much less human than she had been when she came in like a comet and - like any errant celestial body - sent his life whirling out of what little control he had. No longer making that noise, that beautiful yet alien noise he couldn’t get out of his head.

Kayden was going to jail. Kayden was going to jail and that meant his father would get Aster and that meant that he wouldn’t get to leave the house to look after his half-sister and… and he knew what had been happening in the news. Kayden was bad but his father was worse. And would get worse still.

Tapa-tap-tap. Theo’s fingers drummed against the seat. Tapa-tap-tap. There were ideas in the beat. The sound of drums, of marching feet, of the staccato coughs of weapons. Ideas his father would want. Ideas that could give him escape from his heritage. Ideas that were going to get their release, sheathed in metal.

“Hey, kid,” said the PRT agent opposite him. The man’s voice was deep, and he sounded like he was from out of state. The harsh white lights played over his helmet, but Theo could see the faultlines in its design. It buzzed with ways to improve it. He said something else, but Theo couldn’t hear his voice over the music.

“What?”

“I said, we’re nearly here. And you’re not under arrest, but we do have some questions for you. You do understand this, right?”

“I understand, sir,” he said, tilting his head slightly. There was something missing, though. Tapa-tap-tap.

“But once you’ve answered the questions, we’ll call your parents and see if they can pick you up.”

Theo inhaled sharply, his heart feeling like someone had snatched it in their fist. “I understand, sir,” he said softly. The sudden clench of fear had quietened the music.

“Are you sure you didn’t take a knock to the head? Because you’re acting really out of it.”

“No. I,” no, he didn’t feel fine, but it wasn’t because he’d been hit. He cleared his throat. “Nothing hurt me.”

The agent seemed about to say something else, but Aster started to scream again and no one could be heard over that noise.

The trucks came to a halt and the door opened. Cold air rushed in from the gasoline-smelling underground garage of the PRT base. Armoured trucks and cars parked in serried ranks. The agents bundled out, and Theo couldn’t help but suspect they wanted to get away from the screaming baby.

“Sorry about this,” Starlight said, pulling herself up stiffly. The lights near her flickered, a little jaunty song in their buzz. “For getting you involved in this, I mean.”

“It’s not your fault,” he lied. Because it was her fault. It wasn’t just her fault, because there were lots of people to blame. But it was her fault. She’d chosen to come and force him to see these things he didn’t want to see.

“You’re being… calm,” she said, helping him out of the truck.

“Calm?”

“I mean, I’ve just, uh. Your mom’s going to jail.” Dauntless was up ahead, marching straight towards Starlight. His mouth was a thin line; his shoulders were squared. He didn’t look happy.

“She’s not my mom.” True. And it had been true even before the divorce. Kayden had never been a mom to him.

“Oh. I thought…”

“Starlight. With me.” Dauntless, brusque and angry. Starlight’s head tilted in response.

“She’s not my mother. I’m just the babysitter.” Voice quiet. He was good at sounding respectful. Good at misleading with the truth, too.

Starlight laughed; a thick, heavy, exhausted sound. It was hard to read her expression under that blank visor, but from the way her mouth quirked, Theo got the impression she felt whatever punishment she was about to get was worth it. A feeling he’d never felt first-hand. “Uh. Wow,” she said. “Sorry for getting you caught up in this, then.”

And that drew his own laugh from his lips, something sick and tired. Something that twisted her lower face into confusion. That confusion stayed as she followed Dauntless away.

As if she’d dragged him into this. Him; Theo Anders. Son of Max Anders. No, she hadn’t dragged him into this. And as if she’d broken his family up, because his family was like a toy thrown into a fire, warped and twisted beyond any hope of recovery. All she’d done was cut away his last escape from this life. Even if it hadn’t been much of an escape. Even if he’d known who Kayden was when she went out in costume and had pretended to himself that it didn’t matter.

He’d always been a part of this. It was just, he thought as the PRT agents led him through the underground garage towards the elevators, that now he’d been backed into a corner. And he’d have to do something he’d never found the courage to do before.

“You don’t understand. I need to talk to someone in the Protectorate. Someone important.”

“Sir, if you’d just give us your name or the contact details of your parents or guardians, we can-”

Theo took a deep breath, feeling the butterflies in his stomach beat their wings in a complex ascending rhythm. “I’m not doing that until I can talk to someone. Like Armsmaster!”

The rooms in the PRT base were little more hospitable than the armoured trucks; the officials no more approachable than the armoured agents. They weren’t listening to him! And he was having to raise his voice to be heard over the melodies in his head which only got stronger and stronger the more glimpses of armoured soldiers and suited-up capes he got through the blinds. Now it was the lights that wouldn’t shut up, singing away with high-frequency voices. At least Aster had finally gone to sleep after Theo had changed her and fed her with a bottle that the PRT people had provided.

“Sir, Armsmaster is very busy. I can’t guarantee that you can meet with him. We just need you to tell us your name and the contact details of your parents or guardians.”

“It matters.” Theo tried to keep his voice calm. Tried to stay polite. But it was hard. This time, hope was taunting him. He wasn’t used to that. “I’m not going to leave until I can talk to someone important. I don’t trust anyone else with this.”

The man massaged his temples. “Kid, you won’t be able to go until you tell us your name and details and-”

“I don’t want to go. Not back to my father. I want to talk to Armsmaster.”

He could read the man’s expression. He clearly felt that he wasn’t paid enough for this. Not late at night on New Year’s Eve. “Sir, if you don’t cooperate, you could be arrested.”

“I know.” Theo looked down, balling his hands into fists under the table. “But I can’t tell the cops. They’re… they talk to the Empire. T-tell,” he gulped down a breath, and looked up, “tell Armsmaster that it’s about that. And… and I was babysitting Purity’s daughter. I’ve seen things. Heard things she mentioned when she didn’t think I was listening.” And not just her, he added to himself.

The man drew in a breath through his teeth. “I’ll… I’ll send an email. I can’t promise anything. Armsmaster is very busy.”

“It just has to be someone important enough that the Empire won’t hear about it! It could be someone in the PRT or… or Miss Militia or someone else in the Protectorate! I,” his voice cracked, “if the Empire knew I talked, they would kill me.”

He seemed to be getting through. “I’ll see what I can do. And I think you might need protective custody. You and the baby - we can get you a cell and you can try to get some sleep. And there’ll be someone to check on you.”

“The BBPD can’t find out,” Theo whispered.

An institutional-green ceiling; a hard bed coated in plastic so it could be wiped down easily. It was still better than home.

And Theo couldn’t sleep. His watch said it was 00:43 but he felt like he’d just woken up and stuffed his face with the most brightly-coloured, artificial-flavourings-full candy he could find. But even if he didn’t feel like that, he still wouldn’t have been able to sleep.

Not with the music. Not with the rising hum in the lights and the pulse in the pipes in the walls and the drum of his heart and the piping of each breath he took. Not in the way the colours in the room sang their melody and Aster was a little soprano reminding him why he was doing all this.

“... I’ve got a little list - I’ve got a little list.”

It was funny, really. It had been his father who had taken him to a performance of the Mikado just before Christmas. He had his theories why the man had even gone to see it, and it was probably because the Asian-American community had protested the performance and no other reason. Max Anders was all in favour of freedom of speech. His freedom to say whatever he wanted without any objections. Not anyone else’s.

But now Theo had a little list. And this particular list was of offenders who (he told himself) never would be missed.

Tapa-tap-tap. Tapa-tap-tap. Theo twiddled the mechanical pencil in his fingers, letting the eraser bounce off the wall, and thought. Tapa-tap-tap. Like a heart-beat. Except no. Not a heart beat. Like feet. Tapa-tap-tap. And there was the cheap digital watch on his wrist, changing the numbers. One-two-three-four-five tapa-tap-tap. And overhead, the electric lights, humming the baseline.

He could almost hear the rhythm. There was a pattern in the noise. And with the watch to set the baseline, the beat, the hum of that little crystal in it that - that could make the melodies come to life. Not inside his head, but outside. Tapa-tap-tap. Aster’s teddy bear was a good one, a Christmas present from their father with programmable electronics inside it. And little motors that let it sit up and hug. Twenty-one-twenty-two-twenty-three. Retract-contract. He eased it out of her sleeping hands and weighed it up. Basic optical sensors and motion detection. But…

Tapa-tap-tap. Mechanical pencil. Of course. Pencil lead; graphite. But graphite was layer upon layer. Rubbed off by contact. So he had to make thin layers of graphite. Single-thickness layers. On the paper. Because single thickness layers could be curled into tubes - and oh, the tapping was out of his head. Yes. That made so much more sense. But there was still the forty-three-forty-four-forty-five which meant that there was something, something to do with the watch and maybe he just had to correct the… the chips in it. He had a pencil. He could write something new on it. Pencil lead conducted electricity. The right layers, the right patterns, he could set up sections of conduction and resistance. He blinked and realised the flashes of light behind his closed eyes were patterns of flowing charge. Flowing like the coronal surges in Starlight’s aura.

The walls were singing to him. No, not the walls - the cables in the walls. Head against the plaster, he listened for the high frequency wordless song. The light overhead flickered and dimmed as the music softened, and he could feel a sparkling, crackling clearness in his thoughts that hadn’t been there before.

Oh it all made so much sense!

He slid his watch off, popped the back off (and it came off as clean as butter, like the screws weren’t even there, but that was silly) and in there was the little watch battery and the circuit board in green with patterns on it and he could draw on that, yes he could. He’d just need to be steady. Theo set to work.

When they checked in on him, the toy had a partially articulated claw-hand made from his keys and the contents of his wallet, and its battery compartment was glowing a golden yellow. That got his meeting with a Protectorate member soon enough. Just as soon as they took the toy away from him.

It was three in the morning, but Theo didn’t feel tired. The anxious nerves and adrenaline and finger-tapping noise in his head which had come back meant he didn’t think he could sleep if he tried. Another room; cameras in place, big mirror on one wall, anonymous beige decor.

The woman on the other side of the table looked like a model of Americana. Everything his father would have wanted. Military fatigues; armed; the stars-and-stripes as her bandana. And that would have made her exactly the sort of person he didn’t trust, if it wasn’t for one little thing. This wasn’t the kind of woman his father would ever want wearing something like this. And that was something he could trust; not the costume, not the American flag, but the fact he knew Max Anders sneered when he spoke about Miss Militia and how a woman like her was allowed to parade around like she was a ‘real American’.

“I can see why you wanted to talk to us as soon as possible,” she said, pushing a bottle of water across the table towards him. It didn’t sound quite right. You could make a better machine to do that. “You’re probably scared and disoriented. No one finds becoming a parahuman easy, and you look half-scared out of your wits.”

A parahuman. He knew what that was; of course he did. He was the child of one. He was the child of two - and his former stepmother was another one. As was his father’s current girlfriend. And that wasn’t even why he was scared. Not directly. He was scared because he knew what his father would do with that, especially when Theo could hear how much those machines wanted to be built.

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

“Now,” she uncapped her pen. “Please, can you tell me your name?”

“M-m-my name is Theo Anders,” he said, chest tight and mouth dry. “My name is Theo Anders and-and-and my father is Max Anders. But he’s also K-Kaiser.”

Miss Militia didn’t move. Didn’t respond. Just stared at him with those green eyes above her red-white-and-blue bandana. At least she didn’t say ‘Sorry, what’ or anything like that.

“I’m not lying,” Theo blurted out. “My… Max Anders is Kaiser. My grandfather was Allfather. My mother, Jennifer Anders, was Heith. You can… you can check when she died. It’s two days later. My father said that we had to say she died in a car crash.” Just another thoughtless insult from his father, to let him know how his mother had died and then tell a young boy that he had to lie to everyone about it. The man had probably thought that it would help build up Theo’s hate. Yes. That, it had.

“This is a serious allegation,” Miss Militia said, and from the tone of her voice she had to be simply processing things.

“Yes. I know, ma’am. But.” He swallowed. “But it’s true. I… I know a lot of names. And some business things. And… and you need to know them. And keep them safe, b-because…” He couldn’t finish the sentence. His throat seized up on him.

“I understand.” Miss Militia leaned forwards on the table. “We’ll appreciate any help you can give.”

Theo couldn’t fight. But he could still talk.

His father, Max Anders; by day CEO of the pharmaceutical company Medhall. By night; Kaiser, leader of the Empire-88. Leader of a criminal empire of skinheads and fascists. And it was a family business. Theo’s grandfather had been the previous head. His mother had been part of it and it had killed her. Menja, his father’s bodyguard and girlfriend was his mother’s cousin. Kayden was Purity, his father’s ex-wife. And Medhall was just as rotten as his family. Krieg’s civilian identity was James Fleischer, who headed a pharmacy chain which was part of the Medhall network. The same network that laundered Empire money and took state funds to provide jobs for “reformed” skinheads after they left jail.

His knowledge wasn’t comprehensive. Hookwolf’s name was Brad, and his underling Cricket was something like Melanie or Melody and he had no idea what Stormtiger’s name was. Same as the third lieutenant, Victor, and his partner Wunjo. The two of them had some kind of tie to the Herren family, but he didn’t know their names. And Doctor Holistic had only started working with his father after he’d started being more guarded around Theo, so he hadn’t even seen her in person.

But he had names. He had names and he had faces he could describe. And every scratch of Miss Militia’s pencil had the tramp-tramp-tramp of PRT agents echoing in it.

03:39 flashed on the digital clock in the corner. Numbers that counted up along to the metronome in his head. He’d talked and talked, because there was someone who was actually listening to him. Someone who he was certain wasn’t secretly working for his father.

“Kayden?” he echoed, in response to the latest question. “No, like I said earlier, even when she was my step-mother, she wasn’t really a mother to me. She didn’t love me. But I think she felt sorry for me. Especially as she drifted away from my father.”

“Mmm hmm,” Miss Militia said. She showed no sign of the exhaustion that was biting away at him as his spring wound down. “And you said that you knew that she was going out to fight people after the divorce?”

“Yes,” Theo admitted, wincing. It wasn’t a good feeling. He had known that Purity was going out to hurt people. Even kill people. But when she went out - which was as often as three or four times a week, in her busiest weeks - she called in for Theo to babysit. Every time that happened, that was an evening out of his father’s house. And when she came back late, which wasn’t uncommon, she’d usually find a reason to tell him to stay over for the night. And his father didn’t care.

It was an awful, selfish reason to turn a blind eye to what he’d known was going on. He knew that. The guilt hissed at him like acid on metal. But in his heart, he was certain that he would have kept on ignoring it, the pressure building and building but with no way to release it. Right until Starlight had come smashing in through the door and snatched away that escape.

The hero seemed to misunderstand his distress. “Don’t worry, we’re not going to arrest you for that. You’re fifteen, for goodness sake - and your entire family is involved in this. The fact that you’ve come forwards now, when it would have been so easy to just say nothing and let your father collect you… you’re a brave young man.”

Theo wanted to disagree, but habit stopped him from contradicting someone more powerful than him. And he didn’t feel brave. He wasn’t brave because he’d taken so long to come forwards. And he wasn’t brave because he was betraying someone who liked him, who felt sorry for him, was nice to him. Even if, as the marriage had fallen apart, she’d started looking at him with a hint of fear. The fear that only came from seeing something of his father in him - of knowing that…

“Kayden isn’t very clever,” he said, speaking out loud because it was something the Protectorate had to know. “My father is clever, but she isn’t. I’m not trying to make excuses for her. She’s been doing this for… a very long time. I think she got into the Empire as a teenager. She’s done a lot of very bad things. Killed people. But she’s not very clever, and she doesn’t question herself. She’s…” he remembered the times she had recited things she’d read - or more commonly seen on TV - without any doubt, “... lazy. Not in the body. In the mind. She likes easy answers. Easy answers that don’t challenge what she already thinks. And she thinks she’s a hero, and anyone who is an enemy to her or people she likes is a villain.”

“Hmm. That still sounds like you’re making an excuse.”

“Maybe it is,” Theo admitted. “She was nice to me. Even if she wasn’t ever my mother. She’s scared of my father because he’s always been able to talk her into doing things and scared of me because she’s worried I might be like my father. And she feels sorry for me because I have to live with him. She’s a bad person. But I still feel sorry for her, because…” his throat felt tight, “... because if she didn’t have those powers, she’d be happier and my father wouldn’t have taken an interest in her and… and she’d just be a normal person with some bad opinions that only hurt people in petty, small ways.”

Those green eyes met his. There was a softness to them, either compassion or pity. “You’re a parahuman now, too.”

“I know.” He folded his hands in front of himself. “I know, ma’am. And… and I don’t know exactly what I can do,” Theo forced himself to smile, “except apparently get half-way through turning Aster’s toy into some kind of robot. But I don’t want to be like him. I don’t want to use people l-like he does.”

Even if, he added in his head, the very first thing he did as a parahuman was betray his family for his own safety. Not just for that reason. But it was still something he was going to do.

04:02. Theo wrapped his hands around the hot chocolate Miss Militia had just brought him from the vending machine outside. “Thank you,” he said.

“It’s hot, so let it cool a bit. Sorry, those machines never quite make things at a temperature you can actually drink.”

“It’s fine.” He just let the warmth sink into his bones.

“Do you think you can go on?”

“I… I think so.”

“Tell me if you want to stop.”

“No, I… no one listens to me normally.” He tried to smile at her, but it wasn’t funny. “Even Kayden didn’t really want to listen to anything I said. Jessica and Nessa used to, but…” He sighed. Another scab.

Her pencil tapped against the paper, and the beat in his skull shifted to match. “Your mother’s cousins. Fenja and Menja.”

“Yes.”

“And your mother was Jennifer Anders, neé Biermann, also known as Heith. Who… you said your mother was their guardian?”

“Yes. I… I think something happened with the family and Mom’s parents ended up with custody of them, but then they died and then Mom ended up being their guardian. And she couldn’t have been that old at the time, because she was a year or two older than my father. But I don’t know exactly what happened. I just know it was the kind of family thing you don’t talk about.” He had a lot of those. But this was different. This was something the family refused to talk about, not something you hid from outsiders.

Miss Militia scribbled something down. “Go on.”

“Um… they used to be nicer to me. Especially before I was about ten or so. My father would unload me on them a lot. That was when Jessica was still alive.” It had been another betrayal when he’d stopped being handed over to them. They’d been nice to him too. Maybe that had been why his father had stopped it. It would be just like him to think that was making Theo soft. “But Nessa started acting… um… strange after Jessica died.”

“Strange?”

“She, uh, basically gave him an ultimatum. That if he wasn’t going to get revenge for Jessica, she’d find someone else who would.”

The pencil scratched again, like a conductor’s baton. Thoughts swelled of something big and metal, a replacement Jessica. He tried to put them out of mind. “You think the recent aggression against the ABB came from that?”

“Yes. Although I know Hookwolf also worried my father and wanted a fight with them. But… you know I said she was acting strange? I mean, standing up to my father was strange for her already, but…” He trailed off, looking for the right words for how odd she had been. Why he’d started to avoid her.

“What happened?”

Theo took a long, slow sip of his hot chocolate. “First, she started using Jessica’s shield. Then she’d start doing her hair like Jessica used to, sometimes. And we were talking once and… she brought up something I’d done when I was a kid, only…”

“Only?”

“Only she wasn’t there. Jessica took me up over to Portland because Dad wanted me out of his hair. And I thought maybe Nessa was just talking about something Jessica had told her. They were very close.” He swallowed, tasting powdery residue on his tongue. “But she sounded like she’d been there.”

“Do you think that people mis-identified which twin died?”

Theo shook his head. “No,” he said firmly. “I can tell them apart. Or, at least I could. But Nessa keeps on acting like Jessica. Just in little ways. And I’d like to think it’s just that she’s not over how her sister died. And she’s lonely and that’s why she’s sharing a bed with my father. That that’s all it is.”

“You’d like to think?”

“Yes.” His hands trembled. How did you explain the creeping, uneasy horror of seeing someone act just like their dead sister, when everyone else would say ‘oh, they’re twins, of course they’re similar’? “I hope that’s true, because at least then it’d make sense.”

Miss Militia said nothing.

“I know,” he said, answering a question which maybe she hadn’t even asked. “Nessa and Jessica never stood up to my father about anything that mattered until Lung murdered Jessica. And Nessa’s not like Kayden. She doesn’t have a cause, or believe she’s a hero. I don’t know if she cares about anything beyond getting her revenge on Lung. And,” he sighed, “that’s just the way my father likes it. She’s a wind-up doll in his hands. But I… we used to be family for a little bit.”

The clock had reached 04:24, and the nervous energy that had carried Theo ever since Starlight had burst in was all but exhausted. His body was leaden; his brain just wanted somewhere dark and quiet to sleep so he could shut out the song from the gun at Miss Militia’s hip which was getting more and more insistent.

Theo swallowed. “I hate him,” he said, softly, and that was something he’d never said out loud to another person before. No, that wasn’t quite true. He’d said it to Aster. Whispered it to his infant half-sister, so he could let out all the seething, bubbling, acidic thoughts he kept down inside because he was too scared to be honest about them. She was only a baby, so she couldn’t understand him, but there was a tiny bit of him that wanted her to know what kind of man their father was. “He talks about defending American families. And keeping people safe. And how we need to ‘stand together’. But he doesn’t believe any of that. All he cares about is his own power.

“It’s not enough for him that he’s rich and he can call up the editor of the Brockton Bay Times and get any story he wants on the front page. He wants everyone to be his plastic soldiers who move around as he orders them. He wants to be able to give the word and break a rival like dry spaghetti.”

Miss Militia shifted slightly in her seat. “You don’t think he really believes in the neo-Nazi ideology of the Empire?”

Theo thought about it, blinking owlishly. “I think he thinks he’s better than the idiots who believe it. But I’ve heard what he says about the Japanese refugees, and,” his cheeks pinkened, “um, what he called Portent earlier in the year when he arrested someone important in the drug supply chain. And, uh. What he calls you.” The embarrassed blush was rising.

“I won’t ask you to repeat it.”

“Thank you. But… yes. I think my father looks down on the Empire, especially men like Hookwolf. He respects Mr Fleischer - Krieg - but I think that’s about it. But I don’t think he’s right when he thinks he’s just using them. If you’re someone who can… um, just say ‘it’s all the fault of those people’ and then send people to kill them, I think you’re just lying to yourself when you say you don’t believe and you’re too smart for it.”

“Why don’t you?” She sounded sympathetic. Sympathy he didn’t deserve, because he wished he had a high-minded reason. But...

“I think, because I hate him,” he admitted. “I was a kid when Mom died, but, um, Nessa and Jessica… well, uh, before Jessica died, at least for her. But Nessa loved Mom. People say she was easy to love. That she had a lot of charisma. Mom was pretty. I didn’t get her looks. Or Dad’s build,” and didn’t people like to say that? “But they loved Mom because she was family. I think that’s how they wound up in the Empire. And Jessica’s now staying over nights with my father, so… yeah.”

He blinked heavy eyelids.

“But anyway, that’s how things worked out. I hate my father. Maybe it’s all just a way of rebelling against him. I… I’d like to think I’m better than that. That maybe I’d have seen how evil he is, how evil the Empire is, if he’d ever thought of me as more than just a burden and a weak soft little boy. But if I was his perfect athletic handsome son who he could be proud of because he’d see himself in me, I’d probably believe in him. He’s good at using people. When he tries.” He hadn’t been worth his father’s effort.

Miss Militia reached out to pat his hand. It was a little gesture that didn’t mean much, but it was still more sympathy than anyone showed him normally. “I’m sorry for you.”

He mumbled something incoherent in response, but Theo wasn’t even sure what he was trying to say himself. His attempts to clarify were lost in a yawn.

“You need to sleep,” Miss Militia said. “You’ve been very brave today.”

“Brave,” Theo whispered. He didn’t feel brave. He felt like a coward who’d finally run out of places to run or hide. There was no more hiding in the dark for him. Starlight had exposed it all.

Chapter Text

The future was always dark. A mass of cold hungry shadows that hid everything. And the flashes of light in that inky sea were only enough to show him glimpses of the worst, like peering through the keyhole of a room where things you didn’t want to see were happening.

And right now, he could see flashing blue lights in his mind’s eye.

Cold wind rolled in from the ocean. Snow-laden boughs creaked under their weight in the grey half-light of dawn. The roads were quiet, save for the police car which made its appearance in his rear view mirror. Sighing, Brian pulled over.

He kept his hands on the wheel in plain sight, answered them politely, called the buzzcut cops ‘sir’ and didn’t say a damn thing that would set them off. He was wasting some of his power-use on staying safe. He’d do it again, too, because this was the third time the cops had stopped him since he’d got this car and all the safety and rule-following in the world wouldn’t stop the BBPD when they were looking for a young male guilty of the offence of driving-while-black. A part of Brian wondered again if running a car was worth it, but he needed the freedom. He needed the ability to get around without being reliant on the shitty local buses and when he turned eighteen, he’d pack up his stuff in this car and leave this city behind.

Because that was just how life was in the Bay. It was New Year’s Day, there were probably drunk drivers on the road and there he was: staying five miles an hour below the speed limit, always signalling, taking care. But it was him that they stopped.

After ten minutes of posturing and veiled implications that if he didn’t answer their questions they’d smell pot in his car, they checked his driver’s licence and let him go with a patronising warning that he needed to watch himself. And he thanked them again and drove two streets and took a right to make sure they weren’t following him. His stomach clenched in the petty, humiliated anger that this was his life, but he forced it down. He’d got through this bullshit fine. That meant he had to put it behind him and not let it ruin the rest of the day. Not when the Protectorate had called him in on statutory holiday, which meant that things were serious. And as a Ward, he was getting time-in-lieu and triple pay for today.

But most of his worries about the asshole cops shrank to the back when he found that the PRT HQ had the deployable barricades up and the entire frontage of the building was locked down, with a cordon of armed agents manning the barricades. There were more agents around the parking garage, and they checked his ID properly rather than just the usual wave-through, even though he knew Clive. The old worries shrank to the back because he had new worries to take their place, to gibber and crawl in the darkness behind his eyes, whispering how things could go wrong.

He was always afraid. Always worried. And he didn’t show it because showing fear was being weak, and being weak meant that you drew attention. If you were weak, everyone looked for a chance to beat you down. But even if you did everything you could to not give the world openings, it’d sucker-punch you in the back of the head if it got behind you. So you just had to try to keep on top of things and live with your body feeling as wound-up as a spring, because if you expected the worst, life could only surprise you for the better.

He paused as he grabbed his keys from his car, and screwed his eyes shut. Nothing popped out from the patterns against his eyelids, though, and he didn’t have that certain sick churning feeling that told him that his life was in danger right this moment. But that didn’t mean everything was fine. Something had gone wrong, obviously, and the PRT was on full alert. Battery was there in her combat gear to meet him as he waited for them to let him through the parking garage airlock.

“What’s up?” he asked, glancing down at her.

“They want you in full dress. Word from Washington,” she said, sounding distracted. Her hands twisted together, gripping her thumbs out of nervous tension. “Armsmaster is waiting for you in 301 for a briefing.”

“Okay, but what’s going on?” Full dress inside the building wasn’t normal.

