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Chapter Text

THUR MAR 3

I had to admit, as I made my way into the PRT building, that I was surprised I'd apparently beaten Vicky here. She hadn't been waiting outside, I didn't see her inside, and I was pretty sure there hadn't been quite enough time for her to get further inside to hang out with the Wards.

"Hello," I greeted the man behind the desk with a little wave. "I'm supposed to be running a patrol with the Wards today?"

He gave a broad showman's smile, but I could tell he felt a bit nervous underneath it. "I'll have someone notify them via the internal PA system, but it might still take a few minutes. You're a bit early still."

I turned to the nearest clock while he picked up a phone and punched three digits into the keypad. I hadn't thought I was early. Classes at Arcadia have been out for almost half an hour already. It dawned on me that Aegis' 'ASAP' may have been a bit hyperbolic for someone with a Mover rating, and I shyly chuckled and motioned over to the waiting seats before shuffling over to plant myself in one of them. I got a smile and a wave when he was done on the phone, so I suppose my faux pas was forgiven.

The few people milling about the lobby and gift shop left me alone, which I was grateful for. I could handle a few curious stares and surreptitious- obvious to my earth senses- photos. I decided to spend the wait spreading my focus over the area, and was surprised to realize a bulky pair of men coming up the street were actually boys wearing armor. A bit more attention and I was fairly sure the pair were Gallant and Clockblocker. Right, the older Wards used the work release program at Arcadia to do school hour patrols and events, sometimes. It looked like they were just finishing up a patrol, still stopping and talking to people, and taking almost twenty minutes to make it in through the doors, followed by a floating Glory Girl.

"Terra!" She cheered, zipping over and pulling me up out of the seat by my hands. "It's good to see you again!" I was pulled into a brief collarbone tap hug before being released and reclaiming my personal space. "How have you been?"

Huh. Right, as far as anyone else was concerned, the last time Terraform had seen Glory Girl was after Canberra, almost a week ago. "I've been okay. And you?"

"Could be better, I guess." She replied a touch less energetically. The boys had made it over by then, and she perked up. "Oh! Terra, this is Gallant, and Clockblocker. Boys, this is Terraform."

"It's nice to meet you." I offered my hand.

Gallant took it first, with a polite "You, as well."

Clockblocker took my hand by the fingers, turning it over and lightly headbutting his helmet against my knuckles. "M'laaaady..." I gave an amused snort, and he let me go. "I hear you're dropping