“I’m not sure. I’m just on security detail, but I heard that they grabbed someone big from the Empire last night. I wasn’t even meant to be in today.”

“I don’t think anyone was,” Brian said, as the airlock doors opened. “I’ll head straight to the changing rooms.”

Inside, the building was way too busy for a public holiday and no one seemed happy about that. He wasn’t happy either, not least because he didn’t like his costume much. He understood why they’d chosen the royal blues and the golden bird logo. It was all about making him look professional - and not a threat to civilians. He didn’t mind professionalism, but people wouldn’t mess with him on patrol if he looked more like someone you didn’t fuck with. And the royal blue was too much like cop colours. It was clearly designed by someone who never understood how police blue could be a threat and mark you as an outsider.

But not wearing it would get him in trouble, so he forced down his feelings about the stupid costume, and reminded himself he only had six months until he got out of the Wards. Just a little longer and he’d be out of Brockton Bay.

“What’s happening, sir?” he asked Armsmaster, who was waiting for him in the meeting room. “This isn’t normal.”

The older man didn’t say anything for a moment, while he checked the door was closed and then fiddled with something on the arm of his blue-and-silver power armour. A faint hum started up, just at the upper reaches of hearing. “Since late last night, Purity has been in custody,” Armsmaster said. “She’s in a cell in this building.”

“Oh.” Brian blinked, diving into the darkness behind his eyes, and straightened up. “Yeah, I see why there’s so much security now. If it helps, I don’t see anything bad happening here in the next day or so.”

Something relaxed slightly in Armsmaster’s posture. “Is that no threat until tomorrow, or have you not checked those dates?”

“I just did a quick check. I’ll need more time to…”

“No, no, save that for later. But that’s good news.”

“Uh. So what happened?” Brian asked. If he was being told to limit his precognition use so much, that meant they were expecting him to have to use it a lot. And that was going to suck. “I haven’t seen any newspapers this morning.”

Armsmaster straightened up. “At around 19:40 yesterday, Purity tried to attack one of the warehouses close to the park on Captain’s Hill. Starlight, Flare and Radiant from New Wave,” he paused for just a moment, “happened to be at the park, and engaged her, forcing her to retreat.”

“Oh God.”

He ignored Brian’s groan. Maybe he felt the same way. “Purity took Radiant out of action. Fortunately her blast was contained, with no civilian fatalities. Starlight contacted Vista, who was in her Wards room, and an incident was raised. Unfortunately, Mister Crypsis was on duty and the order to retreat was not given to Starlight or Flare. They engaged Purity several times as they chased her down. Flare was taken out of action, but Starlight tracked Purity to her apartment.

“I scrambled a response immediately, even though I was working in my lab when the report came in, and I managed to follow them. I secured the arrest on Purity, and held her until the PRT support team followed my signal.”

“How… how are they?” Brian asked, feeling the sick yawning in his stomach. Why hadn’t he seen this coming? He was usually good at picking up on things like this, and there were so many ways it could have gone wrong. If they’d gotten badly hurt and he could have stopped it if he’d been in the right place- “The girls, I mean?”

“Starlight is fine - she wasn’t severely injured so her regenerative factor handled everything. Flare is in our medical facilities, because she was shot with a high-powered energy blast. She’s displaying a previously unknown Breaker aspect of her powers, and doesn’t know how to turn it off.”

“Um.” Brian wasn’t entirely sure how to respond to that, or even if that was good or bad news. It was hard to tell from Armsmaster’s tone.

“The doctors suspect that she might not be able to deactivate her modified physiology until the damage heals, but that’s just a guess. We may need to find a parahuman healer for her.” Armsmaster paused. “Oh, and the New Wave girl is fine.”

Brian shifted uncomfortably. “I… you mention New Wave? I think T- Starlight said that Orbital from New Wave can make healing devices. Would that be able to help Flare?”

“That’s one of the options we’re considering, though we’re looking for in-house alternatives first,” Armsmaster said. “That’s the basic state of affairs, Portent.”

“Purity was taken alive?” he checked.

“Yes. Alive and badly injured. She’s in secure intensive care right now.”

“How did the girls get into that situation?” he asked, already knowing the answer in his gut.

“According to Starlight, she had planned to attend the New Year’s fireworks display at Captain’s Hill with Flare and Radiant, and noticed Purity by chance as she began her attack on the warehouse.”

“I don’t believe that.”

“We are choosing,” Armsmaster said, his tone flat, “to believe her story at the present time. Because now we have much bigger problems on our hands.”

So Armsmaster didn’t believe it either. It wasn’t a surprise. Only an idiot - or someone who didn’t actually know Taylor - would believe that she ‘just happened’ to stumble into Purity. Doubly so, when she had the heaviest hitter in the city with her. Brian was willing to bet two months' pay that if Missy hadn’t had a sprained ankle, she would have been there too. The only real surprise was that his power hadn’t warned him about this. Probably, he suspected, because he hadn’t been involved when it was going down, so it hadn’t been enough of a threat to him for him to get an unasked vision about. But it was wholly predictable. Taylor was an angry teenage girl who was every inch fifteen, despite her constant demands to be treated like she was older. And she had a built-in assumption that she was going to be in charge of things. Brian could stay professional; his job wasn’t his life. But Taylor took everything personally.

“It’ll be Gallant’s problem, anyway,” Armsmaster said, interrupting Brian’s thoughts.

“What?” He tried to grasp what was going on. Was he being blamed for the fact she’d gone and done this and-

“Your time is too important to waste on the Wards team leader duties. Gallant is nearly as old as you are, so he’s in a good position to handle them. And the investigation will need you to help break the Empire-88. If you agree to this, you’ll be working with the FBI and Watchdog on taking them down along with their corporate backers.”

“I can say no?” Brian checked. He didn’t know how to feel about this. And he wasn’t one hundred percent sure that Gallant was up to it. He liked the guy, but he was too easy-going. And this wasn’t an easy responsibility. Triumph had warned him about how much of a problem Taylor was just before Brian had taken over as the Ward team leader, and he’d added that she was even more of a problem because of how she behaved right up until someone told her ‘no’ or got in her way. Missy was her flunky, and Megumi now seemed to be a co-conspirator.

At least Gallant wouldn’t have to deal with her crush. Brian wasn’t so lucky there. He could see that she was crushing on him from how she blushed and where her eyes lingered, and equally see that she wasn’t past the equivalent stage to little boys pulling on a girl’s pigtails to get her attention. He had considered raising it, and then pre-seen that that could never end well. It was just embarrassing for him, and Brian honestly hoped she’d grow up. Or find a guy her own age. Just as long as she left him alone.

“You can refuse,” Armsmaster said, and Brian focused back on the offer. “But if you agree to this placement, you’ll be in a good position for that Watchdog position you wanted - and you won’t have to handle any of the responsibilities of being the Wards team leader. If the case does conclude quickly, we’ll reinstate you, but between me and you, this case is big enough that it’ll probably be using all your hours between now and when you graduate.”

“Sh… eesh.” Brian bit his lower lip. That was his plan. Survive in Brockton Bay until he was eighteen, then get that placement with WEDGDG that’d get him out of the city. Then he could get guardianship of his little sister off his dad and get Aisha out of this shithole city. But something high profile like this was dangerous. What if he screwed up and it ruined his chance to get out? Or if the Empire went after him personally if they knew he was in the investigation team? They would. The Protectorate was already screening his fanmail after those shitheads had got it into their skulls to start a letter-writing campaign. Of sorts. “Let me just… I need to think about it.”

“I thought you’d leap at this chance,” Armsmaster said, and was that a note of surprised disapproval there?

But Brian paid him no attention, already diving into the shadows of the future.

Darkness. But split in two, down each path (but oh yes, there were paths that’d allow him to jump between the two legs so there would be a way to change his mind). And gleaming diamonds, moments in time that stood out from the unreadable mess. Deliberately seeking out a future like this wasn’t the same as just opening his mind and letting the images come. In a fight, his power was like a flinch, if a flinch let you dodge away from a man who was about to draw a gun and break his arm without thinking. But throwing his sight forwards into this inky fear was exhausting and painful and-

there’s suddenly a growing, growing, growing shape against the skyline. Menja raises one titanic fist and grabs one of the PRT trucks, hurling it down the street. Brian sucks in a breath, swallowing. There’d been six people in there. And Armsmaster is there, with Kaiser down already thanks to the nanosedative but he’s too slow and now the giantess is whirling on him, fist coming from

-meant-

the other side of the desk, Piggot glares at him, her ugly blocky features snarled up in a look of contempt. “This is your fault, Portent. You should have stopped this. You should have seen this coming. Isn’t that what you’re for?” And the guilt curled up in his chest is right - he should have stopped this, should have seen this coming but he didn’t. Because he took a risk and it failed and now

-he’d-

everyone’s out of position because of the scrambled call to react to Faultline’s crew going after a city bank, but that was just a distraction. He’s backed against the wall, holding tight onto a taser he grabbed and his hands are sweaty. This was just meant to be an easy call-out for the Wards, but Hookwolf is here and

-see-

he thinks it’s just a bum out on the street at first, but no, there’s a pale face there, with broken glasses hanging off her cut-up face and he wonders why he didn’t see that coming but everyone had, hadn’t they, and so

-friends-

Gallant grins, and throws out his hands. One of the skinheads goes down, knocked off his feet by a one-two punch of energy blasts. There’s a crackle of gunfire, but the bullets bounce off his shiny armour. “Come on, Por!” he yells. “Move when you’re read-”

And he doesn’t finish the sentence because the metal spike runs him through with a wet sound and a

-and-

Purity, brightly glowing overhead, laying waste to buildings - just like he’d seen in Little Tokyo but worse. The helical beams cut down, and concrete crumbles. Triumph is too slow to get to cover and when it passes he’s gone. The smoke he can taste at

-himself-

the back of his throat is aching, and he isn’t sure why. It tastes like swimming pools and drain cleaners and there’s something horribly familiar about it. It’s… oh. It’s too late. Because this is the same man who killed Assault and

-die-

she doesn’t look suspicious at first, but the bone-blade punches through his chest and it’s suddenly hard to breathe and he realises it was Wunjo all along, along with

-time-

Armsmaster charges in at Hookwolf, halberd cleaving down but there’s a loose paving tile underfoot and

-and-

a gunshot and

-time-

red pain

-again.

He relaxed, already feeling the lurking pressure behind his eyes. A drop of cold sweat ran down his brow, and he swallowed roughly. He was very glad his helmet covered his eyes because he… he just had to blink away the sweat.

But the balance of the futures was clear. There were gleaming bad futures down both paths, but there were more of them down one.

“I’ll do it,” he said.

“Good man,” Armasmster said, with a short nod. “Now, let me introduce you to Agent Bao, who’s leading the FBI side of things, and you can be briefed…”

His bosses paid for his taxi back to his apartment which was just as well. He was in no state to drive, and he just wanted to eat then work out for long enough that his exhaustion overcame the pain.

It was like someone had cut open the top of his head, and then stuffed it full of documents and reports and intel print-outs over the course of hours and hours. His brain ached from the use of his precognition and also sitting in dull meetings. Meetings that went on and on about Medhall and its web of Delaware-registered subsidiaries and how they were already under investigation for misappropriation of prison-to-workplace training grants. Secure briefings about GCHQ and ASIO and CSIS intelligence reports on US citizens and on European investigations of ties between Medhall and extremist elements in Europe. And everyone dancing around the source of the anonymised tip-off which had revealed that the senior leadership of the Empire-88 and Medhall were two faces of the same coin.

Leaning against the glass of the taxi, Brian pushed his palm against his forehead. No, his overworked brain had to shut down. Stop thinking about work. Work was over and he wasn’t paid to think outside of Protectorate time so he wasn’t going to.

“Hey, we’re here,” the driver said.

“Thanks, man,” Brian said, levering himself out of the cramped seat that wasn’t made for a guy six-and-a-half feet tall. He fumbled in a pocket for a handful of change, and passed it to the driver. It did good to be remembered as a good tipper. Safer that way. Only then did he trudge up the steps to his apartment building - a low redbrick on the edge of Ormswood - and let himself in.

His building could have been better. It had to be getting on for a century old, and had probably once been much nicer. Now its former quality could only be seen in a few places, like some of the original faded tilework over the mailboxes. But he needed a place with solid walls and good soundproofing when he had a headache, and this had been cheaper than the other choices. A Wards salary wasn’t generous enough to live on his own without some compromises. He grabbed his letters, and waited for the slow elevator to arrive to take him up to the third floor.

“Oh, you’ve been out?” asked Mrs Vasquez, a bottle-glassed woman in her fifties who lived a few doors down from him. She was heading out, wrapped up warm.

He nodded. “Work called me in to cover someone else’s shift,” he said. “Guy was probably just hungover, but…” He shrugged.

She nodded with understanding. “By the way, the water’s been running cold again. I told the superintendent.”

“Thank you.” The elevator pinged. “Sorry, I’m just tired from work and…”

“No, no, I’ve got to get to my shift too.”

Brian made his way to apartment 304 and let himself in. The lights were on and he could hear the TV. The hair on the back of his neck rose, and he shrank back, making himself a smaller target. He never left things on when he left in the morning. It was throwing money away. And he’d seen so many ways to get hurt or die in his own apartment. His heart clenched in his chest and his stomach curled up into a little ball. Leaning into his apartment silently, he grabbed the snow shovel he kept beside the door - just for snow, only ever for snow, and that was his story - and slowly advanced. He kept his stance low, and his mind loose and ready to switch if something happened. Then-

He relaxed.

“Aisha, what the hell are you doing here?” he said, seeing familiar hair poking over the edge of the couch in the small living room. “How did you get in?”

“Borrowed a key,” his sister called out, vaguely waving a hand in his direction without turning in her seat.

“When? How?”

“Last time I came around.”

Brian pinched his brow, feeling all the adrenaline leave him. “What are you doing here?” he asked, putting the snow shovel back in its place, and hanging up his winter coat.

“Can’t I just want to see my brother?”

“Try again.” He glanced tiredly at the take-away pizza on the couch. “You’re meant to be with Dad.”

“He was shouting at me so I didn’t want to stay.”

“Aren’t you still grounded?”

“Yeah, so I didn’t want to stay.” Despite her attitude, he could see the wariness in her posture, the fresh only-just-darkening hand-shaped bruise around one skinny wrist. Without thinking, she chewed on the dyed-pink braid that hung to the side of her face. “I… I got you pizza.”

“Don’t chew your hair,” he said without thinking. He was feeling too sick and too exhausted and too hurt to deal with Dad right now. “You can stay the night. I’ll text Dad to say you’re here so he doesn’t report you missing again. And,” he forced himself to smile, “I’m holding you to the pizza.”

The relief on her face was quickly hidden, but it was there. “So what were you doing out?”

“Work. They called me in ‘cause of an emergency.”

“Cool, so it was something to do with how the cops grabbed Purity.” She crossed her legs under her, swaying from side to side. “Come on then, gimme the deets.”

“I can’t tell you anything,” he said, heading through to the cramped kitchen and retrieving the bag where he kept the painkillers.

The teachers thought his sister was stupid. So did the social worker. Their father didn’t care about how smart she was, only that he was obeyed, and their mother didn’t care about anything that wasn’t herself or her supply. Brian was maybe the only person who understood that his sister was so much smarter than anyone else expected her to be, and she’d be even brighter if anyone else in her life had ever given a damn. Sometimes she’d come up with lightning-fast conclusions that surprised even him, the precog, and she was the one who’d worked out that he was Portent. Though from her point of view, it was everyone else who was an idiot for not putting together how there really weren’t all that many 6’6” African Americans young enough to be in the Wards.

“Aww, come on.” She followed him into the kitchen, nose wrinkling as he popped two pills out of their little foil capsules. “Come on. And do you have to take that stuff?”

“Yes. I was using my power a lot today. Work paid for a taxi back because I can’t drive like this.”

She scowled at him, and turned around and headed back to the living room. “I’ll eat the rest of the pizza!” she warned.

“Don’t!”

“I will!”

“You’ll get fat!”

“Shut your face! I’m a growing girl!”

She would. He downed the pills with a mouthful of water, then recovered the box from her while she scowled at him over the top of the slice she’d taken. The TV blared out cartoons until he turned it off.

About five seconds later; “But seriously, what’s happening with Purity! Bitch is going to jail, right?”

“Probably.”

“Good. Fuck her.” She pulled a face. “Like, not you, ‘cause that’d be really weird and there’s no way you should fuck that stupid bitch but, just, you know, fuck her. Are they going to kill her?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is she going to escape?”

He shuddered, and for a moment he saw Taylor’s crumpled body lying there in the alleyway, pale face in the muck like a discarded doll. Remembered being there in that future that wasn’t going to happen because it’d been in the branch of the dark sea that ran from not helping the investigation. Remembered remembering that they’d been warned in the morning briefing that Purity was on the warpath and looking for revenge.

It wasn’t real. But he’d lived that moment in time, a few months from now.

“I said, is she going to escape? Are you ignoring me? Hey, Brian! Brian! Are-” Aisha trailed off, leaning forwards. “Are you crying?”

“Headache,” he lied. The pizza was cardboard and wallpaper in his mouth, and he mechanically chewed on it, working away at it while his stomach threatened to rebel. “Just been overdoing it. Need an early night, you know?”

“So… she’s going to escape?” Aisha chewed her lower lip. “Or… if she escapes, something real bad happens? ‘Cause I mean she’s killed a lot of people and she’s a fashy bitch so, I mean, that’s kind of not something you need powers to know.”

He forced out a hollow, sick laugh. “Yeah. Yeah. You sure don’t.”

She knew he was hiding something from her, and the look she gave him said so. But she also knew it would be a long, difficult conversation trying to get him to share, and he could see the interest on her face wane and fade as the prospect put her off enough to let it lie. The couch creaked as she shuffled up closer to him, leaning against his shoulder. “Well, thanks… uh, thanks for putting me up for the night.”

“Yeah. That’s okay. Just give me a moment and I’ll get the camp bed.”

“I can do that.” She didn’t move. “I know where it is.”

“Mmm. I guess you do by now.”

Six months. Six months to go until he was out of this town.

Chapter Text

She drifted on a blood-stained boat, under a crimson sun. Trapped. Pinned by something she couldn’t see. Looming figures moved around her, only visible where they obscured the red stars. Twisting and coiling together. And she was so hungry. More than hungry. There was a dark emptiness inside her that shouldn’t have been empty.

“...aftermath of a TBI…” a distorted, bassy voice echoed from somewhere overhead.

She didn’t remember why she was here. She didn’t remember what she was meant to be doing, in this red-lit space under strange stars. But there had to be a reason.

Right?

She stands in front of a mirror. The face there is unfamiliar. It’s someone she hasn’t seen in ten years and more: herself as a teenager. Soft and weak, before she put her muscle on and lost the weight. Round faced, brown-eyed, her brown hair streaked with highlights from the summer sun.

And that’s her first costume she’s wearing. The one she put together herself that barely qualified as a costume; jeans, white sneakers, and a tan coat she got from the army surplus store. She doesn’t have a mask, just a motorcycle helmet. But she painted white lightning bolts on the blue plastic, and she’s got a domino mask to wear underneath it. The helmet is going to be gone within a few weeks, when she realises how much it limits her ability to hear and see what’s going on, and she’ll rely on just her glow. The coat lasts longer. It lasts until the Empire makes her a costume, and sometimes she still misses the pockets.

She isn’t Purity yet. She’s still Kayden, and she’s so proud of the name she came up with herself. ‘Lady Lumen’ has the cool whatdoyoucallit, the double-L sound, and if she calls herself Lady Lumen, they won’t look for a high school student. ‘Cause that would be something like Lumengirl or Lumen Lass.

Kayden sighs. Maybe she should go to the government instead. The Wards have such cool costumes. Which actually fit them. But she saw on the news about the scandal down in Boston. Abuse; bullying; a suicide. She doesn’t want to risk that. And then she’d have to explain to Mom about everything, and she is still furious about how Kayden had wrecked the car and she doesn’t have Dad’s number and isn’t going to ask anything of him anyway.

And what if, a little nagging doubt whispers in her head, they look down on her and say her power’s weak or bad because she has to charge up in the sun? It’s winter right now, and with how short the days are, she can’t seem to build up much power. Last time she went away from the city to practice out in the woods, she nearly got stuck because she ran out on the way back home. And then she’d felt trapped there and had kind of a major freak-out and had to hitch-hike back to Brockton Bay when she pulled herself back together. What kind of hero does that?

It’ll just be easier to wait until she’s eighteen. But in the meanwhile, Lady Lumen can still do her part to protect the city!

2007. Or maybe 2008. She doesn’t actually remember when this is, because these moments blur together. But Night and Fog are there, looming shadows flanking her and the skinny rat who has been skimming from the takings. He can’t look her in the eye. Partly because she’s transformed and sun-bright, partly because he’s been beaten so badly he can’t see out of one eye, but mostly because he’s a fucking traitor who can’t face his crimes.

“Here’s the thing,” she says, punctuating her words with another punch. “You don’t fuck with your people. You little weasel.”

He tries to protest. Tries to defend himself. “I just… just needed the cash quickly,” he mumbles. “Was going to… to pay it back. No one had to know.”

She jams her hand up against his face, pumping up the brightness. He tries to turn his head away. Tries to stop the white light touching him. Screams as it burns. “You’re meant to be fighting the good fight,” she growls. He disgusts her. He really does. Why do they let people like this in the Empire? He hadn’t been much good as a low-level soldier even before they’d found he’d been stealing from them. “You’re meant to be better than this!”

“Sorry sorry sorry I’m sorry, I’m-”

She cuts him off by kicking over the chair he’s tied to, and all the air gets knocked from his lungs in a wheeze. “Nobody betrays the Empire and gets away with it! Nobody!”

She turns, hovering in place, and pauses before Night. The woman’s studiously bland expression barely reacts to her presence. The only movement is the narrowing of her pupils to too-thin slits. Not very human - but then again, even a creature like her can do good when given a strong hand of leadership.

“He’s all yours. But make sure to clean up afterwards. And if anything is left…”

“Call the cleaner.” Night knows the routine well.

Purity floats out. Behind her, she can hear the sound of Night’s heels on the plastic sheeting. And the man’s frantic whimpering. The soundproofed door shuts before the screams start, and that’s something she’s grateful for.

She doesn’t like doing this. It just has to be done. Loyalty and honour are what America is built on.

2004, and the Empire’s a shell of its former self. People think they can get away with not paying for the protection that they offer. That’s not happening.

Purity shows them that the Empire’s protection is better than making an enemy of them. And replacing a truck or machining tools or your backroom stock is much more expensive than paying your subscription fee.

Once they’re stronger, she doesn’t have to do it personally. She has people for it. Sometimes she still does, of course. If the business owner rubbed her the wrong way. Or if people aren’t showing her the proper respect.

It’s 1999 and she’s seeing the news of a colossal Endbringer attack in Japan. A huge chunk of the nation has been destroyed by Leviathan. It’s awful, but she thanks God that it wasn’t somewhere in America. It’s still sad, though.

“Sad?” Electroboot scoffs, hand cupped around his cigarette to shield it from the wind. “I can tell you what’s really sad; a bunch of fucking asylum seekers are going to show up in America ‘cause of this. Taking all the best housing, living off benefits and taking our jobs. If the government knew what it was doing, it wouldn’t let anyone in. Let them go to China. But the liberals are gonna sell us out ‘cause they’re so sorry for a bunch of foreigners that they aren’t going to care. Fucking invies.”

She’d like to think he was wrong, but she can feel it in her gut. The job market sucks, and she couldn’t afford to go to college. Mom has a bad back; Dad ran off to Minnesota and isn’t paying alimony. Life craps on hard-working people like her, and they shouldn’t let in a bunch of asylum seekers clamouring for hand-outs.

But they do, and in the years ahead Electroboot’s predictions come true - and more. First there’s just a few in Lockham, just north of the docks. But then Leviathan hits New York, and the New York refugees scatter up and down the east coast. Lockham becomes Little Tokyo, ruled by that monster Lung.

She doesn’t hate the refugees, even if they steal jobs and re-paint the street signs and stare at her and everyone knows they attack women and they’re dealing drugs. But they need to go the fuck back where they came from. And if they don’t go willingly, someone will need to make them go. Just like those Latinos and blacks from New York who wound up in Ormswood.

It’s not right that she can barely recognise the city she grew up in. It’s all their fault.

Only a few months ago. Ah, she definitely remembers when this is. She’s in the chair down at one of the tattoo salons, teeth gritted as the artist works on her arm.

It’s not that she wants to get rid of some of her ink. The Empire awards ‘medals’ for valiant service; some of them based on historical designs like the Iron Cross, others more Norse. She earned them and there’s a proud heritage to the symbols of European history. But she picked out the designs on that arm with Max’s help, themselves coverups of earlier ones which had been sloppy and poor quality. And fuck him. She’s not walking around with his choices on her arm. Not like some branded cattle that he owns.

The big solid black eagle design will get rid of that aspect of her past while respecting her heritage. And it’ll help when working, too. Next summer, she’ll be able to work in something sleeveless without worrying about her client reporting their decorator for having Empire tattoos.

“You’re doing great, Kayden,” the artist tells her. Josh gets plenty of cover-up work and once she helped him get rid of some New York fuckers who were trying to move in on the same street with their own shop, so he owes her. “Lot of girls can’t sit still - or worse, get drunk beforehand and then piss themselves. Shame to cover up some of these things, really. Some real art to them.”

“They’re coverups of my first set.”

“Yeah, I can see that. This was Arnold’s work, wasn’t it? Guy’s great with working the old linework into a new design. And it’s his style, clear as day.”

“Yeah. I kind of wish I didn’t have to do the coverup,” that’s a lie, except not entirely, “but there’s people in this city who won’t hire you if they see them.”

“Yeah, fuck ‘em. Makes you sick to see how those fuckers can be about a few tats.”

The machine thrums away.

Her head ached. And her throat burned. Something bleeped in the background, with long, slow, drawn-out sounds. Kayden. Yes. That’s her name.

Something hung overhead. Not quite blocking out the dim red suns, but framed by them. Two figures, so close they were nearly touching.

She was so hungry.

Lady Lumen flits through the Docks, feeling miserable and wet and wondering if there’s any way to avoid getting soaked when you’re flying in the rain. The cranes are lit up with red lights, and visibility is poor enough that she needs the help. Maybe she should just go home. But something that after a thought she realises is gunfire draws her attention. A crackle of gunfire, and then a resonating shriek that sounds like a giant’s finger on a wine glass. Kay- Lady Lumen considers if she needs to take a more careful approach. But then the shriek sounds out again and something explodes, red and smoky over near one of the warehouses. And people could be dying out there!

The scene she finds is one of chaos. She’s never ever seen a fight this big.

She lands with a crunch on the rooftop, which is covered in gravel and cigarette butts. Immediately, she pulls her light within her and hopes no one caught her glow as she arrived. When nobody yells upwards at her, she shimmies to the edge of the roof. The chill in her stomach isn’t just the clinging fog. She’s never been in a really big fight before. She’s scared off some vandals and broken up some late-night brawling in front of a bar or two and even helped out in a police car chase once, but no one was really trying to kill each other.

But down here, it’s like something out of a war movie. There’s a group taking cover by a truck that’s being unloaded. The other side has pulled up in their own vehicles, blocking the entrance with… some kind of barricade. Her ears already ache from the gunfire they’re exchanging. The ground shakes, forming concentric ripples, and another barricade slides smoothly out of the slick asphalt. Two men from the attackers rush forward, hiding behind the metal wall. It rings whenever shots hit it, but it’s thick enough to stop anything that the-

And she can’t even finish that thought, because one of the people behind the truck tosses a blue-green orb overarm. It moves strangely slowly through the air, floating like a child’s balloon and another barricade erupts from the ground in its path.

The newly-formed metal wall explodes with the same shriek that had drawn her attention. Metal patters down like a dropped bag of nails. She clutches her ears, vision blurred and teeth hurting. She needs the bathroom for some reason, like just hearing that sound made her guts churn. And she knows who this must be from the papers. The man who’s making the shrieking noises, he’s King Resonant. Part of the 191-Venom. A gang originally from New York that’s been making moves up the entire New England coast. They’re dealing drugs and bringing things in from outside. Brockton Bay doesn’t need those kinds of people! And anyone who stands up against that must be heroes.

Lady Lumen inhales, and then pushes off. She’s a blinding star, ringed in bright white halos as she swoops low through the sea-mist, and she casts long shadows across the loading area. Her teeth bare in an unthinking smile. With a flash, she punches a hole straight through the truck and out harmlessly into the open air above the bay. That’ll show them that they can’t hide!

For a moment, there is silence. People stop shooting. And then the shouting and the shooting restart. She screams a little bit, but though bullets crack through the fog she’s never where they’re aiming. She’s just too bright to look at, and she relies on her gut instinct to avoid their wild shots. Hands levelled, she pumps helical blast after blast down at the cover. She holds back, of course. She’s seen what she can do to trees when she cuts loose and she doesn’t want to do that to a person! Even if they’re the baddies, she’s not going to blow anyone up like that. And the people at the entrance are shooting back, and more than that. More of those walls tear up out of the ground, allowing them to advance - and from the sky, metal blades fall. Someone screams.

King Resonant yells, “Fall back! To the warehouse!” His order is accompanied by five of those slow-moving blue-green orbs, hurled out in a shotgun spread.

“Watch out!” Kayden screams down at the targets, as she drops out from the sky behind the cover of a building. She hits the ground hard enough that her knees ache, but it doesn’t hurt as much as the shrieking blasts that come, one after the other. By the end, she’s dizzy and gasping for breath.

God. God. That wasn’t… he wasn’t a threat to her, but that man could have killed everyone there. She staggers out on uneasy legs. The loading bay is littered with blown-apart metal barricades and fragments of shrapnel. Blades are embedded in the asphalt. But the 191-Venom are gone, retreating back through the building under the cover of their barrage and they’ve taken their wounded with them. There’s just the truck there.

With a growl, she takes off again. She aims down at the truck, and destroys it and its cargo. All that remains when she’s done is molten metal and stinking asphalt.

She feels better about that.

“Hey! Over here!” a man calls up at her. She descends to see what he wants.

He’s wearing something that she can only describe as a knight’s armour. A literal knight in shining armour. He sounds a few years older than her. A young man, who makes her feel painfully aware that she’s a teenager who never got much of a growth spurt wearing a homemade costume.

“I’m Prinz,” he says, offering her his hand. He’s breathing heavily, having taken off his helmet, revealing that underneath it he has a domino mask which doesn't cover up his quarterback-good-looks. His smile is easy and warm. “Thanks for the assist. You saved us.”

He feels very solid, and his much larger hand envelops hers. “L-Lumen Lass.” No, wait, fuck! It’s meant to be Lady Lumen!

“Lumen Lass? Nice name.”

“Th-thank you,” she mumbles. She’s shaking now, as the adrenaline wears off and she realises what just happened. “I… I picked it myself.” Oh God, what is she saying, she sounds like such an idiot! This is the first cape she’s really met as a hero and she sounds like a highschooler! “That w-was the 191-Venom, wasn’t it?”

“Yes. It was.” He lets go of her hand, working his shoulder. “We had a tip-off that they were running drugs north. But… well, you took care of that.”

“It was the least I could do,” she says, trying to sound confident and like this isn’t her first big fight. “Glad I could help.”

“You know,” Prinz says. “We could use someone like you on our team.”

“Our team?”

“I’m sorry. My dear, we’re the Empire-88. The protectors of America, the vigilante freedom corps who do what the cops and the government refuse to. And like you can see, we’re keeping New York filth like the 191-Venom out of the Bay.”

“Oh,” and she isn’t sure what to say. Because she’s also heard of the Empire-88, and people say they’re villains - but this Prinz doesn’t seem like a villain. He’s nice. And he’s talking about doing the right thing, keeping the gangs from New York out of the city. But if she’d known this was two gangs fighting each other, she’d have stayed out of it. But he said they’re vigilantes. And someone had to do something. “I’m… um. An independent hero.”

“Ah. Well, I don’t want to pressure you,” he flashes her another easy smile, “but do you know how long people who try to be ‘independent’ tend to last in the Bay? I’d hate to see you gutted by the Venom or being cut up by Marquis and his butchers for trying to stop their crimes. And-”

“Hey! Prinz!” The woman she’d seen earlier in the lighter armour stomps over. “Quit flirting and get moving. The cops will be here soon!”

“Iron Rain, this is Lumen Lass. She’s the heroine who helped us out.”

“Thanks for the assist, but we have to move.” The two of them have something of the same jawline, Kayden can see. Maybe they’re related.

“I can go,” she says.

“Well, okay.” Prinz takes her hand again, shaking it. “Thank you very much for that. And I hope I’ll see you around.”

“Yeah. Me too,” she says without really thinking.

He isn’t Kaiser yet, just like she isn’t Purity. She doesn’t know he’s Max Anders, and won’t learn for a couple of months. He’s still Prinz, and will be Prinz until his father dies and he decides to rebrand. That’s half a decade in the future at this point.

But from now on, he’s always part of her life.

Under the blood-red stars, Kayden could hear voices. Slow voices, deep voices, but not naturally so. Like someone was playing back the voices at three quarters speed.

“... it’s only intermittent. She’ll wake, but not remember the last time she was aware.”

“Is this long term?”

“We really can’t know in the long term, but her periods of lucidity are getting longer. It’s hard to work under these conditions - and this lighting. I understand why it’s necessary, but this isn’t something we’re trained for.”

“Just do your best.”

Her fingers weren’t responding.

She was so hungry.

The first time she kills a man, she’s just about seventeen. And maybe it’s not quite the first time, because it’s always possible that someone she hit didn’t walk away from it even though she didn’t mean to.

But down in the docks during the bloody, vicious winter of late 1999 is the first time she looks a man in the eye and kills him. Of course she doesn’t plan it out. She’s not a monster. But Marquis murdered Eva, and he has to pay for it. Eva - or Iron Rain as she’d been in costume - had been cool. She’d been confident and she’d known how things worked and she’d protected little mousy Kayden when she’d felt overwhelmed. And she’d talked to her and helped her feel better and explained a lot about how she was special for having powers, how you got powers by being strong enough to overcome some great struggle or threat and… and it helped. And it had also helped just to have another woman around. The Empire is kind of a sausage-fest, for all they were helping protect women in the city, but Eva had been there. Had told the foot soldiers that if anyone was rude to Kayden, she’d make an example of them.

Well, Marquis had made an example of Eva, and left her body in an alley on the edge of the Empire’s turf.

It’s cold outside. But she’s wrapped up warm, perched up on the roof, waiting for Marquis’s mobsters. That’s the plan; Prinz hits their bar, and when they try to run for it, Kayden and Rosette and the soldiers cut off their escape. Kayden can easily destroy their cars.

But things don’t go quite as planned. Oh, she blows up their rides, but they get behind cover and there are bullets whipping everywhere and she just keeps her back against the wall and cowers from all the noise. There’s sounds of another fight from the building itself; Prinz’s people must have hit harder resistance than they’d planned. Screams echo out, and the crack of bullets.

“Get them!” yells Rosette, and charges in, her cloud of pink glowing blades forming a shield in front of her. And Kayden sees a man aiming at her not-exactly-a-friend and she realises the shield isn’t covering that side and if she doesn’t do something someone else will die.

It doesn’t come easy. But it’s not exactly hard. She just thinks of how she’ll never see Eva again and the man with the gun goes down. Sizzling. The snow melted all behind him.

She only killed him because he was a threat to her. She tells herself that, and Prinz tells her she did a good job afterwards and that Eva would be proud. She smiles at him, and hopes he doesn’t look at the mound of snow which marks where she threw up afterwards and tried to hide the evidence.

The man’s face haunts her nightmares, but it’s soon joined by other faces in the war against the March. And the second matters less. The third, less than the second.

It’s all for the cause. For Max.

It’s always about Max. Always has been. Always will be.

He’s strong. He’s a leader. She knows she’s not that clever, and she’s not a leader. But he always knows what to do. Knows what she should do. The solo hero thing doesn’t work out for her. She realises that soon enough. Finding criminals isn’t easy. Making a difference is hard. And there’s too many villains in the city. The 191-Venom are after her, because they know she helped the Empire. Marquis and his thugs hold the docks, and the man is a monster with mob ties. Rumour is it that the bottom of the Bay is littered with people who’ve crossed him. And when she was going after that bastard Firehound and his thugs, the Brockton Bay Brigade showed up and accused her of being a villain who was attacking people for no reason. Just because she was trying to make the city a better place!

But Prinz is there. He tells her she’s not a villain. She’s a hero. And there are others there; Iron Rain, Rosette, Electroboot, Gerthr, and the freedom corps of the Empire, all under Allfather. They understand how hard it is to be a hero. They tell her that parahumans are people who’ve faced adversity and come out stronger and maybe she doesn’t feel strong for nearly dying in a car accident, but she’ll show that she’s worthy of these powers. Prinz is always strong. Always confident. Always knows what to do.

When she’s eighteen he hints that she needs to change her image now she’s with the Empire. After all, he explains with that easy smile of his peeking out from under his helmet, they have a moral duty to look good. The corruption of the PRT allows them to spend a fortune on its advertising and propaganda, and they can’t afford to have the defenders of the real Americans look bad. She dyes her hair blonde for him, even though she already knows her genes have said she’s going to be small, mousy, and not at all like the ideal.

When she’s nineteen he shifts onto the notion that she should lose weight. He gets an improved costume made for her, but it’s too small, so she’ll have a reward for achieving her goals. He says she’s got it in her to be beautiful. He believes in her. The Empire has to look good to convince the sheep brainwashed by the Jewish liberal media. And her new costume does look really good when she can squeeze into it. She’s not Lumen Lass anymore, even in her heart. She’s Purity.

At twenty, she hooks up with Vance. He’s big and strong and handsome. No powers, but that doesn’t matter. They’re two kids, in love, fighting the good fight. It’s a whirlwind romance, and they’re married in three months. Max can’t make the wedding, but he sends her a lovely gift. Congratulates her. Things are looking up. The assholes of the Brockton Bay Brigade - sorry, “New Wave” - have taken down Marquis and that means the Empire are the big dogs. They’re about to win.

And victory seems even closer when New Wave crumbles. Purity doesn’t feel entirely okay with the fact that one of their freedom corps soldiers was the one who took that dumb bitch Fleur down out of costume, but those smug self-proclaimed heroes had it coming. Allfather offered them a chance to team up to fix this city and they turned it down. What happened next was on their heads. And it wasn’t like the guy had been following orders anyway. But now there’s no one left in their way, apart from the Protectorate.

Less than a year later, she’s a widow. Gerthr turns on Allfather and murders him - murders Max’s father. And Vance had been part of Electroboot’s crew, but that didn’t stop him winding up dead in an alleyway. Max tells Kayden her husband had been a hero who’d been keeping an eye on Electroboot for him, because he suspected the man was more loyal to Gerthr than Allfather and they must have cleaned house. She is a Fury in burning light as she fights alongside Max - now Kaiser - to push off those treacherous shits.

The next few years are dark for the Empire. It’s a shell of what it once was. There’s hardly any of them left. Her; Max; Krieg. Nessa and Jessica later, once they’re a little older. The only way to hold off the vultures is uncompromising violence, even with bits of the BBPD helping where they can. But Max is a born leader. He’s an even better Caesar than he was a prince. He makes alliances. He brings in allies from European groups. He goes into business with the Herren family. He tracks down Hookwolf’s crew and makes them an offer they can’t refuse.

There are other men in her life, but they’re second to Max. At first, because she lives for the cause and revenge on Electroboot and the other traitors upstate in the breakaway White American Strength and he’s the only one who can give it to her. And then because he’s Max. He knows how to comfort her. He knows what to say. She breaks legs for him. She leads his freedom corps for him. She kills for him.

They marry when she’s nearly twenty-six, and it’s the happiest day of her life. Even if she’s wearing concealer and foundation on her arms so her gang tattoos can’t be seen through the white silk dress.

Her waking was a slow process. It had been happening for a while, the doctors said. A few days of intermittent waking, not remembering previous times she’d opened her eyes.

They’d talked about bruising in the brain and a concussion. Kayden didn’t know whether to believe them. She’d been concussed before and the dizziness and the nausea and the feeling that someone had scooped out her brain through her ears and replaced it with cotton candy was familiar. And while she couldn’t remember everything of the fight with that little bitch Starlight, she did remember getting hit in the head. Possibly more than once. But maybe that was just what the PRT wanted her to think. God only knew what they might have done to her when she was asleep. Government brain surgery to investigate her powers, mind-reading Tinkertech, or something she couldn’t even think of when she felt like this.

But even waking didn’t feel right. They were keeping her in this cell with only dim red lights to stop her recharging, and it made everything surreal and dream-like. No wonder she’d dreamed of blood and violence, with that light creeping into her subconscious mind. Especially when they’d gone and doped her up. Ever since she got these powers things like powerful painkillers and anaesthetics gave her horrible nightmares and hallucinations. She didn’t remember most of them afterwards, and thank God the memories tended to fade with time, but the lurking fear of being trapped there, unable to move her body, surrounded by things out to get her and - God, no.

If she could, she’d ask them to stop giving her them, but she was too damn afraid to have a clear mind. Even with whatever they had her on, the pain crept through like a draught under a door. Each breath Kayden took hurt from her cracked ribs and bruised intercostal muscles, even through the haze of painkillers. Or maybe it was the burns on her neck that hurt more when she breathed in and out. She couldn’t feel her face, but she was missing teeth and her nose was blocked up. Shoulder; dislocated. Several fingers, broken.

And despite all that, none of the bruises and breaks were as horrible as the collar around her neck and the harness on her chest. The harness, mounted with a little glowing orange device. Kayden could feel it there. Sitting there, where that bastard Armsmaster had attached it. She’d been beaten before. Stabbed, shot, burned and scalded. But she’d never felt anything like this.

It was drawing at her. Like a hot dry day drew moisture from your body. Like Starlight had drawn her charge out of her. Exactly like that.

All she could do was sit here and let the hate and pain fill the empty space inside her that should have been shining with power. Because she could do nothing else. Between the red lights and the Tinkertech, she had nothing. What little she could get from the dim lights was being pulled out of her. She wasn’t getting out of here on her own. And the corrupt, rotten institution of the PRT was a slave to everything wrong with America. Content to let the city decay so they could follow their rules and keep on collecting their government salaries. A puppet of the liberal elite. They’d throw the book at her because they’d prefer to protect the illegals in Little Tokyo than do what had to be done to keep the country safe. To secure the existence of proper Americans. To ensure there was a future for white children like her Aster.

But the PRT wouldn’t understand that. And that was why they had her in this bed, hands cuffed together, under dim red lamps with a power-draining device strapped to her chest.

Where was Aster? What had they done with her daughter? Her daughter, her reason for life! The only good thing Max had let her keep!

Kayden pulled at her bonds, and felt the torn muscles in her shoulder protest. She tried to grit her teeth and find some dregs of energy deep inside her that would let her transform and melt her way out, but there was nothing to be found. Just a flicker of white light in this red room, not even enough to complete her transformation.

She wasn’t going to be getting out of here. Not on her own. And that narrowed down her options. There was… there was one other thing she could do. One last option. One last way to get out, even if it meant making a deal with the devil. Satan would want his price for his help here, but she needed it. It was the only way to keep her Aster.

They let her call Max, asking - begging - him for help in the pained whisper which was all she could manage with the burns to her throat. Not saying what she couldn’t say on an unsecure line, but he liked it when people grovelled. She grovelled about the divorce and talked about how it was a mistake to leave him. He knew what she was really saying, even if the PRT didn’t.

It was going to pull her back into his orbit and she didn’t want to do that because she knew what kind of man he was. But she’d escaped him before. Being trapped in his orbit was better than being trapped in hypermax where she’d never be able to see Aster again. Be unable to protect her from this awful world.

It was hard to keep track of time. No natural light. Only a perpetual red-tinged gloom which dimmed when the PRT said it was nighttime. But she couldn’t trust them. They might be making her think she’d been in here longer. And it wouldn’t have been easy even if she hadn’t been doped up to the eyelids on painkillers, which she was. She had nothing to do but worry. They wouldn’t give her more light, and everything hurt too much to work out. Not that they would let her. All she could do in her state was lie there, slipping in and out of nervous, nightmare-haunted semi-sleep.

Max’s attorney came to see her in her hospital bed. Mr Martinson was his name, middle-aged and bald on top, with fat jowls hanging under drooping features. He resembled nothing as much as a kicked bloodhound. Kayden knew him of old. He wasn’t an Empire member - no, of course not! He was a respectable member of the legal profession, who just happened to get a remarkable amount of work defending skinheads and helping resolve certain complicated legal facets for companies and individuals linked to Medhall.

“This is unacceptable!” were his first words on seeing her. “My client is being kept in completely inhumane conditions. This is cruel and unusual punishment, to keep her in the dark like this!”

Of course nothing came of that, because the PRT always had legal mumbo-jumbo why they were allowed to do whatever they wanted. But it made her feel better.

“I’m sorry, but they refused to let me bring in a little light to help me read and take notes,” he told her, settling down on the chair next to the bed. “We’ll just have to do the best we can. I’ve got a tape recorder with me. Though please, do take care about what you say. I wouldn’t put it past the PRT to ignore attorney-client confidentiality.” He paused, and took out his hand-held recorder, turning it on. “Do you remember me, Mrs An… sorry, Ms Russel?”

She didn’t nod, because her neck hurt too much. “Yes,” she said in a breathy little whisper.

“Good. Now, your ex-husband is handling the bills, so you have nothing to worry about there.”

She swallowed, and winced. “Yes,” she said again.

“Now, I’d like you to first tell me about all the interactions you’ve had with the government here. What they’ve offered you. Whether they’ve tried to interview you without your attorney present. And then we can talk about the circumstances of your arrest.”

The words hurt, but she croaked out what she could until her head was spinning. He saw how she was faring, and raised his hand.

“Enough, Kayden. We can talk more in our next meeting.”

“Thank you,” she mouthed, not wanting to speak any more.

“Now, I would advise you not to accept any plea bargain they offer.” Mr Martinson folded his hands together. “Certainly not without the assistance of your attorney - and not at all, if you can avoid it. Remember, the local PRT has a… poor record at prisoner transport. Hookwolf has escaped or been freed multiple times, including mid-way on transport to hypermax.” He cleared his throat. “Of course, I cannot advise you to act based on the likely circumstance that the Empire-88 will secure your escape, but as your attorney I would be remiss if I did not remind you of that.”

Kayden felt the tremble in her chest slow. Muscles that hadn’t relaxed in days went limp. Yes. That was a promise from Kaiser, or at least as much of one as she’d get. It would come with a cost. She’d have to follow him again. But that was a fair price for escaping what the PRT would do if they kept their hands on her. Hypermax or the Birdcage; either way, she’d never see Aster again.

And if Max wanted her to make an example of the PRT for treating her like this? Well, right now she was feeling very much in the mood for some justice.

There had been no rescue by the time they decide to move her. But that didn’t matter. She couldn’t help but smile, even strapped as she was to a hospital bed. She remembered Max’s promise. He would have her out any time soon.

Armsmaster was there, checking the orange-glowing device strapped to her chest and making some small adjustments. “Harness is secure,” he said clearly. “Portent?”

She narrowed her eyes at the taller of the two men. She hadn’t recognised his costume under the red light. Why was he here? He was just a combat Thinker. Why were they trusting someone like him around her?

“No change,” he said simply. “This is still the safer way.”

“Right. Load her up.”

Then she was in one of their stuffy prisoner transports, and she couldn’t even tell when they started moving. And the red light and the painkillers (and maybe something else they’d done to her, she suspected) combined to put her under again.

It’s all about Max. Everything always is.

Max doesn’t want any more kids, he tells her when they get married. He says he doesn’t want any children to grow up in a world that isn’t safe for them. She nods and agrees, and silences the little voice that’s aware she’s approaching thirty and that she can’t see them fixing America within a decade. But he is right - he’s always right - when he says that she can’t afford to take time out from the cause. He strokes her midsection as he tells her what the inner city thugs in Little Tokyo would do to her if they saw she was pregnant. And he’s right, but she still wants his child.

Max is willing to make deals with people he really shouldn’t. The kind of people they should be driving out. Not the ABB under Lung, but others. He even arranges to buy some Tinkertech weapons from GIDM down south. And she understands his logic, she really does, but it still doesn’t sit right with her to make deals with Mexicans. Even if those weapons were useful. But were they so useful as to hand over the cash? Max is always there to reassure her that it’s just a strategic alliance, though. That they’re just prioritising which enemies to fight first, and that they’ll all get their turn in time.

Max doesn’t raise his voice against her much. Never has, really. He shouts at men, and at the freedom corps regardless of sex (though they’re mostly men anyway). But he doesn’t have to raise his voice. Because he’s smarter than she is. He can always make her feel stupid. He can always point out how she fucked up. He’s always got what she needs and can ask for something in exchange. And before she could accept that was what he’s like as a boss because times really were hard in the early Noughties, but now she’s his wife and sees he’s always like this. He expects perfection, and she can’t manage that - and when she falls short, he makes her feel worthless.

Max likes pretty ladies. Before she married him, she’d see him with a woman on his arm. After she marries him, she sees his eyes wandering. He likes blondes. He likes blue eyed women. His gaze particularly lingers on Fenja and Menja, who are the cousins of his first wife Jennifer. Kayden didn’t know Jennifer, but she looms over their marriage. Just like Nessa and Jessica loom over their marriage. Taller; prettier; everything Max wants. He wouldn’t cheat on her. He’s a good man! He’s better than that! But they’re seven years younger than her and twins too. Sapping her trust in him, so it peels away like steamed wallpaper.

And then there’s what happens at the gas station.

For all the blame that falls on her later, at the time she barely notices it. She doesn’t know how badly she’s fucking up when she’s mid-fuck-up.

All she wants to do is kill that bastard Oni Lee. Even the PRT probably wants that, behind their mirrorshades and masks. The world would be better without that man. A psychopathic killer in a black body suit wearing a demonic mask, whose power lets him teleport, leaving a duplicate in his place. Those duplicates only last a few seconds, but they’ll throw their lives away in the meantime. The only man who can control someone like that is Lung, and that’s only because he’s worse.

Late summer air buffets her as she tries to get a clean shot on Oni Lee. And that’s a special circle of hell, because it’s not like he’s particularly fast or tough but he can teleport faster than you can blink. Time after time she thinks she’s got him only for her to see him again. It’s like some stupid carnie trick with the ball and three cups, only the ball is a psychopath with too many knives and grenades. Who can and will teleport into mid-air and set off his own grenades to blow her up. He’s tried it three times already and only her gut reactions have let her evade and destroy those clones.

There’s no time to think about why she’s here; how the ABB are pushing into Empire turf to make an example of how the Empire can’t protect them or how Krieg mentioned that someone must have blabbed if the ABB knew a meth shipment was here. There’s no time to worry about what’s going on with Hookwolf and his people up against Lung. No time to worry about the crackle of gunfire she can hear. There’s just the need to look in every direction at once and shoot at a moment’s notice, and the growing rage over why isn’t it working?

He flees; she pursues. In the bright sunlight, she’s at her strongest and she has plenty of firepower to spare. White blasts track their way up a building and into the street beyond. Things explode. People scream. And she can’t hit him, damn it! Orange fire joins the white light of her blasts, and is soon accompanied by black smoke.

And Oni Lee moves on, and she loses him. She curses, and returns to back up Hookwolf in driving off Lung. The Protectorate shows up, but the ABB are falling back and the Empire make themselves scarce.

It’s only when she gets home that she finds out what happened. And Max berates her.

“What the fuck do you think you were doing, Kayden?” He never normally screams at her.

“I was just trying to kill Oni Lee!”

“Jesus fuck, woman, is there a single thought going on in that head? What was your plan? What the hell was your plan?”

“I just… if I… he kept on dodging, so…” Oni Lee only seems to be able to teleport to places he can see, so if she blinds him and pens him in with explosions, she can trap him. That had been her idea. But it sounds so weak now.

“Shoot blindly and hope you hit him? Stupid woman. This is going to get us heat from the feds we didn’t need and it’s all your fault!”

He storms out, leaving her feeling like shit as she listens to the news talking about a gang conflict which had spilled out into a gas station and the initial casualty count. In the days that follow, more die.

It’s not the killing that makes her feel uncertain. No. That’s not true. She’s killed before. She doesn’t like doing it, because she’s not a monster, but there are some people the world is better off without. No one is going to miss some swaggering slit-eyed ABB thug if she makes him go away. But she hadn’t been aiming at that gas station, and it had been on their turf. They were meant to be protecting those people. And failed them.

But she knows that if Max had been there for her, if he’d helped her, if he’d put the time into getting her back on track...

And he doesn’t do that and he isn’t there.

Because in the end it’s always all about him.

A new facility; a new cell. Still a windowless, red-lit box that left her feeling cold and so, so hungry. And that humming device with an orange light stayed on her chest, sucking away at everything within her.

They told her that the Empire had hit the wrong convoy. That the PRT had been ready and that Crusader had been badly injured, and that she was now out of state and beyond Kaiser’s reach. That he wasn’t going to arrange any escape for her.

Then they left her to sit on that for two days. Two days of bad dreams and painkiller-induced haze, ramping up the worry. Refusing to even tell her where Aster was.

On the third day, the FBI had an offer for her. A square-jawed, dirty-blond agent in a black suit sat on the other side of the table from her, and laid things out.

“Here’s the thing, Kayden. Before you ask to have your attorney present for this conversation, I’d like to say this.” The eyes of the FBI agent were level. Maybe even sympathetic. “If the judge sees you as an unrepentant murderer, you’re never going to see your daughter again. Even if you avoid being sent to Baumann, you’ll be in a supermax for twenty-five-to-life. The ones that don’t let women take their children in. And your ex will get custody. You fought hard to make sure you got Aster in the divorce. I read your file. You claimed he was ‘emotionally distant’. And ‘a bully’.”

Kayden knew that was true, but to hear it said out loud was like a fist around her heart. It made everything terrifyingly real. Terrifyingly close. She had seen what being raised by Max had done to Theo. What would he do to her Aster?

“But,” and the agent raised a finger, “cooperate with us, give us names and details, and the judge won’t see an unrepentant murderer. They’ll see a young woman, lacking a support network, who got drawn into something she never really meant to. Who was taken advantage of by a supervillain who’s used and abused the trust of many people. Someone who might well wind up in a prison where young children are allowed. Who, when she gets out, might be able to start afresh in witness protection with a new identity to escape her previous mistakes. But you’ll need to give us something to work with here. We know you are - sorry, were, according to your statement - a lieutenant in the Empire-88. You must know names. Know how the money flows.

“And Kayden, when you’re thinking about what to do next - remember this. You said you were trying to get out of the Empire. But you attacked Oshima Motors, and I think it was because someone asked you to. Maybe even paid you to, because there are two transactions marked ‘alimony’ in your account for December. The entire reason you’re in this cell right now is that you went after that place. And sure, a raid can go wrong, but what happened there ruined your chance of getting out. Almost like, mmm, the Empire thought you were expendable? Or maybe they wanted to put you in a position where you had to come back to them?”

“I won’t betray them,” she whispered, her voice cracking. She was trying to convince herself, and failing.

“Don’t think of it as betrayal. Think of it as doing what’s best for your daughter,” the man said. “We’ll let you think about it and come back tomorrow.”

That night she dreamt of Max again.

It is all about Max. It always has been. Max has been Prinz and he’s now Kaiser, but the man underneath hasn’t changed at all. She’s just gotten to see more parts of him. The parts he hides from others and hides from her too.

Bleary-eyed, Kayden stares at herself in the harsh bathroom light at six AM. The goddamn birds are kicking up a noise outside, in the soft-edged greyness. The bags under her eyes are even worse than yesterday. Her joints are still aching from the workout she put herself through last night to try to make sure she’d sleep well. It didn’t work. And there’s still a little trickle of vomit at the corner of her mouth. She wipes it away and washes her mouth out with spearmint mouthwash, but she still feels sick. Sick and anxious and worried and guilty.

Marry a man, and you see the things he doesn’t want you to see. And she didn’t want to look at them, didn’t want to see them, but he keeps on rubbing these things in her face and she can’t avert her eyes from their brightness anymore.

Like how many Empire things fundamentally benefit Medhall. And she used to accept that, when she was lower down in the group, because Medhall helps the cause a lot. It gets people out of jail and into good jobs, it helps obscure the Empire’s funding and launders its income, and it’s the way it’s always been. Under the old man Richard, and now under Max. But now she’s gotten too high, and she can see too many things that don’t help keep America safe but just help Medhall. Going after Yeates Biomedical just seemed to be an attack on a rival medical company that had beaten Medhall to a state contract. And as the Empire has expanded, so has its hooks in the drug trade from upstate. They need money for the cause, Max says.

Like how he’s told her to pull herself together after the Kendell Square fight a couple of months ago. And she knows she needs to, but she did fuck up and she didn’t even take down Lung or Oni Lee. If she’d pulped one of those two fuckers, she’d have been able to take comfort in the fact that the city was a better place and a few casualties were fewer people than those two would kill within a few months, but she hadn’t. She’d missed them and the fight had spilled over and… and there was blood on her hands. He thought she was being silly and emotional. That this wasn’t any different to things she’d done before and it was, even if she didn’t have the words exactly to explain why. She wasn’t as good with words as him.

Like Theo. Theo isn’t her son. He just lives in the same house she does. And he’s a beaten-down lump of a boy. He’s soft, both physically and mentally. And all of that is because of Max. She’s seen how he treats his son, like he’s a waste of skin. Kayden’s come to appreciate Theo. He’s gentle and polite and nice, and she doesn’t have to worry about Max’s games with him. And he’s clever. He reads books. He shows her how to use a computer. She’s paid more attention to how he does in school than Max does. His father just glances at test records to make sure his son isn’t failing. That’s all that matters. Not failing Max.

Sometimes she sees Theo watching her, though. Watching his father. Just like Max watches people when he’s considering how they could be useful. And she worries there might be more Max in him than everyone realises. She loves Max, but she doesn’t think she could deal with two of him.

And maybe that’s the other point. She thinks she might be pregnant. It’s early if she is, and she hasn’t had the courage to buy a pregnancy test from the pharmacy because she doesn’t want Max to find out. She doesn’t want him to find out because - God help her - she loves him but the idea of a child of hers turning out like Theo has makes her want to break things. Either a useless lump or too much like Max. She glares fiercely at her reflection.

And sleep-deprived and aching, for a moment she sees Lady Lumen staring out. Staring accusingly at her.

“Don’t look at me like that,” she whispers.

She imagines what her younger self would say, imagines it with such intensity she can almost hear it. “Like what?”

“Like I’m not a hero anymore.”

“Max doesn’t feel the same way.”

“I… I know. It’s just how he is. But he loves me!”

Just a flat stare in response.

“He made me his second-in-command! He loves me!” But she can hear her own doubt. With Max, everything is either a negotiation with an equal or the movement of a pawn. And he doesn’t negotiate with her much. She rests her hands on the cold marble, vision blurring. “He does.”

Her reflection doesn’t say anything. And she’s right not to.

She’s a hero. She’s here to protect America from criminals and urban violence. Not to make a man who’s already stupidly rich even richer.

She’s such a fool. She’s become her mother. She loves a man who doesn’t love her back. Who just thinks of her as someone who’s powerful. Max plays chess, and she remembers that time when he explained the role of the queen to her. A powerful piece that can move anywhere over the board. But - he had smiled - you could turn a pawn into another queen, and the queen was useful but always expendable. It was the king who needed to be kept safe.

Godfuckingdammit. Of course he was telling her he could replace her. And she’d been too damn head-over-heels and had thought it was just about how she needed to keep him safe or the Empire would collapse. Just like it had nearly collapsed when his father had died. But that hadn’t been the only thing. He’d been rubbing it in her face. He didn’t even respect her enough to hide it from her and thought she was too stupid to work it out herself.

She doesn’t stop loving him. But it’s that grey morning when the thought of leaving him finally gets into her head.

The next day, she found herself with the same man visiting her. The red lights played over his neatly slicked hair and his wire-rimmed glasses.

“So, Ms Russel. Have you had time to think about our offer?”

“So…” Kayden croaked, her mouth paper-dry. “If I take your deal. What happens next?”

“We’ll have you sign a few things to show your willingness to cooperate, and then we’ll begin the debriefing process.”

“Will I get to see Aster?” She knew she was letting her desperation show. She didn’t care. Anything could have happened to her daughter and she’d never been separated from her in Aster’s life.

“Yes. Although… Ms Russel, your ex-husband has made an application to gain full custody of your little girl. If his application is successful, it’ll be up to him. If you know of any reason-”

“He’s Kaiser!” Her throat hurt from how violently the words escaped her. “Max… he’s Kaiser! He’s the one who,” she coughed, “he’s the one who brought me into the Empire! He can’t have her!”

“That is a very serious allegation. Kayden,” the man peered at her through his glasses, “if you accept the offer, any lies or deliberate withholding of information will render our deal void. And you’ll be looking at perjury charges as well as everything else.”

“No, I’m not lying!” She had to make him understand. “He’s… I loved him, but he’s a monster and I don’t know if he loved anyone after Jennifer - his first wife, she was Heith! She died and-”

The FBI agent raised his hand. “We’ll just get the documents in, and get things set up for the talk. By the way, Kayden, would you like water? Are you hungry? Just say the word. Within reason, we’d like you to be comfortable during this process.”

She knew what she was doing was wrong. That she was betraying her ideals. That she was hurting the cause. But she was willing to do that, to hurt Max. To stop Aster ending up in his hands. Ending up like Theo. And maybe out of revenge. Revenge for all his petty cruelties and all the times he made her doubt herself and the fact that he’d fed her the information about the Oshima Motors place. Maybe just for once, she was going to be selfish.

“Do you need a break?” the agent asked.

“Throat hurts,” she croaked, letting out the tears.

“You’re doing well. You’re doing the right thing.”

No, she wasn’t. Because in the end, it was all about Max. She wasn’t going to hypermax just to keep him free. She was willing to drag other people down to hurt him. And she was going to eke every bit of sympathy she could, because it was all his fault she’d wound up in this situation. All she had to do was dwell on the pain from her burns and think about how she might never see her daughter again, and it was easy.

“I’m not a bad person,” Kayden whispered, eyes blurring. “I.. I didn’t mean to…”

“No one ever does.”

Later that day, a call went out from the facility.

“Armsmaster, this is Agent Julia Bao. She’s flipped.”

“Good. She’s willing to testify openly?”

“As long as it’s to take down Max Anders, yes.”

“Even better.”

“She’s verified everything we got from the classified source, without prompting. We can get you the warrant purely on the grounds of her confession. Expect it within a week.”

She heard Armsmaster’s grunt of satisfaction. “I’m already consulting with other regional Protectorate and PRT offices to see what other anti-parahuman assets I can borrow.” He paused. “I’d appreciate access to your profiling of her. I have to file a preliminary report on whether she should be considered for a rehab scheme.”

“I’ll get it to you, but,” Agent Bao sucked in a breath through her teeth, “I wouldn’t trust her at my back, if I was a cape. She’s doing this out of spite towards Max Anders and her desire to keep contact with her daughter, not because she sees herself as having done something wrong.”

“That’s what I suspected. Well, it’ll be down to the courts and my bosses.” He cleared his throat. “Bring me in as soon as you have the warrant.”

“Will do.”

And one last dream. The one which still haunts her.

She isn’t Purity. She isn’t even Lady Lumen. She’s Kayden Russel and she’s sixteen and she is going to die.

The reasons are boringly mundane. Sixteen years old, and with a fresh intermediate driver’s licence. She goes upstate because she can, with the vague idea of heading to a lake she remembers from when she was a kid and in the end she can’t find it. And she’s going too fast around the bend of a narrow road, while distracted, and comes off the road and rolls the car.

That’s not what’s killing her. When she comes to, she’s battered, bruised, and completely trapped. Pinned between the airbag, the chair, and the warped metal of the frame. She can’t free her legs.

No one comes.

She calls out for help.

No one comes.

She finishes off the water bottle within reach and the candy bars in the passenger glove compartment. There’s sandwiches in the back seat but she can’t reach them. On the third day, a raccoon gets in and eats them. It eyes her up, but she screams at it with a hoarse voice and it goes away.

No one comes.

The car can’t be seen from the road. She hears them passing, maybe one or two an hour, and tries to scream out for help.

No one comes.

On the fifth day, it rains. She drinks the water that trickles down beside her. It keeps her alive. She wishes the racoon would come back. Maybe she could catch it. She’s so hungry. The candy bars are long gone. She tried eating the mud she can reach through the window and it just makes her feel sick.

No one comes.

The rolled car is facing south. She knows that, because the sun shines in through the broken windscreen from sunrise to sunset. When there’s sun, it means there isn’t rain. Rain means water. There’s too much sun.

No one comes.

She starts losing her mind. She’s running a fever from the dehydration and the hunger and her injuries, and as her brain cooks she sees the trees all around her as people. People standing by. People watching. People doing nothing. They could be helping her and they aren’t. Why aren’t they helping? She begs with them and screams at them and curses them with her cracked voice. She’d be saving her! They have to be out to get her! They hate her! They hate her and so she tries to hide from them. And the sun shines down on her and it isn’t helping either!

No one comes.

The sun is in her eyes, and she’s so, so hungry. And they’re talking about her. They are. Them. The too-tall people all around the car, their voices whispering.

She thinks one of them might be Mr Crosston, her asshole English teacher. “When she dies, questions will be asked about where the blame lies for this,” he says. He sounds like he’s speaking at an inquest from the movies.

“Shut up!” she croaks.

“Maybe it was all just a tragic accident. All a consequence of systemic choices made by society. In a world that gives sixteen-year olds the ability to get behind the wheel of something with such power, some of them are going to go off the rail like this. They’ll get themselves killed, and maybe kill other people too. Or maybe it’s the fault of the dealer who sold her mother a junker with worn tires that didn’t grip properly when she tried to brake.”

“I blame that cute kid in an expensive car who distracted her near that turning,” says another one. It sounds like her mom. “And her friends. They shouldn’t have let her think it was okay just jump in a car and drive off like that. And the culture. I don’t like what they show kids on TV these days.”

“Mom,” Kayden croaks. She reaches out, figures grasping for her mother’s feet, but she can’t reach them. “Help. I’m s-sorry.”

The sun glares down at her accusingly, and speaks with her father’s voice. “You’re all being too soft on her.”

“Dad…” Why’s he back?

“Lots of sixteen-year old girls get behind the wheel of a car, and most of them don’t wind up in situations like this. They don’t go a little too fast on a road with tight bends. They don’t head into the back roads where there’s no one to help when something goes wrong. They make sure their tires aren’t balding. They take things slowly and think when they’re not one-hundred percent sure what’s going on. Not this stupid little girl.”

Of course he’s only showing up to make fun of her as she dies. He was always like this. Probably still would be, if he hadn’t run off with another woman. Leaving Mom and her all alone. Back then, she’d thought it was her fault. But Mom had told her that it was all him. Dad tried to get Mom to blame herself for everything, and she couldn’t fall for that kind of thing. She had to be strong and not blame herself for him leaving them. It was all his fault.

And she has to be strong now, while everyone is talking about her. It’s not her fault. No matter what any of them say. It’s not her fault and they’re saying it’s her own fault she’s going to die. And she’s only sixteen and she doesn’t want to die and is that so wrong? It’s not her fault. No matter what anyone says. Even if she could have done something differently. Even if she could have made different choices. She doesn’t deserve this.

This is Kayden. Trapped in a prison of her own making, she begs through cracked and bleeding lips. Makes excuses. Desperately hopes someone will save her.

Because it’s not her fault.

Chapter Text

Wednesday; February 9th. The forecast was good; yesterday’s snow and icy fog had passed, though it was still sharply cold. Cold enough that Max Anders was doing his morning run on the treadmill inside, rather than heading out. He resented that, but in a month or two it’d be warm enough that he could run outside again.

A man of his age and position had to be sure to keep in shape. The old bones weren’t getting any younger, and the interest for all the fights in his teens and twenties was building up. Dr Holistic said she had a fix for that, and he would be interested when she’d worked out all the kinks on someone more expendable. It stung to rely on a kook, but she was easily controlled and her woo-woo worked. Eventually. And maybe his R&D people would be able to get something reproducible out of her someday. In the meantime, all he had to do was pretend to take her seriously.

The distance counter bleeped as he hit the two mile mark, and he finished his run. Treadmill running just wasn’t the same as road running, even if it was easier on his knees. He grabbed a towel, mopped his brow, and went off to get changed and have a shower.

By the time he was finished, he could hear Nessa moving around in the master bedroom. He ignored her, peering at his face under the harsh light of the bathroom mirror as he lathered up his shaving foam. Square-jawed, still handsome. But he had bags under his bright blue, slightly bloodshot eyes. That wasn’t right. He was a leader. People wouldn’t respect him if he looked tired.

God, 2011 had gotten off to a bad start. January had fucked him, and February hadn’t fixed itself yet.

Energy rippled from the back of his comb as he extruded a hair-thin blade from it and gave himself the best damn shave in the city. Smooth as silk. If only everything could be as neat as his shave. His scars were aching in the damp, and when he turned sideways to check his profile, he scowled. It was getting harder and harder to keep off the weight, and he had a gut that hadn’t been there five years ago. Six years until the big four-zero. Max wasn’t looking forward to that.

Shaved, cologne’d, and moisturised (and maybe with a little concealer to remove the bags, though he’d never admit it) he headed through to get dressed. Pale pink silk shirt, pin-striped black suit, and - he considered his options for ties. Yes, it felt like a day for the black one with the single gold eagle on it, which he tied in a Windsor knot.

He wished he wasn’t in the office today. There were other things he wanted to do. He wanted to check in on how the push against the Patriarca holdings down by Adams-and-Cross had gone. It was all he could do to resist the shake in his hands as he thought about it. Maybe it would have made the Brockton Bay Times and he could read between the lines. And for all that this cut looked excellent on him, there was nothing quite like his armour for impressing people. The weight of it on his shoulders was the weight of power. The weight of responsibility, too, for all those idiots both useful and useless working for him.

“Good morning, Max,” Nessa said, towel wrapped around her hair as she made her way in from her bathroom. He admired the thin bathrobe that clung to her and the hints of the tattoos that marked her as his. She was still his Menja, but he’d made sure her prize-tattoos were much more subtle designs than what the rank-and-file got. He wasn’t going to let her ruin her appearance with ink that stopped him showing her off in public. “I’m going to be using the hairdryer. Is that all right?”

He waved her off. “It’s fine. I’m heading down for breakfast anyway.”

“We’re still leaving at half-past-eight?”

“Yes,” he said, after checking his phone. A text from James.

Neither Max nor James had lasted as long as they had by being sloppy. It would be so easy to let one’s guard down, and then it’d turn out that the FBI had a wire-tap warrant or someone from a rival group had targeted Max Anders and stolen his cellphone and things would really go south. That little bitch Dox from Half-A was a technopath and it would be just like those petty thieves to try to blackmail him in his civilian identity. So that meant texts and emails had to be kept to a minimum, and even phone conversations had to be minimised.

James took longer to pick up than Max would have liked. “Hi… sorry, just finishing breakfast. I had to get away from Alice and the kids.”

“Ah.” Theo was in the kitchen, and Max’s brow wrinkled. No. He didn’t want to be reminded of the boy. Turning to the fridge, he considered what to have. “I’m just making mine, so let’s keep this quick.” He ruthlessly clamped down on the mix of nerves and elation he was feeling. “Talk to me about the purchase order.”

“Mixed, like I said in the text. The Italian client pushed back hard. It was more expensive than we wanted, but we got some concessions.”

Max thumped the fridge door, so it bounced. A magnet dislodged itself and clattered on the floor. “I see,” he growled. “This doesn’t sound like a breakfast table conversation.”

“It isn’t. I was up late dealing with this. We can talk at lunch?”

“Can’t. I have a meeting.” Max grabbed a protein shake. “Are you free to swing by the office?”

“Not this morning. Will you be free around two?”

“I can make time for you, James.”

“I’ll have my secretary call yours, then.”

“Good. Well, I’ll see you then.”

“Bye.” James hung up and Max gripped his phone until his knuckles whitened. Fuck the Patriarca. Daring to push into his city? Daring to try to steal his share of the drug trade from upstate and the gun-running to Canada? Those fucking pretenders! He slammed his phone down on the granite countertops. Metal slid cleanly out of the stone, a mess of tooth-like barbs and for just a moment he wanted to break things. But he didn’t. Because he was stronger than that.

He exhaled. Yes. Exhaled. James had said things were mixed. It wasn’t another failure. The Patriarca family had fewer holdings in this city. They couldn’t afford to lose as much. He’d cut them out of their holdings in the Docks and make it clear to their bought men in the Dockworker’s Association that if they kept helping the mob with their smuggling, the Empire-88 wouldn’t be responsible for what happened next. He could deal with this. He would.

The seal of the protein shake opened with a hiss, and Max poured himself a glass with hands that barely shook at all. Right until he saw Theo looking at him with a stupid wide-eyed gaze, and the anger surged back, reminded of the utter failure of a human being that was his son.

For once - just once in his life - his son had managed to become a little useful. Another Tinker would have been a great asset to the Empire, especially one who could make robots. Max could have used that power, God, yes he could have. And as always, the idiot boy had managed to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory. What kind of person had so little discipline they couldn’t go a day with powers without letting the government know their secret identity? The goddamn Protectorate knew his son could make robots, and Tinker powers were personal signatures. That bastard Armsmaster would be able to tell. Now they had samples of his work because the boy just couldn’t goddamn help himself. Couldn’t wait until he got home. No, he had to go and make something when he was in custody because he was babysitting for his stupid bitch of an ex-wife, and now the Protectorate were trying to get Theo to join the Wards and if he tried to make his son useful they’d show up at his door and start asking questions.

A herbivore. That was what Theo was; a fat, stupid herbivore with no ambition or greater vision and not one scrap of killer instinct. Max was a wolf, an alpha, an apex predator, but his son was a wallowing hippo of a boy.

A disgusted noise escaped between Max’s teeth. What would Jennifer have said to see what a worthless incompetent her son had become? She’d been the only woman worthy of him, the only woman with the killer instinct and the power to be almost his equal. And look at what they had made together. A worthless waste of skin who was eating brightly-coloured candy-filled breakfast cereal like a preschooler, instead of something an actual adult would eat. In fact…

“I’ll have the maid throw out that junk you’re eating,” Max said sharply. “Maybe it’ll help you lose some weight if you’re not stuffing your face with sugar every morning.”

Theo didn’t meet his eyes. Just stared down at his brightly-coloured crap. A spineless pathetic wretch who didn’t say a thing even when Max was taking something he wanted away from him.

“Nothing to say, boy?”

“No, sir. I do… I do need to lose weight.”

“Yes, you do.” Maybe he could have him kidnapped, Max considered. The idea was attractive. It’d get him out of the house, for one. He didn’t need two babies around the place and he’d soon be getting his hands on Aster. The government clearly wanted to keep their hands on his daughter as leverage over Kayden, but the judge they’d drawn for the hearing was a close friend of Max’s. He knew George from the country club. He’d be getting his daughter, and with any luck she wouldn’t turn out anything like Theo or her mother. And if he arranged for the Herren family to take Theo, he could get more capes from them in trade. They’d value a Tinker highly.

Ah, but he didn’t need the additional attention that the boy getting kidnapped would draw, and Nessa liked the little irritant. He didn’t want to risk losing her loyalty. Maybe he should put him in the Wards. Theo could make himself useful by feeding information on Protectorate and Ward patrols and briefings back to the Empire. Something easy even he couldn’t fail at it. Except he was so weak, Max would have to worry about him making ‘friends’ with them, and he was so useless he might let information leak in the other direction.

“Morning, Theo,” Nessa said to him brightly as she made her entrance.

Theo looked up at her, eyes narrowing slightly. “You’re wearing your hair to the right again today,” he said.

“I… guess I am? I felt like it. Does it look good?”

Theo smiled, a fake plastic smile. “Yes, of course it looks good on you.”

“Aww, thanks. Now, what do you think I should have for breakfast?”

“It’s a right-hair day, so you’re going to have grapefruit.”

“... you know, you’re right. I didn’t feel like it yesterday, but I feel like it today.”

“Of course.”

Sucking up about wearing her hair in a certain way? Why couldn’t his son just be normal? Why did he have to be like this?

Being a father was a hard life. On top of everything else. Because even his worthless son was a source of fewer problems than his ex-wife.

Leaning back on the black leather seats of his BMW, Max scrolled through his phone’s calendar. Meeting at ten with the man from Andex Glass, going over the final details of the contract. That’d lead into a long lunch out at the Prestigio, so he didn’t have anything scheduled until three in the afternoon, where he’d marked out an hour to review the financials from Markson. Hopefully James would get through to organise the meeting before that, but he could cancel the meeting with Markson if he had to.

“Don’t worry, Mister Anders,” said his driver Hank, adjusting the rear-view mirror. “It didn’t snow last night, and the traffic report says things are normal. I’ll have you in work on time.”

“Just drive,” Max said, lips twitching. The man had been one of his prison-to-Medhall hires, and must have thought Max was angry at him. No, he resented having to be in the office today at all. There was nothing too pressing. It was just as well that Medhall didn’t have anything major going on, because the other side of his life was being difficult right now.

Why was Kayden such a stupid woman? She had always been overly emotional and impulsive, but he thought he’d broken her of that. But no, ever since she’d made the childish decision to try to be - hah - an ‘independent hero’, she’d been a thorn in his side. He’d cut her off from his support, just to show her how much she needed him, and he had been winning. She had been willing to accept intel from him, and after being greased with a small payment had gone after Oshima Motors like a good little girl. That had gone better than he could possibly have hoped. She’d very nearly killed Lung, letting the planned raid on the ABB’s market go off without any real opposition when he’d just hoped to distract and weaken the man. And in doing so she’d also ruined any chance she might have had to come to an accommodation with the Protectorate.

But that whole fiasco on New Year’s Eve was a pain in his ass. The blundering PRT had managed to capture her because she’d gone haring off rather than lying low and waiting for the heat to die down. At least she’d come crawling to him for help, but this time they’d been smarter about prisoner transport. The convoy had been a decoy, and his people had gotten mauled. His sources in the PRT told him that they’d moved Kayden out of state. Beyond his reach, or so they thought.

That wasn’t acceptable. That wasn’t acceptable at all. Those saps clearly thought they could fuck with one of his people just because she’d been briefly deluded enough to claim independence. That was the problem with these overly mighty federal agencies. They overreached if you gave them an inch.

Max exhaled slowly. He might have to show the Protectorate he could snatch one of their people to get Kayden out in a hostage exchange, and he wasn’t sure he wanted to escalate like that. She wasn’t worth that much. He was just… irked that she’d fucked up exactly like he’d known she’d fuck up.

“Something wrong?” Nessa asked. She was looking over at him, her phone in hand - but the lock screen had timed out. “You look tense. Is there a bad meeting today?”

He locked any worry away behind his smile, and reached out to pat her thigh. “A very boring meeting with Andex Glass to clear out the contract. Don’t worry your head about it.”

She smiled at him, resting her hand on his. “Oh, that’s good. It’s… you’re frowning again.”

“It’s not you. It could never be you,” he told her easily, looking past her. “It’s those goddamned bikers.”

“Where - oh.” She twisted in her seat, so she could also see the trio of men in dragonscale jackets paused beside them at the lights. Their motorcycle helmets had sculpted faceplates. Her hands balled into fists. “Fucking japs.”

“I’m surprised they have the guts to show their faces outside their ghetto,” Max said, frowning. “I suppose they’re feeling uppity now that they think they’re safe because the PRT has Purity.”

Nessa’s lips twisted upward. She had never liked Kayden, and wasn’t fond of Max talking about his ex-wife. “She let us down.”

“Yes. She did.”

The bikers roared away even as the lights were changing, spewing out filthy black clouds of smoke from their exhausts, and Max returned to his thoughts. He’d tried to make the case to the other major factions in the city that if the PRT had the fucking balls to go after one of his former lieutenants, they’d have the balls to go after any of them. But no one was listening. They knew the Empire-88 was the big dog in the city, and like yapping puppies they were only thinking about the short-sighted advantage they’d get from the Empire being weakened. The Patriarca family had put an outrageous, insulting price on their help they knew he’d reject, so he’d had to send them a message. The Shingle Street Merchants were more amenable, but he didn’t need those worthless incompetents and their one remaining cape. Half-A had strung him along, that Dox bitch seeming almost like she’d help before she threw back in his face the times Half-A had lost to the Empire. And Faultline and her crew of freaks were gutless cowards, who’d told him flatly that the Empire wasn’t rich enough for her to take this job. What use was a mercenary without the balls to risk her life?

The only one who seemed to be considering it was Coil. He’d arranged a meeting for this weekend with Ouroboros at Somer’s Rock. Neutral ground, which meant he was considering it seriously. At least that was a man with some vision, even if he was a pervert running around in full-body bondage gear.

Nessa reached up to touch his face. “You shouldn’t get so angry on a work day. You don’t want to be thinking about this when you need to be Max Anders.”

She was right, damn it. “It’s an annoyance, nothing more. We will win. I haven’t rebuilt the Empire to lose because of the incompetence of one woman. The mayoral elections will be soon, and Melvin is in a good place to win. This is just a wobbly stair.” He kissed her hand. Important to keep her loyal. Couldn’t let her forget everything he did for her. “And those little bike-rats will find that no, they shouldn’t be riding around where decent people can see them. It doesn’t matter that Lung’s found a new idiot for his gang. This ‘Yumeko’,” he said the word like there was a nasty taste in his mouth, “will die just like the rest.”

“She will,” Nessa said, that cold anger momentarily surfacing in her tone and twisting her model-grade features before disappearing below the surface again.

“Ah, my dear, don’t frown like that. You should always smile, so people underestimate the she-wolf underneath,” he told her. “And…”

Police sirens, behind. He glanced back, more out of curiosity than anything else, and saw a local cop on a bike behind them. Maybe he was after those bikers. “Pull over and let the man past,” he called ahead to Hank.

“Mr Anders, uh.” Hank the driver caught his eyes in the rear-view mirror. “Looks like they want us to pull over.”

Him? Pull over for the cops. Another annoyance in his day. Some young idiot or fresh transfer who didn’t recognise his car. Or - he shook his head - maybe those youths had scratched his car and the cop just wanted to tell him that. If they had, he’d be sending Hookwolf to make an example of some of the rats in Little Tokyo. Violence was the only language they understood.

Hank pulled over, stopping by the curb next to a parking lot. The snow had been cleaned away this morning, but the lot itself was empty and the gate had a closed sign hanging from the boom gate. The other side of the street was condemned shop fronts plastered over with billboards promising a new construction any day soon. The hair rose at the back of Max’s neck. Something didn’t feel quite right.

“Can I help you, officer?” Hank said, rolling down the window as he approached. Cold air blew in from outside, and Nessa pulled a face.

The cop leaned in. “Sir, can I see your license?”

Max took in the officer’s appearance while Hank went through the normal procedure. He was a bulky man made bulkier by his heavy clothing, and was older than Max would have thought for someone being this foolish. His salt-and-pepper moustache and beard covered most of his exposed lower face. He was just mentioning calling in the plates. So far, no-

“Please step out of the vehicle, keeping your hands in clear sight.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Out of the vehicle, and keep your hands where I can see them. Your passengers, too.”

Max leaned forwards. “Excuse me? Why?”

“These plates have come up as linked to an investigation. I’m going to ask you again to get out of the car, sir.”

“But why-” Max bit back what he was about to say, and opened the door with ill grace. The cop had left his bike running, and it was coughing out smoke. He was going to ruin this man’s career if he ruined his suit. “What’s going on? What investigation?”

“Hit-and-run over the weekend. Sir, if you’ll just stand over there, away from the vehicle. You too, ma’am,” he added to Nessa.

“Hit-and-run?” Nessa asked him softly, rubbing her hands against her thighs. “God, I’m cold out here. I’m not dressed to be standing around outside.”

Max shook his head. He didn’t remember anything like that over the weekend. They’d come back late from a party at the Martinson’s, and he’d been a little drunk, but he hadn’t been driving! This was nonsense!

And something of this might have shown in his expression, because Hank cowered back. “I didn’t hit anyone over the weekend, boss, I swear! I don’t know what they’re talking about! Look at the hood. If I’d hit someone, the hood’d be dented and it ain’t!”

Yes. The hood was spotless. Max exhaled. “You’re making a mistake,” he told the cop. “Call your chief of police. Donald can vouch for me. I’m Max Anders.”

“So I understand,” said the bulky man, standing very still. “Tell you what. I’ll call him.”

“You do that,” Max said sharply, trying to fan away the exhaust from the bike. “What’s your name, officer?”

“Roger Masters, Mr Anders. Let me just make the call.”

So Max stood outside in the cold, with an increasingly tetchy Nessa shooting vicious glances at the cop and his driver looking more and more worried. If that idiot had gone for a joyride in his car, he’d be paying a steep price. Just as steep as this idiot cop would be paying. Finally, the man got off the call.

“Looks like it was a mistake. The car they’re looking for was white, not black, Kaiser.”

“Thank you, I-” Kaiser. Not Mr Anders. “What did you call me?”

The cop tapped something on his wrist and like fog in sunlight, the figure of an overweight man melted away to reveal the sleek blue-and-silver armour that had been hidden by the hologram. “You’re under arrest, Max Anders, also known as ‘Kaiser’, formerly known as ‘Prinz’,” Armsmaster said. “Surrender or-”

He pulled steel from the sidewalk, spurs of metal extruding up his legs and across his chest, branching further and further to form a lattice that surrounded him. Struts and shafts and sheets of metal encased his limbs, each carefully shaped to lock together, and in only a moment he was up and armoured, ready to fight.

But something was wrong. His head was swimming. His vision blurred. His arms weren’t cooperating. And he must have made some tiny error in shaping the armour, because his knees wouldn’t bend, and he stumbled.

He called a spike of metal up from the surface of the road to catch himself as he tripped and staggered, his legs clumsy under the weight of half-formed armour, but his hands were numb and unresponsive. He bounced off it and fell to the ground in a clatter, tasting blood as the world darkened.

The last thing he registered was Armsmaster’s voice and the whirr of power armour.

Chapter Text

In the end, it was the little things that had brought down Max Anders. He was a swaggering bully of a man who took pride in both his strength and the strength of the people he used. But it was not through strength he was defeated. It was the little things; his negligence and abuse of his son, his petty cruelties towards his ex-wife.

And of course, in a much more directly proximate sense it was the programmable nanotech he had inhaled, which at Armsmaster’s command had activated and bonded with key receptors in his nervous system. The overall effects were similar to a night of hard drinking hitting in the course of a few seconds. Unconsciousness swiftly followed.

Armsmaster only took a moment of satisfaction before he shifted attention to Menja, who was still upright. Slumped against the chain-link fence, her eyes barely seemed able to focus on him. Hmm. Peculiar. Reduced dosage? No, she had been exposed long enough. He had tailored the nanites for Max Anders, so it was possible there was some sex-related difference. Or maybe she had one of the minor physiological abnormalities common to parahumans.

Raising one arm, he triggered the compact foam sprayer built into his suit and emptied the canister over her. Off-white foam rapidly expanded, steaming in the cold, and left her looking like a half-melted snowman.

“Menja has been foamed,” he transmitted. “Good job, people.” They had done very well staying inside the trucks while he captured both targets himself. “Let’s get things wrapped up here. Alpha and Bravo, assist me.”

Two patches of air shimmered in the parking lot, taking form as PRT trucks coated in silvery foil. Triumph, Battery and two squads of armoured agents bundled out, boots crunching on the icy surface.

“Wh’ ‘re you…” Menja slurred. He’d been focussed on securing her arms and legs, so her face hadn’t been covered. “You… you killed him!”

“Vanessa Bierman, aka Menja, you are under arrest,” he told her. “I finally caught you, just like I said I would.”

“What did you do to him? To me? Am… I dying?” She blinked owlishly. “Again. Or…”

“I’m on Kaiser!” called out Triumph. “Stand clear - I’m bringing up a sprayer.”

“N-no. Can’t. You can’t have… can’t take him away!” The last words came out in a scream. And a scream that wasn’t slurred. It was alert. Too alert.

“I want another layer of foam on Menja!” he ordered.

“Hold on, just got to secure Kaiser first,” said Triumph.

“Now!” His suit’s sprayer was a one-shot trick and it was out. And-

She was expanding. That was obvious even without his HUD tracking her scaling factor. The layer of foam stretched, pulling taut around her shoulders and torso as she grew. It sounded like a hundred strips of adhesive tape being pulled up all at once. The rubbery shell became thinner and thinner and quickly hit its elastic limit. With a terrific ripping sound, she pulled her arms free from where they were glued to her ribs, struggling to free her legs - two, maybe three times the height she’d been. Thick globs and strips of shredded foam hung from her as she rose up, up, up above him. But now she was free.

Armsmaster backed away. Most of the worst-case predictions from Portent had been in the cases where the nanites hadn’t taken Kaiser out. The rest had involved Menja targeting him and then going on a rampage. His back hit his bike and he fumbled for his weapon’s compact form.

“Fire, fire, fire!” he yelled. “Foam her! Don’t let her escape!”

Grenade launchers barked. Menja yelped and swayed, staggering forward under the impacts. Off-white foam balls swelled up on her back, looking like the devil’s softballs. Cold asphalt crunched underfoot and the nearest streetlight groaned under her weight, cracking at the base.

“Get on your knees!” he yelled up at her through his armour’s loudspeakers. She was larger, but with this low level of growth she should still be vulnerable to the nanosedative. It just needed more time. And that meant he couldn’t let her grow any more. His right gauntlet shifted, conductive plating folding out from behind its insulated coating. “Cease all power use! Open up with the sprayers.”

She didn’t comply. Instead she ducked and made for the car, hunching down to use it as cover. But the squads were spread out, she was flanked on one side, and the car gave her no protection there. A grenade hit her and burst, yellow-white liquid coating her and expanding into more thick, sticky foam.

“Move up the sprayer truck!” That was Agent Li. “Williams, on her!”

Another volley fired, but she grabbed the car door and ripped it off as an improvised shield, circling round to try and protect the foamed Kaiser. But now the truck was flanking, its top-mounted sprayer trained on her. Their first jet fell just short, coming out in erratic spurts with a sad spluttering noise. Armsmaster cursed. It was the cold, plus pressure problems from the tweaks needed to get it working with Mister Crypsis’s stealth fields. Menja - now two storeys high - threw herself away from the near miss as the flow stabilised. Her impact shook the ground, and ruptured water pipes sprayed icy mist up through the cracks in the road. She rolled away from the sprayer, but that was forcing her back away from Kaiser, too.

“Fire! Fire everything you have!” Armsmaster yelled, his halberd raised in a guard position.

Wild blue eyes the size of windows hunted around, and fell on him. A hand the size of a SUV grabbed for him, and hit like an oncoming truck. The impact smashed through his guard, shattered the haft, and knocked all the breath from his lungs. This close, he could see wheel-sized nails and the chips in the pale blue varnish as they squeezed around him. Her dress was a tattered mess covered in stuck-on road surface and foam. She was bleeding from where his blade had stuck in her, and it had to hurt her to squeeze down like this, but he was the one coming off worse.

“Tell them to stop!” she boomed, pushing herself upright with her other hand. He was glad his helmet had noise cancelling. Even with it, he could feel the sound in his bones. “We’re leaving! With Kaiser! And we’ll let you go once we’re away!”

“Hold!” Armsmaster shouted. Subvocally he added, “Make sure Kaiser is secured.”

“Good. Good,” Menja - Vanessa - said. “This is… you can’t do this!”

His entire chest ached, and only his armour meant he wasn’t as flat as paper. Even now, he could hear the groan of servos pushed beyond their tolerances and the creak of his armour in her grasp. “Put me down and come quietly,” he gasped, tasting blood. Then, subvocally, “Mister Crypsis, target her face and fire on my command. Pain rays.”

“Y-yes! Yes! How, uh, are you hu-”

“No talking. Wait for my signal.”

“Kaiser is secured with containment foam,” reported Triumph down the line.

“No, you don’t understand. I have you as my hostage,” Menja was saying. “I’m not going to surrender. You’re going to let us go. I’m not dying here - what did you do to him?”

“Sedative.” Her fingers tightened, and the pain in his ribs spiked. “H-he’s alive.”

“Good. Good. I…” She seemed to be staring straight through him. “He can’t die. Not until Lung’s dead.”

“Purity flipped on you,” Armsmaster said. His shoulder protested when he tried to twist in her grip. “She fed us all the info we needed. She told us all your names. About Medhall. The Empire is going down. Surrender now and you might get out of-” The sudden pressure tore a scream from him.

“You don’t get to do this! You don’t get to take this away from me!” she screamed at him. “Not on top of everything else!”

“Crypsis, fire!” Armsmaster gasped, priming his electrogauntlet.

Up above street level, a trio of drones de-cloaked, their microwave emitters trained on Menja’s face. There was no obvious flash of light, but this close he could hear the sizzle of her sweat boiling. She screwed her eyes shut reflexively, trying to shield her face with her hands. It was probably like standing too close to an open oven for her, but the discharge of Armsmaster’s electrogauntlet was more like a hornet sting to the hand. His stomach yawned as she dropped him, but he triggered his grappling hook and landed with a grunt on the nearby roof.

“Foam her!” he ordered. The synthetic opiates from his armour’s medical subsystems were washing away the pain in their pleasant coolness. He straightened up, breathing more easily. He’d deal with the injuries later. She was even bigger now, head and shoulders above the third-floor rooftops around them. Big enough that bullets and beams would barely hurt her.

“I’m on her!” Triumph yelled. “Cover your ears!”

There was no time to order him back until she was slowed down more. Triumph crossed the distance to Menja at a sprint and unleashed his shout. The noise made the gravel on the roof dance and Armsmaster’s helmet ring as it struck Menja full in the chest. Even if her power reduced the concussive force of Triumph’s shout, the sheer volume was still painful and debilitating. Menja bellowed as it hit her, louder than the ships in the docks, and staggered backwards. She stood on a parked car, flattening it, and nearly lost her footing.

Then one of her flailing hands caught hold of a streetlamp. With a vicious jerk, she found her balance and tore it from the sidewalk, spinning it around to hold like a baton. Triumph jumped at her and screamed again, but this time Menja was ready. She lashed out at him with a quick jab, and though the shockwave of his voice slowed her weapon down, it didn’t stop it. She swung at him and he went flying back into the truck he’d come from, crumpling it around his body. The stealth system shorted out with a shower of crackling sparks.

“Triumph!” Armsmaster barked, retracting his grappling hook. The agents were falling back to the pre-planned positions, following their squad leaders’ commands. Hand-held launchers were of no more use now. “Bravo Team, get him out of here! Battery, Crypsis, hold!”

She knew he was here, and she swiped at him with her hand. It tore clean through the water tower like a wrecking ball and sent the hulk of twisted metal flying down the street. Armsmaster triggered his smoke launchers, filling the rooftop with grey fumes. He just needed to get clear and - suddenly his smoke was gone, blown away by a huff from the giant.

“Found you,” she boomed.

A twisted stub of torn metal and clinging asphalt swept toward him - the butt of the lamppost, wielded like an ogre’s club. It was all he could do to dodge it. The impact tossed up concrete dust and the roof sagged alarmingly. He scrambled to get off this section before it fell in, the floors below it collapsing in a cascade that only tossed up more dust. With her other hand she grabbed for him again, trying to recapture her prize. This time he didn’t even try to block her. Nothing he had could deflect something like this. But a flare of his rocket thrusters pushed him outside her grab.

“Flashbangs!” he ordered, and his suit lobbed a handful of microgrenades up towards her face. His visor autopolarised to protect him from the flashes, but Menja wasn’t so lucky. She howled, and grabbed for him again. This time she simply missed, tearing away a chimney stack in her hand and crushing it to red brick dust.

“Stop it with the fucking tricks!” she demanded.

He didn’t respond. She wanted him to make noise. He shifted so he was behind the stump of an old radio tower, and considered his options. Things were not going optimally. But he still had scenarios to handle this.

“Battery, hold. Tell me if she looks away from me.”

“Are you hurt? I thought when she grabbed you-”

“I’m fine,” he lied, mouth tasting of blood. “We can still do this. As long as we secure Kaiser, we win. She’s a secondary objective.” He scanned through the camera viewpoints; trucks, drones, Battery’s view. Menja had lost the usual supermodel aesthetic that the Empire so prized. Clumps of hair had been torn out where it had been trapped in foam, and the revealed areas of her skin were raw and livid. A reaction to containment foam? No, more likely friction from how her growth had torn her loose.

Containment foam couldn’t hold Menja. His nanosedative had failed - and that was a question for later. Because there was going to be a later. That took him back to the tertiary plan for Menja’s capture. She couldn’t run without abandoning Kaiser, and if she tried to free him she’d be a sitting duck. He’d modelled all these scenarios, even if he happened to be in a low-probability branch right now.

The roof shook as Menja hunted for him. On the cameras, he saw her bring down her fist on an old-fashioned array of skylights, and heard the tinkling of the shattered glass. The building groaned as she leaned on it.

“Sir?”

“Hold, Battery.” He followed the movement of Menja’s head, and as she looked the other way he darted out, dropping down onto a fire escape. The old metal groaned underfoot, and for a moment he almost triggered his grappling hook, but it held. He sliced through the door’s lock and eased his way inside. Out of sight. But not safe. Dust drifted down from the ceiling and plaster littered the stripped-bare floors. He stepped away from the fire escape, and just in time, too. Her body blocked out the light as she shifted to the left. This close, he could hear her breathing. More than that, it made the dust motes in the air dance.

“Alpha Team, Charlie Team.” His breath rasped in his ears. “Agents, dismount. I’ll need the trucks for support.”

“Roger.”

He pulled up the schematics from city records. To his left, a long corridor which led out to a gantry over what had once been a factory floor. Good enough.

“Noisemaker,” he whispered to his suit, aiming down the hall. “Load ‘Combat Actions’.” The green light flashed. It was almost silent when he fired it, a puff of expanding gas lost in the sound of Menja smashing another chimney stack. He turned and crept the other way, carefully scanning the floor ahead for weaknesses. He didn’t trust the structural integrity after everything she’d done.

With a tap of his wrist, he activated the noisemaker. A cunning little device, if he did say so himself. He’d set it to make the kinds of noises he’d make in battle; commands, loud footsteps, the whine of charging technology. And then there was the infrasound and ultrasound. Not audible - but it made the other noises so much more noticeable. He’d got that idea from Triumph.

The entire rooftop over the old factory hall caved in as Menja brought down two fists on it. “Got you!” she crowed.

Yes. He certainly had her attention. But no. She did not have him. In fact, he had her.

“Battery, go! Crypsis, fire support pattern two!”

She came hurtling in from the parking lot, the circuitry on her costume blazing with light, and kneecapped Menja with a full-force shoulder tackle. The crack of bone and cartilage sounded like a storm-beaten tree snapping in half, but the noise that followed it was worse; a sickening sound of tearing meat that took him a moment to understand. He'd fought the twins before, but he’d never seen them this badly injured. He’d never heard a tendon being severed before. The rip-crack echoed off the boarded-up shops across the street, and Menja’s scream shattered windows. She dropped the lamppost, catching herself on one of the nearby buildings, her guttural gasps of pain filling the lot.

Her charge faded and her costume dull, Battery fell to the ground and scrambled back. More grenades hit, coming from above to splash against Menja’s supporting hand. The heavier drones only carried a few grenades, but Mister Crypsis had used them well. Off-white foam burst out and expanded fast, engulfing Menja’s left hand in a sticky, rubbery sphere and gluing it to the building.

“Focus on her legs,” Armsmaster ordered the trucks. “Battery, tell me when you’re charged.” He broke into a run, sprinting through the corridors and leaping between the damage she had done, moving closer to where that arm was trapped. His armour was complaining to him, indicators flashing red in his HUD, but it just had to last out a little longer...

Jets of containment foam arced from the invisible trucks. They caught Menja directly on the ankle of her good leg, expanding in seconds into a fresh, far thicker coating that anchored her foot to the ground. It took her by surprise, and with her knee so mutilated and all her weight on her left leg, she couldn’t get away. She wrenched with her trapped hand to no avail. Concrete screeched and metal groaned, but her awkward position stopped her from exerting her full strength.

And this was his chance. Armsmaster thumbed a switch on his suit, and threw himself out of the building. His grappling hook flew out, and a piton meant to punch into solid stone barely managed to break her skin. But it was in, and rocket boosters flared. Up he soared, retracting the cable even as he swung, outstretched fist trailing blue light.

His electrogauntlet hit right above her axillary nerve, and this time he’d been feeding them off the capacitors intended for his vibrocutter. He felt the impact like a hammer blow even through the painkillers, but she lurched as her arm lost all its strength. She sagged into the building front, shedding rubble and broken glass all over the street.

“Fuck!” she swore, in a voice loud enough to be heard from the docks.

This time he wasn’t fool enough to assume she was down, just because she was three limbs down. She’d overcome two contingencies already, and he couldn’t trust she wouldn’t overcome this if given the chance. She’d chosen the hard way.

“Charged up!” Battery reported.

“Get her down!” he snapped, digging in and pulling himself up onto her shoulder. No time to extract the barb, so he just held on for dear life. And just in time because Battery came hurtling back in from the shops and struck Menja full in the chest.

Like a great redwood falling, like the collapse of a tower block, like the slow but inexorable tilt that starts an avalanche, Menja fell. Her good leg buckled under her, her free hand flailed but found no purchase, and the other arm was trapped and completely numb. She toppled sideways, her ankle breaking with an audible crack as it twisted too far, and the rent and tattered building finally gave way as her full weight came down on it. Her coating of foam only served to trap her further as walls and ceilings collapsed in on her.

But her right hand and right leg were still free, and she lashed out viciously, bellowing curses and thrashing as best she could from her trapped position. She flailed at Armsmaster on her shoulder, and his armour groaned as he dropped down onto the floor below. And then the trucks were on her, pinning anything that was still free. Her leg was the first to be contained, and then the columns of foam moved onto her arm and shoulders.

“Good… good job, people,” Colin said, gasping for breath. He just… just needed a sit-down. For a moment. “Holland, check on… on the wounded. Battery, be ready if she gets a hand free. Crypsis, do we have any signs of Empire reinforcements on route?”

Straining, groaning and broken, Menja wrenched herself forwards, trying to escape from her jail of rubble. The motion brought her face into the way of the jet, and suddenly she had more pressing concerns than escape. Thrashing, gagging, unable to shield her face, she gasped and hacked and started to shrink in spasmodic bursts. It might have been an attempt to get out of the solidifying foam, or it might have been a simple panic reflex. Whichever it was, it was a bad idea. She convulsed, and wet gurgles choked out from her bulging throat. Colin heard her retch unsuccessfully around her flailing spasms, and put together what had happened. She’d inhaled some of the foam. And when she’d shrunk, it hadn’t shrunk with her.

“Fuck,” he snarled. “Cease fire! Cease fire!” She couldn’t be allowed to die. Not if it would raise questions about the use of containment foam. Even if this was a stupid niche scenario. He grabbed his canister of solvent from his belt, and began to scale her giant form. “Crypsis, get the medi-drone over here right now!”

“... and we now go live to the joint PRT and FBI press conference where Director Emily Piggot will be speaking on this development.”

The news feed cut to Director Piggot, standing behind a lectern with the PRT agency crest on it. A cluster of microphones sprouted in front of her like strange black fungi. There was nothing triumphant about her dourly professional expression.

“Good afternoon. Today, I can report to the American people that the PRT and FBI have conducted an operation which has ended in the capture of Maximillian Anders, also known as the supervillain Kaiser, head of the criminal organisation the Empire Eighty-Eight and CEO of the Medhall Corporation. Also captured as part of the same operation were his second-in-command James Fleischer, aka Krieg, and Vanessa Biermann, aka Menja.

“An extended investigation into the finances of the Medhall Corporation revealed widespread criminal activity. The Medhall Corporation is a vehicle for money laundering, engages in extensive financial misconduct including self-dealing by Mr Anders, and employs neo-Nazi militants to sabotage its industry rivals. It would not be an exaggeration to call it a front company for the Empire Eighty-Eight.”

Camera flashes illuminated her features.

“On its own, this evidence would have been more than enough to arrest Mr Anders. However Kayden Russel, aka Purity, turned informant following her capture at the end of last year. As a result, the depths of the Empire Eighty-Eight’s control of the Medhall Corporation and its many shell companies came to light. Even more alarmingly, she revealed the existence of ties to European terror groups which had been previously unknown, and the use of Medhall in arms smuggling to Canada.

“Such brazen criminality cannot and must not be allowed to stand.

“Today, a PRT strike team commanded by Armsmaster launched a precisely targeted operation to bring in Kaiser and his bodyguard Menja. Showing extraordinary courage and capability, they successfully captured both individuals. Kaiser did not resist his capture, and Menja was taken down swiftly with no civilian injuries and minimal property damage. She is currently in a stable condition.

“At the same time, another PRT team led by Miss Militia and supported by assets from PRT-Portland moved to take the Empire second-in-command Krieg into custody. Mr Fleischer attempted to flee, but was taken down by PRT agents despite an attempt to take hostages. No civilians were killed during his capture. Throughout the day, FBI teams have secured key Medhall records and documentation before they could be deleted or destroyed by members of the criminal gang. It is our hope that this will be the end of a long-standing menace.

“For nearly two decades, the Empire Eighty-Eight has been a threat to law and order in Maine. They have been engaged in numerous murders, assaults, the drug trade, human trafficking, weapons smuggling, and other serious crimes. The mass murder at Oshima Motors on December 20, 2010, occurred at the direct instigation of Kaiser. And yet we know that there are many crimes which get much less news coverage or which pass unnoticed save by the victims. A mother, mourning a son who wasted away on Empire meth, or a family mourning a father who happened to be walking through the wrong neighbourhood. We must not forget these hidden victims of the cruelty and callousness of the neo-Nazis.

“We give thanks for the brave men and women who carried out this operation, for they display the bravery, courage, and professionalism of those who serve our country in these troubled times. They have the tenacity to stand up against the threat of neo-Nazi violence, just as Americans stood up to the Nazi regime of Adolf Hitler nearly seventy years ago. This violence, and these beliefs, have no place in our proud nation.

“Thank you. May God bless you all. And may God bless the United States of America.”

Armsmaster exhaled through his teeth, nose wrinkled up, as Piggot began to field questions from the press. He should have been there on that stage, answering questions and standing there as a figure of justice in blue and silver. But Director Piggot had insisted that the PRT and FBI would have primacy there, not the Protectorate - and she had used the fact he had been injured against him. Those words really didn’t sound like they belonged in her mouth. Her speechwriter was good, but they’d have come across better if he had been the one saying them. With a tap of a button, he turned off the flatscreen. He shook his head and sighed, getting back to what he had been doing before the news broadcast had distracted him.

Metal clanked as Colin slid the last piece of his dented armour onto its maintenance harness. It hung there, a suit without the man inside, its visor reflecting the harsh overhead lights in the cluttered workshop. With a grunt, he massaged his bruised shoulder, and limped over to the padded chair, the upper half of his undersuit hanging loose. The thermal vest underneath was stained with sweat and insulating gel from the burst packs. His bare arms were mottled in bruises; three fingers on his right hand were in casts.

Everywhere around him was the kind of intricate order that looked like disorder to the naive eye. Tools hung from walls in an order which cared nothing for size or purpose, but was based around how frequently he needed them. Flatscreens were positioned at seemingly random locations on the walls chosen to cover his eyeline from his workstations. The big black box of Omen-2 sat on its bench, whirring away constantly these days. In a few days time he’d be able to shut it down, test it, and think about Omen-3 - but not now. Not yet. An idea struck him and he nearly went to scribble something on the whiteboard next to its UI, but his shoulder twinged at him when he tried to get up from his chair.

Without a thought, Colin checked his emails. His filters had caught most of what had arrived, and the auto-draft had prepared responses that he only had to skim-read before sending. There was an email from Dragon in the low priority queue that hadn’t auto-drafted, so he got to reading it once he’d handled work matters.

It was a congratulation on the capture, which brought a smile to his lips and managed to cut away some of the irritation of how he wasn’t getting his dues for this. He’d overheard Battery making a joke about Dragon being his ‘Canadian girlfriend’, but he had been the bigger man and ignored her. This was a purely professional relationship based on mutual interests, and he was doing his job ensuring that he kept on good terms with Canadian counterparts.

Then his phone rang. He checked the caller ID and saw it was her. “Hello, Dragon,” he answered, putting her on the workshop’s loudspeakers. “Good timing. I just read your email.”

“I know you did,” she said, an amused lilt in her voice. He’d worked out long ago that the voice she used was a synthetic mask that covered up her native Newfoundland accent, but it would have been impolite to point out how thin the disguise was. As she’d mentioned, her agoraphobia meant relocating if someone tracked her down would be… uncomfortable. “I did tag it with a read notification.”

“Are you literally sitting there on your computer waiting for me to open the email?”

“Not literally - but nearly. I am reviewing some very boring documentation for the new IBTR standards. The prose is so bad, Colin. So, so bad. And there are stacked footnotes. But I’m only on this as a reviewer so I can’t just go rewrite it.” She huffed. “I’m pretty sure there are laws against this kind of torture.”

“It’s important we have Tinker input into these regulations.”

“I know, but I can still complain! But enough about me. You had a much more fun day. I just saw the conference, and I’ve read the FBI liaison report. Well done! That’s a feather in your cap. If you wore a cap. Maybe you can stick it to the outside of your helmet.”

“Mmm.”

“What’s the matter? You sound irked.”

“A little bit. I should have been on stage with the director.” He forced his jaw muscles to relax. “But she didn’t let me.”

“Rude. Unless… are you hurt?”

“Hardly.”

“Colin…”

“Nothing I won’t heal from. I’m fine, Dragon. I’d have been able to stand and talk.”

“And I’m sure you’d have looked very dashing, even if you were wheezing slightly. Like you are right now,” she said lightly. “But this’ll look great in your review.”

Ah, back on happier ground. “It will. I was getting worried towards the end of last year. The next department review was looking to be even rougher than the last one, and that was no bed of roses.”

“That metaphor always confused me, you know? Rose stems are covered in thorns. Sleeping on them sounds very painful.”

Colin tilted his head. “You’re right. Huh. But anyway, we did a lot of good today. We captured all three of the targets. And… well, you saw the broadcast. The higher-ups decided to immediately go public with their names because of all the financial crimes. Max Anders won’t be allowed to rebuild the Empire a second time. Even if he escapes, he’s lost everything that sets him apart from a normal crime boss. And I don’t think he’ll escape. Portent’s on secondment to the team that’s making sure Anders stays locked up. He’ll stay locked up, and I’ll be back in the ascendancy.” His fingers curled up against the arm of his chair. “They’ll see I’m not someone who can be left in Brockton Bay to moulder.”

There was a little awkward silence. Dragon was famed as one of the most skilled Tinkers in the world, and from her elevated position she didn’t always seem to grasp what it was away from the heights. She didn’t understand how vicious the rat race was in the second tier of heroes and so didn’t understand why he had to fight, had to strive for everything he had.

“Anyway!” she said brightly. “This will make things easier for you. The Empire Eighty-Eight were the largest criminal organisation in your area, and you’ve taken out their leadership.”

“Yes.” Colin’s fingers clacked on his keyboard almost without thinking, bringing up the reports from the analysts. Pain. Ow. Broken fingers. He switched to using his mouse instead. “Hookwolf will probably take over, but he’s a jumped-up street fighter. No Medhall, and he thinks with his fists. I’ll be able to handle him. We’ve captured him before and I’ve got something new for him next time.

“What you used on Kaiser? What was it?”

“A nanosedative. Not chemical - not in the conventional sense, at least. I exposed him to it through the dispersal mechanism hidden in the bike’s exhaust, and upon transmission of an activation signal the nanosedative selectively bonded to predetermined receptors and-”

“I’m familiar with the theory.” Dragon made a thoughtful noise. “The fact that it didn’t function on Menja as she entered her transformed state says interesting things about the mechanisms of her growth. I wonder if each cell physically enlarges - which would render the receptor target designation non-functional - or whether there’s something else going on? I believe that means we can rule out her brain remaining connected to the circulatory system of her Breaker-state form from this.”

“I suspected that anyway. Simply on physical grounds, a non-modified brain would likely explode from the increased blood pressure observed in her transformed state.”

“Also true! Breaker states are a pain to sedate because of how many utilise non-standard neurotransmitters. The advantage with nanosedatives was always that they’d be programmable to handle alternate states, through from what you’re saying yours are only compatible with human-baseline neurochemistry?”

“As it stands. I do have ideas about how to remodel them…”

The two of them promptly got distracted talking about programmable nano-scale structures. And Colin did appreciate it. It was a lonely life, being a solo Tinker. The fact that he technically worked with Mr Crypsis didn’t change it. The man could be useful - it had been his holo-tech that had allowed the disguise and the stealth PRT trucks - but their fields of expertise didn’t really overlap enough for him to feel like company. Then the topic moved onto the subject of size-changers and the risks of her containment foam design on them.

He only got distracted from the chat when a new email arrived. He briefly skimmed it, sighing. This was always how it was. Team leadership matters pulling him away from what he actually enjoyed doing.

“Something up?”

“Just a meeting.” He paused, blinking at the pile of jotted-down notes he barely remembered making. Something for later. “Now the arrest’s in, the director’s scheduled the disciplinary hearing for Starlight, Flare and Vista.”

“A good day to bury bad news,” Dragon said dryly. “Why?”

“It’s,” he considered whether he should be saying it, and decided it didn’t matter. Dragon had the reciprocal clearance for internal matters like this, and it’d be good to bounce some of his thoughts off her and see how she responded. Her detachment from the situation meant she could give a more neutral view than Hannah could. “It’s related to the Purity arrest,” he decided.

“One moment. Ah. Yes. Reading between the lines, they weren’t exactly following orders?”

“That’s one way to put it.” Colin rubbed his aching shoulder. “This whole conversation is off the record, you understand?”

A pause. Then; “I don’t like the sound of this.”

“Mmm. Purity was to blame for Starlight’s trigger.”

“Ah.” And that word spoke a volume. “So like the Florida Man incident a few years ago.”

“Oh God, no, nothing that bad. But Starlight is the most troublesome Ward we have at the moment. She’s stubborn, ambitious, and convinced she’s doing the right thing no matter the situation.”

“My goodness.” A very deliberate pause. “I don’t know anyone like that.”

“Very funny.”

“I don’t know what you mean. I’m just a poor isolated Tinker who doesn’t get out enough. How could I meet someone who is so perfectly described by all those terms?”

“Do you mind? I’m trying to explain.” He didn’t know why she insisted on acting like this. “But simply, I know she didn’t ‘just happen’ to stumble across Purity. But she did a good job taking her in alive. So I’ll recommend that any punishment be kept to a minimum. A few months probation, maybe docking some pay, nothing more.”

“I… don’t follow. You’re not making sense.”

“If we knew about any irregularities in the circumstances which led to Ms Russel’s arrest, it’d complicate her prosecution - and if that fell through, that’d complicate Max Anders’ prosecution. Starlight and Flare said they were going to watch the fireworks. That’s all the record needs. I’ve made sure Starlight is aware she’s on thin ice and that if she misbehaves at all before she turns eighteen, I’ll have to take a closer look at everything that happened here. But Max Anders will be safely away in the Birdcage before anything happens there. If she happened to bend some rules to hunt down Ms Russel, well, she’s young. I don’t think we need to ask any questions that might have inconvenient answers.”

“You’re sounding oddly relaxed,” Dragon said, a little snippily.

“Well, maybe I’m just in a good mood because I know tomorrow’s headlines are going to be talking about how I took down Kaiser, Krieg and Menja.” He leaned his chair back, putting his feet up on the warmth of his desktop tower. “That we’ve cut the heart out of the Empire-88. That today I might have saved the Brockton Bay Protectorate from being downgraded to a red rating, and at the next funding review we’re probably going to get more funds rather than more cuts.” That people wouldn’t be talking about how he was past his prime and a failure as a team leader put in a dead-end position.

There was a colder note in Dragon’s voice when she spoke next. “Colin. You did something, didn’t you?”

“Not exactly.” Colin levered himself out of his chair, back aching, and limped over to Omen-2. Up this close, its cooling fans sounded like a jet engine - and this was just the front end he’d custom-built. The server farm that handled analytics on its output was elsewhere on site. “Since the Oshima Motors attack, I’ve had Omen-2 running exhaustive future-modelling scenarios, generating instance after instance. And with its evaluation of its forecasts, I started to see a rapidly growing number of instances where Starlight came into direct conflict with Purity.”

“It’s improved that much over Omen-1? You said that one was just an early stage prototype to predict Endbringer attacks.”

He liked the surprise in her voice. “I’ve been working with Portent closely. I can’t match his forecast accuracy - yet - but with what I’ve learned from studying him, Omen-2 is leaps and bounds ahead of its predecessor.”

“You like him, don’t you?”

“He’s the most useful Ward I’ve ever overseen. I’ll hate to lose him this summer. But he’ll be moving on.” And that was that. Colin should never have taken this position. He’d thought it would be the ticket onto greater things, but all it had been was a senior position in a dying north-eastern city that was doing its best to murder his career too. Portent had the right idea, getting out of the Bay.

“That’s not what I asked you.”

“He’s easy to work with. And professional. Not a troublemaker. We could do with more Portents.”

“Still not answering me, Colin.”

She was being very pushy. “He’s a good kid. Yes, then, I like him.”

“See, was that so hard?” She hummed to herself. “So you knew she was going to come into contact with Purity?”

“Until the incident at the marketplace, it was a recurring low-probability element in Omen-2’s simulations. What you’d expect if Starlight was looking for her and happened to get lucky.” He opened the forecasting interface, pulling up historic records. “But from the 21st - the day of the Lincoln Park Market incident - to the 26th, the one week projections filled up with simulations where Starlight engaged Purity.” He balled his good hand into a fist. “I was sitting there on Christmas Day, trying to work out what the fuck Starlight had found that led her to Purity so reliably. But Omen-2… has some of the drawbacks of Portent’s modelling precognition.”

“Which algorithm are you using for it?”

“So, Omen-1 started using Foresight-Accord for chronological deterministic heuristic mapping. But with Omen-2 large sections have been replaced with my new custom phase-space constraint function,” Colin said.

“Hmm. I’d be fascinated to see that,” Dragon said thoughtfully. “I’ve always found FA to be very brute-force so anything that improves on that would be incredible.”

“I’ll see what I can do, but chronodeterministic algorithms always have brutal export control restrictions. I don’t see any chance of getting it past Commerce.”

“Americans,” Dragon said, clearly rolling her eyes. “And you can’t distract me. What did you mean when you said ‘not exactly’?”

He scratched his chin, running his fingers through his beard. “When I saw Starlight was increasingly likely to come into contact with Purity, I started inputting scenarios into Omen-2. And the scenarios where I gave her make-work researching the Empire-88 to distract her from looking for Purity increased the chance she’d find her to a near certainty. But it also increased the chance she’d take Purity in alive.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. Omen-2 is a Delphic device. I can’t tell you what led Starlight to find Purity, and I can’t tell you why giving her the make-work made the live capture outcomes spike. Maybe she found information in the reports that made her less willing to kill Purity in a fight - but maybe it was that the work reminded her she was a Ward, and that murdering an enemy isn’t something she should do. Could be both - or neither.” Reaching out, he patted Omen-2. It was hot to the touch, despite all the fans and coolant systems. “This scenario has been a good stress test for her.”

“A good stress test for Starlight?” He was about to correct her that he had meant Omen-2, but Dragon wasn’t finished. “Colin, I thought you’d be better than this! You let a teenage girl-”

“I didn’t let her do anything,” he interrupted. “Omen-2 isn’t rigorously tested in her current version. Of the predictions made from 18:00 to 23:59 on the 26th, ninety percent of her scenarios had Starlight come into contact with Purity between the 29th and the 3rd. But in previous tests with Omen-2, forecasts were patchy and I upgraded her to version 2.1.2 since that last testing campaign. I thought the outputs were improved, but I couldn’t prove it. Version 2.1.1 hadn’t even captured Starlight and Vista’s clash with Half-A in November. It’s why I upgraded her.

“So for all I could prove, giving her make-work would have had her calm down and distract her from going out to hunt down Purity. And that was the responsible thing to do.”

“Hmm.” Dragon didn’t sound convinced. “But you knew you were future-casting that a Ward would come into contact with a mass murderer.”

“But Portent wasn’t seeing anything. And Omen is meant to replicate his power.” Of course, Portent had been distracted by family matters, but he wasn’t going to mention that to Dragon. “In the end, if Omen was right, it would increase the chance we’d take her alive. And if Omen was wrong, it couldn’t hurt to give her something to do because she was pestering me to get back on patrols.”

“Why didn’t you let her?”

“Piggot wanted her to learn a lesson after the Half-A incident.” And maybe he hadn’t pushed as hard as he could have because Omen-2’s forecasts predicted that if he did that, it’d reduce the chance of them capturing Purity. But that testing data was unfortunately deleted. Like it had never existed. “I’m not going to undermine the authority of my director.”

“You played a dangerous game.”

“I played the odds.” Colin stared directly at the camera, hands spread. “I made sure I wasn’t on duty, so I could scramble rather than having to handle coordination myself. I made sure the rapid response team on duty was one I trusted. If Omen was wrong, she was wrong, and no one knew what was going to happen. But if she was right, I maximised our chances of taking Purity in alive. And without the scandal of a Ward killing a supervillain.”

And maybe he might have arranged the schedules so Mister Crypsis, who was notoriously bad at the management side of things, was the senior ranking hero on-duty. Because Omen-2 had predicted that if anyone else was in charge, the odds of a successful capture fell precipitously. A city like Brockton Bay had been left too long to slowly moulder for things to turn around without someone taking a few risks. Just like his career.

“I’m glad it worked out, but this doesn’t mean your Omen machine was right,” Dragon said softly. “Maybe it was wrong, but things happened to turn out in a way which resembled the output of your modelling simplifications. I’d avoid relying on it.”

“Oh, please, I know better than to do that,” Armsmaster said, limping back to his chair. “I didn’t rely on her. She was just another source of data.” The seat squeaked as he collapsed into it, feeling all his aches and pains. “Just another armament in my arsenal. I’ll do better next time.”

Chapter Text

My alarm had been going off for five minutes, and my only thought was that seven in the morning was too goddamn early to be awake on a weekend. And yesterday-evening-me had put it out of reach so I couldn’t turn it off from bed, the conniving bitch.

After another minute of ceaseless torment, I grumbled and emerged from my nest of covers to slap the dratted thing. Stupid spring-wound clocks I couldn’t shut up by draining. Stupid past me setting unreasonable wake-up times. Stupid mornings.

But I didn’t have a choice. SurvivorsBB had rented a winery some way out of the city to watch the feed of Kaiser getting ‘caged, and Mom had said we were going. Maybe it would even shut up the nagging fear he’d squirm out of this. So I rushed through a shower and dragged a brush through my hair and put on a nice white button-up shirt and some Starlight-blue slacks. I even threw on a bit of makeup. Not the full face Emma would have wanted, but some eyeliner, mascara and lipstick that made me look more mature.

I was ready early, and drifted over to my computer. News sites, PRT announcements, messages on my secure cell. Nothing to say that Kaiser had escaped. There were articles talking about him, though. It was frontpage on the websites of the New York Times and the Washington Post. The ‘caging of a state-level crime boss with the connections Kaiser had was a big story.

“Taylor!” Mom called me from downstairs, with just a hint of warning. “Hurry up!”

Breakfast was quiet. Mom wasn’t furious with me anymore, but we hadn’t regained much ground yet. With the looming spectre of New Year’s still hanging over us, conversations were full of awkward silences.

So we piled into the car at half eight and set off. I sat and watched the streets go by, wondering how many of the people on the sidewalks and in the other vehicles cared that Kaiser was getting Birdcaged today. It was a national story, but how much did it mean to them? Kaiser being gone had already become the new normal. Was this what it was like after Vicky and Amy’s parents took down Marquis?

I didn’t know how to feel about that. Maybe it was for the best. Maybe it didn’t matter if anyone cared, as long as Kaiser was getting put away where he couldn’t hurt anyone else.

“Mom?” I ventured after a few more minutes as we waited at a stoplight. On the sidewalk next to us, an old guy with a flute busked, sitting on a milk crate under an aspen tree. “Uh, you said we’d revisit the grounding today. Well, I mean, you said you’d think about it once it was all over, and he’s getting locked up, so...”

Mom’s lips pursed. “I did say that,” she said neutrally. “We’ll talk about it later.”

I tried not to let my annoyance show on my face. That’s what she’d said last time I’d asked. ‘We’ll talk about it later’ meant ‘no’.

“Don’t make that face at me, Taylor! I’d be perfectly justified keeping you grounded until you turn eighteen. You lied to me, you went out to fight a mass-murderer, you-”

“I know, I know, I know!” I’d heard this lecture enough times to be thoroughly sick of it. “I get it, okay, I’m still grounded! What I did was wrong, I shouldn’t have done it, I’m sorry. I was just asking.” I trailed off into a mutter for the last bit, looking out of the window and away from her.

“Are you?” Mom sighed. “Are you sorry? You’re grounded until I’m convinced you won’t do something similarly reckless if I let you out of my sight. And part of why I’m worried is that you don’t even seem to regret it.”

The light turned green, and we started moving again with a jerk.

“I don’t,” I said, and shrugged at the look she gave me. “I mean... look, Mom, just listen to me, okay?” I bit my lip, trying to marshal my thoughts. “I broke the rules. I admit that. And I don’t regret it.” Mom made an aggrieved noise. “No, hear me out. Like...” I gestured ahead of us, at the city skyline. “Purity’s going to jail. Kaiser’s getting ‘caged. And the Empire’s screwed. The Protectorate thinks it can take down Hookwolf, and yeah, they can. Why would I feel sorry about doing that? If I’d known exactly how everything was going to go before it all happened, I’d still have done it, more or less. But...”

I paused, the scraps of a torn-down Medhall billboard catching my attention. Mom watched me out of the corner of her eye, critical but withholding judgement for the moment. “But?”

“But... I think...” I tried to find a way to explain it without sounding like I was asking for praise just for not being a whiny brat. “I do get why the PRT didn’t want people going after her. And I know Armsmaster is going easy on me because I read the regulations and they could have really dropped the hammer. And didn’t.”

“So?” Old paper mills loomed on one side of the street, repurposed into housing.

“It’s not just that they’re going easy on me. I went into this thinking that I didn’t mind if they kicked me out as long as I got Purity. And that’s... that’s what I mean when I said I don’t regret it. I don’t regret any of it, including the fact that I’m, uh, in really big trouble for doing it. Because that’s important too.” I wriggled down in my seat. “I broke a lot - and I mean a lot - of rules and most of those rules are there for a good reason, most of the time. I got screamed at by Director Piggot and it hurt and…” I huffed on the glass, tracing out a pair of scales. “She’s there so if you break the rules, you better be doing it for a reason you think is worth being called into her office.” I looked at Mom, trying to read her expression. “Does that make sense?”

“A little.” That was her ‘Professor Hebert’ voice. The one she used when she was listening to people analyse texts and then dissecting their arguments. “Is that what you see your punishment as? A necessary cost?”

“Kind of. It’s like… you know the Darkwoods Trilogy?” I’d been reading even more than usual with all my free time, and maybe it had crept in. “It’s by Eliza Li and…”

“I know you like to bring it up.” That was a very ‘Mom’ tone, one she tended to use when she thought I was reading too much fantasy. “I only got half-way through the first book before I put it down.”

“Yes, but there’s an actual point here! If you go into the Darkwoods without a lumenwood branch, the woods claim you. But even if you have one, it seeps into you. Slowly and surely, the longer you’re out there. Until at some point, you find your lumenwood too bright for your eyes and you’re at home, out there in the dark, under the boughs. You can’t stay out there too long. Even if you’re trying to save someone, like Salih was. That didn’t save her. It’s like that! Except the woods are ‘breaking the law’ and the lumenwood is your good reason and then you hate Huo Cheng and… I’ve lost you, haven’t I?”

“Yes. Yes, you did,” she said dryly, eyes on the road. “And this is a complicated merger up ahead, so just put the words together in your head and don’t distract me while I handle this.”

The time to think did help, and by the time Mom was past the nasty junction, I was ready to try again.

“I did a good thing with bad methods,” I said slowly. “I took a step onto a slippery slope - one you warned me about! But it was only a step. And then I stepped back. You were right.”

“About what?”

“How violence and anger lead to bad places. And corrupt your intent. I wanted to kill her. For a moment, I was going to. I didn’t understand what you meant at Christmas. I think…” I swallowed, throat dry. “I get it better now.”

“I never wanted this. For you to find out what it’s like. For you to…” She pulled into a vacancy by the side of the road, and let her head fall onto the steering wheel. “I didn’t want you to be this much like me.”

That hurt. And I could hear it hurt her too. “It’s not your fault.”

“Really?” Her knuckles whitened around the wheel. “I thought… I’ve hated how much of the system’s bullshit you accept. I didn’t want to raise a cop. I just accepted it was the price to try to keep you safe from this life. From having powers that I’ve seen used. Not just by gangs. The WAF had its own heroes. And they were on our side and I saw some of what they could do. And what happened to most of them.”

I shuddered. There was so much unspoken horror in her words. “I... I really don’t think it’s your fault. This was me.”

“I was like that because of my mother. Not necessarily because she meant to. But some things are in the blood. Seeing what you… how you were willing to go and do something I’d have done when I was twenty and angry and full of this sense of justice.” She met my eyes. “I never really got to look at myself from the outside like this.”

“Do you still get angry?”

“Not quite in the same way. You have a bit more of Danny’s temper. He burned hotter than me. But I think with us, it lingers. And being young is a hell of a drug. I calmed down a bit as I got older.” She pulled a face. “Mostly after I had you. Having to look after a baby takes a lot out of you. Not that I’m suggesting teen pregnancy as a form of anger management.”

“Mom!”

“My point stands.”

The atmosphere in the car had changed. I took a breath. “I… I didn’t mean to hurt you. Or make you worry. And there aren’t any more Purities out there. It was a one-off. There’s nobody else out there who’ll push me so far. I don’t want to feel like that again. I… didn’t like who I was becoming by the end.”

Mom looked sad. “God. That’s what I said at the end. When I decided to quit. It’s so easy to focus on your ends and forget your means.”

The silence hung. “Come on,” I said, trying to lighten the mood. “We don’t want to be late. Otherwise the bus will leave without us.”

“Yes, yes, you’re right.”

We drove on for a while. There was nothing more to add. And I wasn’t entirely comfortable with this contemplative Mom. It made her feel old. It made me feel less certain about some of the things I’d just said, seeing her like this.

“I’m not lifting your grounding,” she said as we approached the park-and-ride. “But... we can talk about lightening it. Maybe having friends round again.”

“Yeah, that means less than it used to,” I sighed. “I mean, not that I’m not grateful! That would be great! Just, uh-”

“Are Amy and Emma still upset with you?” A peace offering.

I pulled a face. “Getting up in the morning makes Amy upset. This is beyond that. I think... this really hurt her feelings. And she holds grudges. I dunno what to do about her, I’ll... I dunno. Emma’s sort of come round. I mean, we’re talking again, anyway, and she’s not just ignoring me all the time. I don’t think she’s forgiven me, exactly. She’s just decided to move forward. I’m going to meet her after this when I visit Dad, so... we’ll see.”

The meeting was being held at the corporate function hosting of a winery and vineyard. That, plus the fact that there was a hired bus to get us from the park-and-ride to the venue suggested that everyone was going to be getting very drunk afterwards. At least they’d planned ahead.

The winery was a cluster of buildings of different ages; an old redbrick right next to something that screamed ‘80s’ and a whitewashed house that could be dating back to colonial times. Long-tamed trees surrounded the planted area, and I could just about see the glimmer of sunlight off a sizable pond on the far side of one of the copses.

Shiny black cars and men in not-quite-cop uniforms with black shades caught my eyes. They had private security here, just in case some Empire thugs felt like reminding everyone that the gang hadn’t all been grabbed along with Kaiser. I checked the logos. That was M99 Security, the same company that had the contracts for the Boardwalk enforcers. The Protectorate suspected they had links to Ouroboros, but honestly, right now that wasn’t a problem. Ouroboros had no reason to cooperate with the remnants of the Empire; not when they were busy gobbling up all their best holdings in Downtown.

I flexed my fingers, and felt for the surgical mask I had hidden in a pocket. Just in case. Last year I’d been caught too often without a mask. Out of habit, I slid out my work phone and checked it again. Nothing. No news of a Kaiser escape.

“Taylor,” Mom chided me, as we clambered off the bus.

“What?”

“No phones!”

“I was just checking the news! Look! Other people are doing it too!”

She gave me a dirty look, because I was right. “Just… try not to stay stuck on your phone. And make sure it’s turned off because I don’t want you getting any calls,” she said, trying to sound like a normal mother.

“I will when stuff starts,” I said defensively. I caught the look in her eyes. “Nothing new,” I added, and she relaxed slightly.

“Don’t think you can get around me,” she said softly, as we headed in. The redbrick structure was the one which the event was being held in, and it turned out that the looks were all on the outside. It was as blandly corporate as any of the charity dinners I’d been to as Starlight.

Hah. Probably wasn’t going to any of them for a while. Portent was on mandatory limited hours after how much time he’d put into the work with the FBI, and that meant that Dean was the Wards team lead. And he considered attending charity dinners to be a reward.

As the broadcast got closer and closer, my nerves were stretched thinner and thinner. Mom stopped complaining after the third time I checked my cell for an update, and after the fifth time gave up the pretense of not wanting to know. The survivors group here tended older; more bereaved parents than people like me, and their chatter was forced and tense. I barely paid any attention to the people Mom tried to introduce me to, and by 10:30 I was so wound up I had to go to the bathroom and try to calm myself down.

He wouldn’t escape. There was no reason he’d be able to escape. They’d have their top people tasked with containing him. And… and Armsmaster probably had some kind of gadget or trick set up that’d stop him from using his powers, right? Like that draining thing he’d smugly showed off that had stopped Purity from recharging.

Taking off my glasses, I blotted my eyes on toilet paper and wiped away the smears of mascara. Goddamnit. I was getting emotional and crying, and I didn’t have a good reason for it. It was just that… that this wasn’t in my control. I was a passive onlooker, nothing more. If Kaiser got out, he’d probably head back to Brockton Bay, looking for revenge, and-

I swallowed hard. He wasn’t going to get out. I just had to calm down and concentrate on the real problem here and now, which was the risk I’d start glowing.

When I made my way out of the bathroom, I was calm, collected and in control of myself, and if Mom noticed that my mascara and eyeliner was gone, she didn’t say anything. She did stand slightly closer to me, though, and wormed her hand into mine.

They’d turned the projector on, and it was showing the feed from the exterior of the Baumann Detention Facility. It was going to be Mr Anders’ place of residency for life. The truck was outside.

The room hushed. It wasn’t quite quiet; the only sound was a lot of people trying not to make any noise. An armoured truck escorted by tinkertech drones. I’d heard of this; no human driver for someone like Kaiser. No one innocent to get hurt if he managed a last-minute escape. The gates opened, and the truck entered, the doors closing behind it.

The feed changed to the interior of the truck. Just one man there. Holding Mom’s hand, I stared at the image of Max Anders in a prison jumpsuit. An advanced collar around his neck and electrodes on his head. Probably to detect any brain activity that would say if he was using his powers, or something like that. Secured to a bed like Hanibal Lecter. Pouchier, blotchier, messier than the pictures of him from the Medhall prospectus. Hair no longer perfectly coiffed, bags under his eyes, the unflattering outfit not hiding his gut.

Perfect.

And yet fear clutched me tight, holding my other hand. He was going to escape. I just knew it. There was something they’d missed, something wrong. He had a plan.

But in the end it was almost an anticlimax. The back doors opened and strange mechanical arms that looked like they were covered in leather lifted him out, still attached to the bed. They transferred him into an elevator, and the doors closed. The lights turned green.

And that was that. No cameras allowed inside Baumann.

After the broadcast ended, people decamped to the function room. There was a buffet and everyone had little tickets that entitled them to two free drinks. Mom got herself wine while I made a valiant effort to secure myself salmon before it all vanished. She had nothing to worry about, because no one wanted the lentil-and-mushroom bake that was the vegetarian option.

“You know that salmon farming isn’t environmentally friendly?” Mom pointed out.

“You know this is a special treat,” I countered.

“Mmm.” She didn’t say any more, so I counted it as a victory for me. I was suddenly starving. Maybe it was the relief that nothing had gone wrong. It helped get me through the time when I had to be a Good Daughter and resist the urge to say anything about the ill-informed speculation some of the people were making about what was going to happen now. Some people here were certain that any moment now the news would come in that Hookwolf had been arrested too, and I wasn’t about to tell them that it didn’t look likely.

I didn’t like these things. When Mom had started going to this support group, I’d been getting used to being a parahuman and hadn’t got my tendency to flare my aura under control. A stressful situation with people I didn’t know? Not my idea of a good time. And then I’d had the Wards instead, and I’d rather hang out with Missy than go to one of these sad meetings. ‘Sad’ was the right word, because they’d been full of people Mom’s age or older, who’d lost children or partners and didn’t see any hope of things changing. The mood was different now, but I still didn’t really know anyone.

I’d prefer to be hanging around the Wards room even if I wasn’t on duty. Missy’s ankle was better and she’d taken up running with me. Or I could be hanging out in the school library with Sam and Leah. I’d even take being used as target practice by Vicky and her latest laser. But no, I’d just have to tolerate this for now. At least I was seeing Emma later. Heaving a sigh, I focused on trying to eat with the shitty plastic cutlery they’d provided.

Fortunately I managed to find one of the high chairs by the bar-like counter over by the windows, and perched up there eating. Slipping my phone out, I fired off a few texts to Sam, who seemed just as bored as I was.

No. Nothing much to laugh about. I tried not to think about Amy. The vampire jokes weren’t funny anymore.

“Oh, you found a seat, good.” Mom appeared, with her food and her wineglass. “You don’t need to tuck yourself away here, you know?” She glanced at my phone, and relaxed slightly when she realised it was my civilian phone. “Talking to someone?”

“Just texting Sam. She’s at the hospital again, so,” I shrugged, “just cheering her up.” My phone vibrated and I saw she’d replied, but I didn’t want Mom to read my conversation history over my shoulder. She would.

“Poor girl.”

“Excuse me? Is this seat free?”

I looked up - and up and up - at the man. He was maybe even taller than Portent, but unlike my teammate he was whippet-thin, like someone had taken a guy a foot shorter and stretched him out like taffy. I wondered for a moment if he was a cancer patient. He was dressed well, in a smart light grey linen suit that worked well with his dark skin. Face; clean shaven, threaded eyebrows over slightly bloodshot eyes, a scar along the line of his jaw that looked like it had come from a knife. And his watch was the same brand that I knew a lot of PRT agents liked for reliability and shock resistance.

“Yes, no one’s there,” Mom said. “You can take it if you want.”

“Thank you very much.” He sat down with a grunt, massaging his back. “Good to see you again.”

“Pardon?” Mom said.

“You’re Annette, right? We met at one of these a few months ago and went out for drinks afterwards.”

Mom perked up. “Oh, yes, sorry. It was the… November meet-up, right? I’m sorry, Christmas was very stressful this year.” I sunk down in my seat, because that comment was aimed at me. “This is my daughter, Taylor. Taylor, Thomas.”

“Pleased to meet you,” he said, glancing at me.

“New haircut? It looks good on you,” Mom said admiringly. Wait, admiringly? Was she flirting with him? Ew. And wait, went out for drinks afterwards? Was Mom seeing men behind my back? Objectively, she was allowed to do that, but still. Double ew.

“Thank you.” He ran his hand through his hair, a wry expression on his face. “My barber cut it shorter than I wanted, but people keep on saying it looks good. Maybe it’d just be easier to keep it like this. You look well.”

“Thank you. Today,” Mom exhaled, “today just feels like a weight off my back. I was so scared last night that he’d find a way to get away. Despite everything. But now? It… it feels like closure.”

“I hope so,” said Thomas. “I lost a good friend to the Empire. I had to honour his memory by showing up today. If this is the end of them, I hope it’ll help him rest easy.”

Mom nodded. “That’s all we can hope.”

He and Mom talked more. My cell buzzed again, but I resisted the urge to look at it and just concentrated on eating. I only tuned back in when Thomas said, “... and I’m sure Director Piggot is delighted.” There was a hint of a sardonic twist to his voice, like he wanted to call her something else, and an edge of familiarity.

“Do you know her? Are you with the PRT?” I asked. “Or FBI or military or something like that?”

The two adults turned to look at me. “What makes you think that?” he asked.

“You just sounded like you knew her,” I said, realising that maybe I shouldn’t act too familiar. “And one of my friend’s dads is PRT, and he wears a watch just like that.”

“You have a good eye,” Thomas said. “Former PRT, but I left nearly a decade ago. Funny thing, I worked with the local PRT director back when she was a grunt. I’m surprised she rose this high. She really hated parahumans back then. Called them freaks and monsters.”

I tried to keep my expression neutral. Tried to hide the hurt - and it was hurt. I didn’t like Director Piggot, but I respected her. Getting chewed out by her had hurt more than the loss of money from being kicked back down to probationary status. “Maybe she changed,” I said. “To get promoted, I mean.”

“I didn’t know her very well, so maybe.” He paused. “But she never seemed like the kind of woman who changes her mind once she decides something,” he added. “And I still have some friends there. I hear some rumours from the agency. Especially what was involved with the Purity takedown that led to this.”

Urk. “Oh?” Mom didn’t look happy, and I guessed she was trying to come up with a way to interrupt that didn’t sound like she had something to hide.

“I think the Protectorate took a big risk,” Thomas said. “I can’t say I approve. I heard that Wards were involved in the capture, and that’s not what the Wards programme is for.”

“Thank you!” Mom said, sounding a little bit too triumphant. “But going off what you said earlier-”

“If something had gone wrong,” he continued, “and a Ward had been seriously hurt, died, or if - God forbid - one of them had killed Purity, then I suspect the local PRT would have been put into special measures for that kind of gross negligence. New director, special monitoring, the works.”

Ice ran down my spine. “But that didn’t happen,” I blurted out, and bit my lip. “I-I mean, isn’t it a bit silly to talk about hypotheticals like that? I’m just happy that Kaiser’s stuffed down a deep dark hole. Where the only people he’ll ever hurt again are other supercriminals.”

Thomas looked at me for a moment too long, then shook his head. “It’s true. What’s done is done. And now,” he smiled, “the largest gang in the city’s been fractured. It’s a shell of what it once was. It’s vulnerable - and Hookwolf is a fool and a thug. Kaiser was a thug too, but he wasn’t quite so stupid.”

“I’m worried about what he’ll do with the Empire’s power,” Mom said. “The man’s a monster.

“He won’t come out on top.” Thomas said, sounding certain. “It’ll be someone smarter than him. Someone who knows how to keep away from the attention of the PRT. Someone who won’t send thugs to rampage through the streets.” He gave a wry smile. “Someone who’s smart enough to stand back while Lung swaggers and postures to try to rebuild lost prestige, and brings down the heroes on him.”

I pulled a face. “That’s depressing.”

“Is it?”

“Yes!”

“Better someone like that than another Kaiser. Or another Allfather.” Mom scowled. “Or another Marquis.”

“Mmm.” Thomas smiled. “Well, I’d say the whole city should thank the Protectorate for getting rid of the Empire-88 like this. Even some of the supercriminals are probably happy that the big dog got put down. It’s a brave new start for the city, and you know what they say; carpe diem.”

“Yes, beware the day-fish,” I said. His blank expression told me the joke hadn’t landed. “I know it means ‘seize the day’. But. Um. Well, it’s… carpe… sounds like carp and…”

All I got from that was a forced laugh that somehow made me feel even worse. “Very funny.”

“I’ll… go see what there is for dessert,” I said quickly. If I wasn’t mistaken, Mom sighed in relief. “And get a drink.”

On the way back from the dining table with a fruit salad, my civilian phone rang. I checked the caller ID: Megumi.

“Hi, Sparkles,” she said. “You busy? Why didn’t you respond to my text?”

“Eeeh.” I sidled back to where Mom was sitting. “Mom, am I busy?”

“Who’s asking?”

“Megumi,” I waggled the phone pointedly so she could see it wasn’t Wards stuff.

“You might be free. When and what?”

“Apparently I am conditionally free, depending on what is happening,” I said dryly. “What’s going on?”

“You sound bored. Come on, let’s go have a ‘study date’ and by that I mean let’s go to the arcade. But, you know, tell your mom you’re studying.”

“How long?” I asked.

“Eh, just for some of the afternoon. An hour or two, maybe. I’m going to CrossPatch. It’s around the back of that big department store, Stirling.”

“Megumi’s going to Stirling and wants to hang out for an hour or two,” I not-entirely-accurately relayed. “I can get there if I take the first bus, and you don’t need to come back with me. I’m seeing Emma later, so it’s not like I’ll be out all afternoon or anything.”

Mom considered things. “Shopping and hanging out?”

“That kind of thing, yeah.”

“Well…” she glanced at Thomas, and probably made a decision vis a vis getting me away from the ex-PRT man. Or possibly about flirting, but the less said about that, the better. “Okay. But if I call you, I expect you to pick up instantly.”

I gave her my best salute. “Yes ma’am!”

“Stop that. And I mean it.”

“Right, right. I promise.”

“It was nice to meet you, Taylor,” Thomas said, offering his hand. “Good luck. And stay out of trouble, do you hear me?”

I nodded. This was a good sign. She was extending a pinch of trust. So I’d just have to be on my best behaviour and prove I deserved it.

Speaking of trust, it was a fragile thing, so easily betrayed and broken.

I met up with Megumi out the front of Stirling. She was drowning in a big soft grey hoodie and baggy pants festooned with pockets, and she’d cut off her blue bangs just in case Purity had a way to tell the Empire what Flare looked like. Of course, that just meant she’d replaced them by bleaching a white streak that she kept tucked behind her right ear. When I’d seen it for the first time, I’d asked her if she was Polgara the sorceress and she’d told me to quit it with the nerd stuff.

“Cool. I wasn’t sure you’d show when I called. I thought you’d be up for celebrating that Max Anders,” she said the name with vindictive relish, “isn’t seeing sunlight again.”

“Yeah, but Mom,” I said with a shrug.

She clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Sucks to be you,” she said, as supportive as ever. “So come on, up for giving Death Punch IV Second Strike a try?”

“Wait, I thought it was called Death Punch IV Alpha?” I tried. I was getting a not-really-wanted education in arcade games from her. Some were fun, like the driving and some of the lightgun games, but I didn’t get fighting games.

“No, no, see, Second Strike is the new version of Death Punch IV.”

“Shouldn’t that be Death Punch V, then?”

“Nah,” she said without explaining as we stepped into the noisy arcade. There was a Pete Shack’s adjoining it, but otherwise it was full of the sound of arcade cabinets and the blaring noise of the laser tag room at the back wall. It was still a much better class of arcade than the place where I’d met Dox. For one, it was ventilated. “Oh, by the way, we’re meeting up with some friends, just so you know.”

“Oh, right.” I’d met a few of her friends, but they were very much her friends. I’d just grin and bear it and ditch her after an hour or two if it… was…

“You caught her!” Vicky said, beaming. She had a hand quite firmly around Amy’s wrist. Her orbs were tucked away in her fanny pack, which was weirdly effective as a disguise when she wanted to pass as not-Orbital. People always looked for the crown-halo. “Good job! Operation Relationship Superglue has passed the first stage!”

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“It’s very simple,” Vicky said. “Amy, Taylor, this is an intervention. For the sake of you being happy and also for the sake of me no longer having to be the DMZ between you two. Kinda sick of it.”

Betrayal!

“OK, just putting it out there Taylor, but if you’re thinking something like ‘you traitor’ or ‘betrayal’ or ‘this is all a conspiracy’; one, you shouldn’t be, and two, you’re being super broody and dramatic again.”

“Well, you are a traitor. So there.”

Megumi just rolled her eyes at me aggressively, and nudged me in the back. “Come on, go do your making up thing.”

“You’re also a traitor.” Megumi and Vicky had hit it off when Vicky had been treating her for what Purity had done. Apparently they’d bonded over fighting games. Prior to this premeditated ambush, I’d thought it was a good thing that my friends were getting on well. “And Vicky, I think it’s unfair to use your mind-reading powers on me.”

“Firstly, I don’t have mind-reading powers. Secondly, telepathy is impossible. Thirdly, you’re just that predictable ‘cause you always reference things from Dragonkeep Spires.”

What a hypocrite! “The fact you get those references means you read them too!”

“Yes, but unlike you, I’m still in the nerd-closet. Unlike you raging nerdbians.”

“Hey, I’m not one,” Megumi said.

“Not you, you don’t count. Unlike these two.”

“I’m not a nerdbian!” I protested. “I’m… nerd-curious at most!”

“Pfft, no.”

Amy was turning pink with anger. “I know you’re always meddling. But this time you’ve gone too far, Vicky!”

Vicky looked down her nose at her sister. “Nope! I have had… like, four months of you two being sulky at each other and refusing to talk and I have had enough. I am sick of this! And so is Megumi!”

“It’s mega boring,” Megumi agreed. “Like, so boring.”

“Butt out of my life, Vicky!” Amy growled.

“Nope. You’re my sister and that means I care about you and that means I should have done things earlier, but I thought you’d get over this falling out sooner! You don’t have enough friends that you can just throw one away and...” Vicky swallowed, and seemed to realise she was going too far. “I just want you to be happy and you’re not happy with things as they are.”

I bit my lip. I did feel bad about it. It was true; Amy really didn’t have many friends. And I might have had other people at school, but I’d seen her alone in the school library over lunch break. And when she’d seen me, she’d headed out without talking. I just… didn’t want to talk to her. Especially given how things had gone when I’d made an effort to reach out.

Maybe I didn’t feel quite safe around her. She’d been so angry. Maybe it was just safer to… to sit back and let her take the first step. Which of course had probably been her logic too.

Much as she could be annoying sometimes, I thought wryly, the world needed its Victorias.

Amy’s shoulders slumped. “Fine. I’ll talk. I can’t promise anything.”

Vicky reached out, and took Amy’s hands. A gesture of trust; one I wasn’t sure I could offer anymore. “That’s all I ask for.”

Megumi caught my eye. “Do you want me to hold your hand and offer you reassurance?”

“I think I’ll be fine.”

“‘Cause I mean, I could, but it’d probably be really awkward.”

“Why are you such an ass? You’re enjoying this!”

“Vicky’s paying for five matches, and they’ve got the brand new Death Punch IV Second Strike cabinet. I haven’t even seen it before and it’s adding six new characters and they say it’s fixed the balance from Alpha and Kagami’s had a bunch of her specials made unsafe. Of course I’m gonna enjoy this.”

“Wow. Is that all it costs to buy you?” I groused, having no idea what she was talking about.

“Free matches are the wages of virtue,” Vicky opined. “And Tay,” she grabbed my hands, “just do your best. I believe in you. Under all the brooding and sulking and balancing on high places thinking melodramatic things to yourself-”

“Har-de-har.”

“-there’s a nice girl underneath. Deep down. Really deep down.”

I really wished she wasn’t holding my hands. They were sweaty in the warmth of the arcade. “Are you done?”

“Yeah, sure.” She looked between me and Amy. “Now, baseline rules. No screaming, no hitting, and you can’t reply to sarcastic comments with another sarcastic comment. Let’s try to keep this a little productive. You two still like each other.”

I considered those terms, and got up to leave. Megumi pushed me back down with one hand on my shoulder, and although I tried to shrug her off she was too strong.

“Nope,” she said, clearly taking far too much malicious joy in keeping me and Amy confined. “You’ve both been mega dumb about this, so if either of you try to get out of it, we’ll stop you. And I’m stronger than you are and she’s got her orbs, so we’ll win.”

“Let’s put it this way; you can’t get out of this,” Vicky said.

“Is this the price we pay for not inviting you along?” I asked acidly, and then realised my mistake.

“Yes,” she immediately replied. “Like, duh. Like, I could have built a stun ray that could have-” Megumi nudged her in the ribs. “-not been relevant right now. It’s about you two. And communication. So even if it makes you both break out in hives, you two are going to sit down and talk to each other about your feelings.”

“I’m not talking to her while you two are hovering over us eavesdropping,” said Amy, scowling.

“Fine!” Vicky grinned. “We’ll give you two some privacy for your heart-to-heart. But we’ll be near the door, so if you try to make a break for it, we’ll cut you off. And you don’t want to make a scene, do you?”

From the look on Amy’s face, she very much did want to make a scene, possibly by punching her sister in her stupid smug face, but she restrained herself to nothing worse than a glower as the two traitors sloped off to loiter around the fighting games between us and the entrance.

Silence fell over the greasy booth table and its bright, Crayola-hued menu. I stared at Amy. Amy stared at me. A mutual understanding formed. We might be fighting at the moment, but some pacts cross all allegiances, and this one was built on the time-honoured foundation of recalcitrant spite at our interfering busybody friends. They wanted us to make up? Then we could just sit here and exchange a few bits of awkward small talk for the next however-many-hours it was until the arcade closed, then go our separate ways. They could trap a pair of horses in a gaming arcade, as the saying went, but they couldn’t make them get along.

“We might as well get food if we’re going to be stuck here having this out,” Amy grumbled, breaking our unspoken agreement before the ink was even dry. She snatched the menu from my half of the table, scanning it. “I’ll go get it. What do you want?”

“I don’t know, give me the menu and I’ll look.” I tried to pull it away from her so we could both see it, and she shook my grip off and pulled it further out of reach. “You- oh come on! You’re being childish now!”

“Childish?”

“Yes! Like how you’ve been... been sulking after what happened!” I was getting louder, and forced myself to lower my voice. “I’ve got more right to be mad than you, but you’ve been doing nothing but scowling at me and refusing to say sorry since New Year’s!”

“You want me to say sorry? What about your apology?”

“My-”

Both our phones buzzed, interrupting the head of steam building up.

I glanced over at the door, where our two self-appointed babysitters were claiming the brightly lit Death Punch IV game. Megumi was deeply absorbed in furious digitized onscreen violence against one of the boys who’d been hogging it, but Vicky was looking our way. When she saw me looking, she wagged her finger reprovingly and made an obnoxious kissy face. I felt my cheeks heat in annoyance and second-hand embarrassment, and stuffed down the urge to yell something at her. Calling attention down on us would only make it worse.

“Urgh, fuck, fine,” Amy muttered, and pushed herself up from the table. “Stay here.”

She stomped off to the counter, taking the menu with her and flipping Vicky off as she went. I fiddled with my phone just to have something to do, and shot a text back at Vicky without making eye contact.

Before I could respond to that, Amy came back and slammed down two milkshake glasses with unnecessary force. Some of it spilled onto the table as she threw herself back into her seat and pushed one of the glasses over to me.

“There,” she snapped. “Vanilla. You’re welcome.” Her own chocolate shake got glared at as she scooped the cream off the top and into her mouth with her straw, then stabbed it back in and took a long, sullen pull.

I stayed quiet, stirring the cream on my own drink into the rest of the shake and feeling - just a little - touched. She was mad at me, but she’d still remembered my flavour. And she was taking her aggression out on the milkshake. She was... trying, at least. Even if she was being stupid and stubborn about not apologising.

“Yeah,” she said, after draining a good half-inch of the shake like she was trying to murder it. “Your apology. For, you know, abandoning me. At eight in the evening. In the middle of the Docks. Without my power or a ride home. After my phone got melted. You never even checked if I’d got home safely.” Was that hurt in her voice, or just sullen bitterness? “And you cut me out of the plan! I was meant to be taking that bitch down, and you just left me there!”

“I was-!” I stopped, closed my eyes and forced myself to take a breath before continuing in a level tone. “I was in the cells all night. I couldn’t check on you. I couldn’t even contact Mom - the PRT did it for me. And then she was so pissed at finding out from them that she grounded me for four months. Hell, technically I’m still grounded. I’m only allowed to be here now because Mom’s in a good mood today.”

I fumbled at the straw without looking away from her, and took a long drag of my own. Cold vanilla calmed me down like a sweet session of sunbathing somewhere bright and sunny. I breathed in again, keeping my voice even.

“And of course I kept going after Purity. You were meant to take her down, and you... you blew it.” Her fist clenched around the base of her glass and I saw the flash of anger in her eyes, but I was still pissed about this, dammit, and I was going to say it whether she liked it or not. “We had a plan and you just, you charged off at top speed without thinking! And armoured up more instead of using something that would make you better at grabbing her! I wasn’t going to risk losing her by giving you another shot after you’d already failed to get her once!”

She was shaking. Trembling with anger, jaw clenched, fists balled. I risked a glance at Vicky in case she needed to intervene, and found her and Megumi locked in Death Punch IV combat. With how their heads kept blocking the screen, I couldn’t tell which of them was winning, or even how long it would take them to check back on us.

But Amy surprised me. She didn’t explode, and she didn’t turn inward and sulk, either. She stuffed one fist into a pocket and pulled out a napkin from the counter. Slowly, methodically, she tore off piece after piece, shredding it to bits as she took steady breaths in and out.

“Okay,” she said after a minute or so of uncomfortable, fidgeting silence and a napkin reduced to scraps. “Okay. Fine. But you didn’t say that. You didn’t say anything about... about tactics, or the plan, or what I had expressed from Radiant. You just tossed me off to the side and ran off after her. The mass-murderer. Who’d tried to kill me twice already. I chose armour to block her! Because Radiant was fast enough to get between her and anything she tried to shoot! Like, I don’t know, Megumi?” She jerked a thumb over at the cabinet. Vicky somehow sensed her pointing and broke off their match for a moment to glance over at us and give an enthusiastic thumbs up.

“You might be beam-proof,” Amy spat. “But she isn’t, and nobody else is either. And that bitch had proven she was willing to throw really big blasts around. Your flight speed is crap. What would you have done if she’d thrown a serious blast at Megumi? And don’t give me any crap about how her Brute rating turned out to be higher than they thought or whatever; you didn’t know that at the time. You just took off with her, after a violent killer, without me. I was meant to be there to tank her blasts, Taylor. You risked yourself and Megumi. And everyone else you chased her past. Which you could’ve not done by just talking to me for five seconds and then charging me back up!”

An uncomfortable pit formed in my stomach as I remembered Thomas’s words from earlier. We’d had a plan that wouldn’t put anyone at risk. But Purity hadn’t stuck to it. And my plan had always been that I’d be the one to take down Purity. Of course I hadn’t wanted Amy to do it because… because that wasn’t the plan. But things in real life hadn’t turned out like they had in my head.

I’d still been right to not give Amy a recharge, though. We couldn’t have risked it after the first failure! She had to understand that!

“And what about how you reacted when I didn’t? You tried to force me, Amy,” I said, low and hoarse. “You... I have always supported you. Ever since I found out. I helped Vicky talk you down, I helped you hide it from Carol and the PRT, I willingly let you drain me I don’t know how many times. And on the most important day of my life, you... you took all of that trust, and all of that history, and our whole friendship, and you tried to force me. After I’d said no. I had to stop you. My friend.”

It was a struggle to get the last few words out. My voice was thick, and I could feel tears stinging at the corners of my eyes as my throat closed up.

“I made a mistake!” she hissed. “I made a mistake, fine, but we talked about this before! You said you’d let me drain you in emergencies! Endbringers and stuff! You said I should do it even if you were unconscious if things were that bad! She’d just nuked me in the middle of a crowded field without even looking at what was behind me, she was getting away into a bunch of squishy people, I assumed, I was wrong, sue me!”

She took a vicious pull on her straw, cheeks hollowing, and jabbed a finger at me. “But don’t wave our trust and friendship around when you swore, over and over, for years, that you’d never turn on me just for what my power does. You promised you wouldn’t treat me like a villain, you talked me down from... from hating myself for being a fucking bloodsucker. And the first time I make one mistake, in an emergency where we were fighting a mass-murdering psycho, you turn around and demonise me for it. Yeah, I fucked up. But what happened to your promise?”

I flinched. Against my will, memories seeped up, coating my tongue with the cloying sweetness of pacts made in secret and sworn promises binding the three of us together; Amy, me and Vicky against a world that wouldn’t understand. I took a gulp of my shake to wash out the sour aftertaste of those moments.

“... I left it out of my debriefing,” I murmured after a moment. An olive branch, tentatively extended. “Didn’t mention anything after you got downed. Just that I’d hauled you out of the pond and then pursued Purity.”

She chewed on that for a moment. Something in the set of her shoulders softened, like a heavy weight being cut loose, and she swallowed. “I… I thought you… that you might have blurted something out or… they would know and they wouldn’t say anything but then the first time a body showed up drained of blood or something they’d come and arrest me and everything would come out and…”

“I… should have let you know I hadn’t said anything,” I said, feeling a bit ashamed. Amy had a talent for stewing on things, and she probably hadn’t even told Vicky any of these fears.

“Me and Vicky have been, um, training more,” she offered back. “With Radiant. I’ve been trying to use up my time every day on, uh, doing less smash-and-crash and more... what’s the word... finesse. And she’s had some ideas for different powers I can express. Stuff beyond my usual set.” She shrugged a half-hearted shoulder. “S’been working so far. I think my time’s been getting longer, too. We’ve been trying to think of stuff that’d be good for different villains in the city before they show up and, like, different scenarios and stuff. What’s good for a car chase versus a hostage situation, things like that.”

“That’s...” I didn’t want to sound too condescending, “... smart. Let me guess, you’re paying for her help by letting her work out the bugs in her tech on you?”

“Hah, yeah.” She snorted. “I’ve been getting the third degree on all the things she could’ve built to help, and how. She got over it, but she really was kind of pissed you didn’t include her as well as being pissed that we all got in danger.”

“You poor thing,” I said, the corner of my mouth twisted up. “Trapped in the jaws of the tinkerbabble torture. However will you survive?”

The corner of her mouth curled up wryly, but the smile faded almost before it had formed. Silence fell over the table again as the awkwardness returned. We might have aired out our argument, but it hadn’t set things back to normal.

“Where do we go from here?” I asked. “I mean…”

Amy’s expression matched my feelings. “I don’t know,” she said honestly.

“I don’t hate you,” I volunteered. “I just couldn’t work out a way to talk to you without… um. Us screaming at each other.”

“That’s… probably fair,” Amy said. She brushed her pile of shredded napkins away from her, shifting little bits of paper until they made a pattern. “You’re bad at communicating.” I opened my mouth, but before I could say anything she added, “I’m not saying I’m good. We’re both bad.”

She was substantially worse than I was. I wasn’t the one who turned missed texts into a reason to sulk for days. But I didn’t say that because no matter how bad she claimed I was, I wasn’t that bad. “Yeah.”

“I guess…” she ripped off another piece of paper to add to her pattern. “Uh. What do you want from this? This whole thing Vicky’s forced on us?”

I bit my lip, considering what to say - and what to say that wouldn’t anger her. “I… just want things to go back to how they used to be. I don’t know if we can do that after this fight, but it’s what I want.”

“I… yeah. I think I’m the same.” The muscles around her eyes tensed. “I didn’t like much who you turned into. And I want to think it was just…” she waved a hand, “the whole Purity thing, but… there’s a side of you that didn’t feel like who I thought I knew. You had to be in charge.”

Of course I had to be in charge, I- I closed my eyes, conceding the point. “I didn’t mean to be… like that,” I tried.

“Well, you were. And it made me feel like you only wanted Radiant. Not me.”

“Amy. I…” I wasn’t sure what to say. “I do want you.”

“It didn’t feel like it. But I’ll believe you. For now.”

I swallowed. “So how do we move on?”

“Dunno.”

Yes. That was the question. And right now we were just revolving around the same point. “I think… I think we have to try to extend each other some charity. And… and as long as we agree we’re not going to shout at each other or… or be mean or try to hurt each other’s feelings or bring up things we don’t agree on, we can at least talk. On the phone, or… or at school.”

“Why not out of school?”

“I mean, sure, we can do that too, but I’m still super grounded and I only got to come here because Mom was in a really good mood today.”

Amy snorted. “Yeah, I’m in the same boat. Carol is still pissed, with a capital P. The fact that the PRT said it was their op is the only reason she didn’t lock me down in the basement.”

I gave Amy a flat look.

“Look, if the New Wave insurance had needed to cover the damage to the park, she probably would have locked me down in the basement.”

“Not the attic?”

“Nah,” Amy said. She was obviously trying to keep her expression completely serious, but the left corner of her mouth was curling up in amusement. “They keep their old heroing trophies up there, plus there’s the window that’d make it too easy for me to get out.”

Funnily enough, I felt better about that. Black-as-pitch humour was one of those things we bonded over. The kind of jokes you couldn’t say in front of Missy. I slid my phone out, checking the time. I still had a while before I’d need to leave to get over to the meet-up with Emma. “Oh hey, no message yet from Mom demanding I immediately come home,” I said cheerfully. Then I noticed I had no bars. “Shit.”

“What?”

I waggled my phone around, searching for a signal. “Mom’ll kill me if she can’t reach me. Or, like, if not kill me, snap back to how she was in January. We need to find somewhere with a signal and fast or…” I trailed off. I’d been texting with Vicky when sitting right here only a few minutes ago. I checked my work cell. Nothing. “Amy. Do you have a signal?”

“No,” she said. “Wait. Oh my God. You don’t think it’s Team Two Fuckboys, One Bitch again?”

“Either it’s them, or there’s some other kind of network problem and we’re freaking out over nothing. What network are you on?”

“T-Mobile.”

“Yeah.” I sighed. “Work cell is Verizon and personal is A&T. It’s all the networks. Fuck. Now, if we’re lucky, they’re just jamming a wide area, but let’s be honest here.” My gesture took in the arcade around us. “Bet you twenty bucks they’re coming here.”

“No deal,” Amy said, hands balling into fists. “Fuck. This is what I get for training.”

“Huh?” There was something happening across the street. Picking up my milkshake, I drifted over towards the doors.

“Well, I mean… oh, no, fine, go ahead, ignore me…”

“No, look. There’s stormtroopers getting out of trucks out there. Just in front of Stirling.”

“You’re shitting me.”

I was not, in fact, shitting her. White-armoured figures bundled out of generic white trucks, led by a tall, well-built figure in black armour. I could taste fast food, but that wasn’t helpful given where we were. “Oh look. Darth Uber. And I guess the one in the grey-green Tinkertech-y armour is Leet. Fuuuuck.” I let my head fall into my free hand. “I am going to get in so much shit for this.”

“Why are you worried about that?” Amy demanded.

“Because I’m on probation, remember? And no one is going to believe I just happened to meet up with you, Vicky and Megumi here if we do the good citizen thing. I guess I’ll have to go hold Megumi back and you two can beat the shit out of them.”

Amy yanked my sleeve. “You know how I said I’d been training, right?” she hissed.

My stomach sank. “So…”

“Yeah, I won’t be charged up again until… like, seven this evening.” There were people around them, taking pictures. They probably thought it was just a PR stunt. Amy’s face soured as she saw that. “Look at them. Idiots.”

“Give them a break. At the moment, it just looks like cosplayers.”

“Urgh.” Amy slurped angrily at her drink, flexing the fingers on her other hand. “Carol is going to get all up in my face about ‘wasting’ my power, too. But she’d have bitched at me if I had been able to go after them. Fuck this. Are you going to call this in?”

I frowned, distracted by what I was watching. There were two other figures there, ones who I didn’t recognise. I took my glasses off, polishing them on my top, while answering distractedly. “Can’t. Cellphones are jammed, remember?”

One, a boy maybe about my age, lanky and - as far as I could see under the mask that covered the lower half of his face - kind of pretty, with black curly hair. Speaking as someone with hair just like that, he put way more time into it than me. He was wearing a black opera cape which seemed to constantly flutter in an unseen breeze over a slate-grey uniform, and in his hand he had a staff-like rod. Probably Leet’s tinkertech. The other, a girl in a high-necked, skin-tight black outfit with a helmet that looked sort of like the stormtrooper ones mixed with a gas mask.

That hadn’t been in the weekly reports. I pulled out my work cell, glad that it was an expensive model with its own built-in camera, to take pictures of them.

“Hey, since they’re after Stirling, you owe me twenty bucks.”

“Fuck off. You didn’t take the bet.” I zoomed in. The boy looked like he was enjoying himself, but the girl didn’t. She looked like she was aware how stupid she looked. Dox could probably have pulled off that outfit, but this girl didn’t have the self-confidence. Or the figure, really. She had her arms crossed in front of her. Thank God the Youth Guard had gotten skintight costumes banned for Wards. I’d have felt more sorry for her if she wasn’t a supervillain, but I could see she really didn’t want to be here dressed like this.

“I wonder if this is a dry run,” I said, mostly to myself. “Some kind of easy warm-up raid on a department store for cash and technology. They’ve got flunkies and transport, so they’re clearly planning to make a get-away with more than one person can carry. Can you see Dox?”

“Isn’t she the girl in black?”

“No, too short, and not built right,” I said without thinking. “And Dox swaggers. She doesn’t huddle up. If Dox isn’t backing them up, they won’t have Thinker advantage.” I grabbed Amy’s hand, and she started slightly at the contact as I pulled her to a corner between two crane machines. “Come on.”

“What?” She stared up at me, up close, eyes oddly wide. What didn’t she get? I couldn’t fight them out of costume and I’d get in way too much shit from my bosses and Mom if I did anything. Amy was out of juice. I really wanted to see Half-A suffer for how Dox tried to use me.

QED, it was time for a voluntary blood donation. I explained quietly, and Amy’s glare turned to a wide-eyed stare for a long, long moment. Then an answering smile - slight, grateful, almost shy - spread to match mine.

“... me and Vicky did come up with a few things for capture, between us,” she mumbled. She squirmed her hand around so it was raised, almost touching mine, and hesitated. “Are... you sure? Last time, you were… so pissed.”

“That was then.” I reached forward the last few inches and clasped her hand. Just skin-to-skin. For now. “I was pissed because you… because I was scared you were just going to take my blood. But I’m offering it now.” I swallowed, because for all my bravado I knew what was about to happen. “You owe me a meal after this. One with plenty of red meat.”

“Yeah, s-”

“Also, don’t drop me if I, you know, faint.”

She nodded.

“Go ahead. Do it.” I clenched my jaw, and closed my eyes. The warm, medical-painkiller-like feeling sunk into my hand, and without meaning to, my arm spasmed. My head spun; my knees trembled. Peeking through my lashes, I could see my right arm was ghost-pale.

Amy caught me as I slumped back against the wall. She felt very warm. Probably because of all my warm blood in her. That was why I felt cold. And light-headed. Maybe it was my blood that stopped me just drifting off like a child’s balloon. Not a red one, though. I didn’t want to start a nuclear war.

I started laughing to myself, and didn’t stop until Amy pressed her finger against my lips. “Just stay still and drink up some power.”

“I’m fine!” I protested, trying not to giggle. “Go get Vicky and-”

“You’re not fine and it’s not like Half-A can outrun me. Be a good girl and do your regen thing. I can’t leave you with Megumi until you’re not going to blurt out… that thing. You always get giggly and talkative whenever you get hurt.”

“Megumi said that too,” I said wisely, running my hands down the wall until I felt the cables powering the crane machine. “She punched me a lot. I only punched her a bit. She hurt my hands. And the rest of me. Listen to me, Amy. Sparring with Brutes hurts.”

“Yes, yes, I’ll remember it.”

Ah, that was it, the tingly soda of the power. I sighed as it coursed through me, burning off some of the light-headedness and most of the giggliness. I could feel my head pound. “Urgh, I think I have a hangover,” I mumbled. She was still holding my hand, and I could feel just a hint of sticky, coppery wetness there. “Do you have any tissues for… you know? Clean up? Wait, no, I think I have some in my bag. And hand sanitiser too…”

“Is that really what you’re thinking of? Now?”

“Mom would be mad if I got blood on my nice clothes!” I staggered slightly, but managed to make my way over to one of the padded seats. “OK. Go tell Vicky what’s going on. And stop Megumi running off with you. I’m just… going to sit here a bit next to this nice cable until the world stops spinning.”

“Are you sure you’re going to be fine?”

I hugged myself. In my light-headed state, some of Amy’s words from the argument were hitting hard. And not just hers. Mom’s swirled around in the mix. I had some deep thinking to do. Oh. When we were out of the jamming, I was going to have to send a message to Emma. I really owed her an apology. Not just for missing our meet-up because of this. For everything. “What?”

“I said, are you sure you’re going to be fine?”

“It’s just blood loss.” I gave Amy a weak smile to reassure her. “Go get them, hero.”

Spring sunlight turned the dark headstone a rich brown-black, and sparkled off the flecks of white mica speckled through it. A light April shower had left the grass between the graves wet, and water beaded on the polished surface and the deep-carved letters of the inscription.

“... and I didn’t even fight them, but Piggot pulled me in for a full incident report and told me she was watching me!” I huffed. “It was completely unfair. Amy took ‘Flamewar’ in and it looks like... well, it’s going to be complicated, so we’ll see. And ‘Hax’ got away from Vicky by being ‘super annoying’. But he didn’t manage much more than a few petty thefts, so he probably won’t be much help to those idiots. Plus I bet he’ll annoy Dox, and that’s always a good thing.”

I sighed and tilted my head back, staring up at the robin-egg-blue sky and the fat, puffy clouds floating lazily through it. We’d just missed the shower, and the graveyard still smelt of rain.

“So anyway, yes. That’s why I couldn’t make yesterday. And I’m not making it up, I swear. You know, I half-suspect this was some Dox plan to try to get me in trouble by rushing in to stop them. I know it sounds paranoid, but I’m not sure you can be too paranoid about what she’s up to.” I scowled. “I still don’t know what she got by dropping Max Anders’ name. Besides gloating.”

“I know girls like that at school,” Emma said. “I mean, I’ve dropped secrets on people that they don’t get, just to mess with them. It’s pretty funny.”

“Hmmph,” I grumped. I wasn’t convinced. Emma hadn’t met Dox and seen how smug and confident she was about having the upper hand. Her annoyingness couldn’t be properly conveyed in mere words.

“Still, at least you and Amy are talking again. And that’s good. It’s been rough with you two not being on speaking terms. I miss going out with you. So, how’d she get Flamewar?” Emma prompted. “You said something about a new power?”

“Yeah, some kind of crystal... spiderweb... stuff. Flamewar spat napalm at it, but it didn’t break and I don’t think she’s fireproof enough to get it on herself. It took Amy about ten seconds after finding her. She was really smug about it.”

“Pity she didn’t get Uber with that,” Emma muttered darkly. She still hadn’t forgiven him for Gull Mall. “What about your mom? Has she lifted the grounding? Are you allowed out again?”

“According to her, I showed maturity and responsibility in staying put and not throwing myself into a dangerous situation in a pointless attempt to chase a petty grudge,” I quoted. Well, paraphrased. “I’m not fully ungrounded, but she’s agreed to let me have friends round as long as I clear it with her ahead of time, and I can go out on one trip a week as long as she knows where I’m going and how long I’ll be there and I keep my phone on at all times. Oh, and I have book money again.”

“Oh, well, praise be. As long as that’s sorted out, all is right with the world,” she drawled, shifting on the hard slats of the bench. It was close enough to Dad’s gravestone that we could both see him, and I wasn’t ready to leave yet. There was something in the tone of her voice as she said it that made my stomach twist - a hint more bitterness than had been there before our fight. She’d defrosted since, and mostly forgiven me, but... it had left marks. Hopefully I could fix that today.

“I mean, I’m still in trouble,” I admitted. “I have a lot of making up to do for what I did. To everyone.” I glanced across at her from under my lashes. “Including you. I’ve been thinking and we need to talk.”

“You already said sorry,” she said. “Saying it over and over is just annoying, don’t start that again.”

“I know, I know. And I’m not. I meant, like, actions. Being a better friend.” I paused. “You, uh, weren’t entirely wrong. About me cutting you out of things and, uh, always putting work first.” I tried for a smile. “I guess I take after Dad there, huh.”

Emma’s lips twitched upwards like they were being pulled by wires, and fell again just as fast. She stared blankly at the graves and the rain-wet grass between them, elbows on knees, chin in hands, a sort of hopeless fatigue settled across her shoulders.

“I’m, uh...” No, stupid, she’d literally just told me not to apologise any more. “So, I’ve been thinking. About things. Especially… us. And the cape thing.”

“... does it matter, Taylor?” Her mouth was a flat line. “Like, you’re sorry, I get that. I believe you. I’ll even buy that you mean it about me being right. But is it going to change anything? You’re telling me cape stories again, you brought me here to visit Uncle Danny, I bet you’ll carve out more time for me for a few months and text more and whatever. But when your grounding gets lifted and your probation ends and you’re back as a Ward, or... or a Protectorate hero. What then? And don’t tell me it’s not what you’re aiming for. Your mom might still be hoping for you to get a college degree and do whatever, but I know what you want out of life, and it’s not a nine to five. You want to be Armsmaster when you grow up. Not like the motorbike and the cool armour. Like being in charge of a Protectorate office and planning big raids that take down Nazi gangs.”

She looked at me, dull and resigned, and I felt cold inside.

“How long until you start clamming up again and we just... drift apart? You did this once. You’ve done it more than once. And every time I point out you’re pulling away you apologise, and every time you do it again, and... it’s like you care more about that world than this one. Does Armsmaster even have anything outside his job? Is that what you want for you?”

I opened my mouth to argue, but no argument came. This wasn’t how this conversation was meant to go. Emma always managed to blindside me. She wasn’t wrong about what I wanted out of life. Armsmaster hated the paperwork and management that took him away from Tinkering, but I couldn’t wait to be Wards Leader and put my own stamp on things. I could reach his level, too. If I worked hard and followed my plan.

But it would take work. And long nights of overtime and cancelled plans when something came up and work weekends and a thousand other little compromises of free time. You couldn’t half-ass being a hero. You had to commit. I had to commit.

“I don’t... I don’t want to drift apart,” I said, fumbling for her hand on the bench beside me. Her fingers were cold, and I called a touch of aura to run under my skin and warm them up. “You’re my best friend, Emma! I’ve known you my whole life so far. I want to know you all my life.”

“Until when?” she asked softly. Sadly. “If you go throw yourself at criminals and supervillains and Endbringers and whatever. How long until I’m not just visiting your dad here?”

“That’s not fair,” I snapped, jerking my head to glare at her. “That’s not- you can’t throw that at me, Emma, Mom does that, it’s not...” I swallowed down a dry throat. “You can’t say I shouldn’t help people by using what might happen to me as a weapon. By using Dad as a weapon. Take that back.”

There were tear tracks down her cheeks, glistening against her pale skin in the chilly air. “So, what? I’m not allowed to be scared of m-my best friend dying bec-because she threw herself at another m-mass-murdering psycho bitch? I saw what she did at Oshima Motors! And Captain’s Hill Park! You could’ve died-”

“Her blasts can’t hurt me, my aura-”

“I don’t care about your damn aura!” She almost screamed that, and I couldn’t stop myself looking around to check for any listeners. There weren’t any, but she caught the automatic sweep and it only seemed to make her angrier and more teary. “I’m talking about how you... how you chase this stuff, how you go after psychos and nutcases and, and, and you’re not immune to fucking bullets, Taylor! There’ve been two Starlights before you and both of them died and how long do most capes live? How many reach retirement, huh?”

Capes had only been around for thirty years, and most people Triggered young, so there hadn’t been enough time for many to reach retirement age. Is what I didn’t say. Because I wasn’t stupid enough to think that kind of thing would help here.

In fact I didn’t say anything for a few seconds. I was too taken aback. I’d had no idea this was hiding under... or, well. Maybe I had, and I’d just been trying not to see it. Maybe it was something that scared me, too.

Didn’t mean she was wrong, though. That was sort of what I’d wanted to talk about.

“I get what you’re saying,” I said, shifting uncomfortably on the bench to look directly at her. She looked as put-together as ever - white jacket, green shirt and slacks - but now that I was looking for it I could see the signs of stress in artfully hidden bags under her eyes and carefully done makeup she wore like armour.

“Do you?”

“I get what you’re saying,” I repeated. “And I’m not saying it won’t happen, because you know I can’t promise that, so I’d be lying. But something has changed, Emma. She’s gone now. Every other time, she was still out there; whatever petty little case I’d been obsessed with was just a... a substitute for her. All that... all that stuff I had inside, all that rage and hate and pain.” I looked at the dark gravestone lit by sunbeams. “I can let it go. She doesn’t matter anymore. I can move on.”

Emma’s face did something complicated and nose-wrinkly. Part hope, part doubt... maybe part something else. “Where did this come from? Even a few days ago, you still seemed to have that… that spring in you, all coiled and driving you on.”

I made a face, searching for words. I’d thought about this last night, after everything. Mom. Amy. Kaiser being gone. Those dark consequences the man at the meeting had floated. “Because... last December. I was a mess, Emma. I was falling apart. I basically had a slow-motion breakdown and was just functional enough to see things through. I kinda didn’t realise how much I relied on you and Mom.”

Emma’s lips pursed. “Okay…”

“I was in a really bad headspace. I’m not blaming you! I’ve been a bad friend. And Amy stuck with me, but… we talked more on the phone last night. About how she felt like I was using her as a tool for my revenge. Pull lever, get Radiant. And Mom…” No, I wasn’t going to repeat anything about Mom’s past. That wasn’t mine to share. But it weighed on me. How now I understood a lot more about how she’d decided to do the things she’d done with the WAF. “Mom says I’m a lot like her, sometimes. And she says she can monofocus on problems too. And then there was that bit in the market with Megumi and she opened my eyes to what it’s like in Little Tokyo and…”

“Taylor, do you have a point?”

“Yes! It’s… points of view! I can’t look at myself from the outside. People tell you things about yourself and it hurts to have them pointed out, but you know what would be worse? Not having people who’ll tell you those things. Because if people don’t tell you these things, then you…” I swallowed. I didn’t want to say this, because I hated the comparison. “You could be like Purity.”

Emma’s eyes widened. “Don’t tell me you’ve started feeling sorry for her?”

“I hate her. She killed Dad. But… the way she was convinced she was a hero. It was pathetic. And a bit sad. I’ve been thinking about why I chose to… to spare her, and I think that was a big part of it. Not that I’d be as bad as her if I killed her. But if I killed her, I’d be starting the same path she started. She had so many chances to change, Emma. So many... so many moments where she could have gone ‘wait, no, this is wrong’. But she never did. She just kept marching down the road to Hell, and... and some of what came out in the trial was that Kaiser was an abusive asshole, but she didn’t ever reconsider anything.

“I don’t want to do what she did, beating people up based on my own beliefs and calling myself a vigilante hero instead of... basically just a gang member who says all their victims are criminals. Everyone thinks they’re the hero of their own story. So, like I said, points of view.”

Emma leaned back on the arm of the bench, taking me in. Her eyes caught the sunlight, as she frowned. “You sound like you’ve really been thinking.”

“I have. And I think I need to listen more when people tell me I’m wrong. So turning myself in after what I did was the right thing to do. And getting punished for it didn’t feel fair but it kind of was. Otherwise, I mean, if you only like the law when it’s helping you do what you wanted to do anyway, you’re doing it wrong. People like Purity or Kaiser have to be held accountable, so I do too. So I’m accepting the trouble I’m in and I’m...” I huffed, “putting up with how she’s not getting ‘caged because she turned witness.”

“You don’t sound very happy about it.”

“I’m not. I’m pissed.” But this was the other thing I’d been thinking about last night, that I wanted to bounce off her. “That’s the thing about the law; it goes the other way, too. Like how the cops are full of skinheads and men who look the other way. If the law is wrong or unjust, then you can change it. And should change it, instead of just breaking it - or blindly enforcing it.” Like Miss Militia, I didn’t say. I still didn’t like the side of her she’d shown after the Lincoln Market attack.

“Is it just that you want the Protectorate on your side rather than hunting you down?” she asked, a hint of Amy-ish dryness in her voice.

“... yeah, kind of. I mean, look at what happened! I went after Purity by myself, and that got one criminal arrested. But as soon as the PRT got wind of the Empire being in Medhall, they dropped the hammer on them and broke the whole gang up! I could never have done that on my own.”

I ran a hand through my hair, tangling my fingers in my curls. “Being a vigilante all on my own without any rules or anyone to shout at me would be easier. So much easier. But I’d do less good. In both ways. I’d get less done, and... and I don’t trust that I’d stay a hero.”

“Okay.” Emma went to chew on a fingernail, and caught herself. “Okay. See, this is the thing, Taylor. You have a speech. But what happens when Purity gets out of jail? Or… like, whatever happens to her.” I could hear the hurt in her voice as she added, “What if you just decide you want more revenge? That what the law did wasn’t enough? All your other little speeches wound up worthless.”

I got up from the bench, gesturing for her to follow with a jerk of my chin. Emma trailed me as I walked the short distance to Dad’s grave and knelt down next to his tombstone, leaning against the sun-dappled granite like I was curling into his shoulder. It wasn’t like that, of course. It was cold, and hard, and had edges. But it was a nice thought, and it helped me think. What would he have said? Or maybe better: what would he have meant and thought, behind the words we’d never needed much?

I’d told Mom yesterday that I’d taken a step onto a slippery slope, and then stepped back onto solid ground. I’d told Amy I was willing to trust her to take villains down without me, and proved it.

I smiled, stroking Dad’s name. “I won’t. Because whether they toss her in supermax or keep her under watch and throw her at the Endbringers every attack or even rebrand her in some shitty rehabilitation scheme, I know one thing for sure. She’ll always have eyes on her from now on; the PRT know what she is. The courts can choose what to do with her. I don’t care.”

I heard Emma shift behind me; I was almost certain she’d just crossed her arms. “I’m pretty sure you’re lying when you say you won’t be pissed if they just rebrand her.”

That drew a snort from me. “Well yeah, you got me there. I’d probably be less philosophical if they hadn’t told me that she’s looking at a long prison sentence. And only dodged the Birdcage by turning witness. I guess we’ll see how I feel in a decade or so. But the remnants of the Empire know she turned on them. She’ll never be safe around skinheads again.”

She mulled over that for a while, tapping her foot. “She always was the one you were obsessed about,” she allowed, drifting back to my olive branch. “So, what? Your nemesis is gone and now you can retire?”

I tilted my head back to look at her and smiled half-heartedly. “Not... not retire. But, like. A better work-life balance. Because you’re right, diving into the cape life and not looking back is a bad idea, and now... now I’ve seen where it leads. If Mom hadn’t put me straight into the Wards, if I’d met someone who used how much I hated Purity to lure me in... I might have ended up as blind to what I was doing as she was.”

I shuddered, resting my head on Dad’s headstone again.

“I’ve got six months of probation, and I promise you, Emma. I promise you. I’m going to be spending that time trying to be better. To get better.” I smiled wryly. “To not bitch about seeing the psychologist. To open up. Because there was a moment there when I was going to kill her, when she was beaten and bruised and not a threat anymore. And I didn’t. But I don’t want there to be any more moments like that at all.”

Emma moved round to squat across from me, reaching out herself to trace Dad’s name.

“... so you’re keeping your normal life ‘cause it makes you better at your job?” she asked, raising an eyebrow. But there was a note of humour in her voice that hadn’t been there before, and I thought I might have convinced her. Or at least given her something to hope for.

I huffed a breath of laughter and shrugged. “If I dive so far into cape stuff that it becomes my whole life, I’ll lose my way. I need Mom. I need you. I need this.”

I squeezed her hand.

She squeezed back. “I guess I can give you a six month trial period,” she said. “After all. I guess you’d complain if I treated you worse than your PRT. Right?”

I smiled at her, and looked once more at the name carved into the dark, rich stone.

“Bye Dad,” I whispered, and kissed it. “From now on, I’ll bring happy stories.”

I rose, hand in hand with my best friend, and walked away.

Life was waiting for me.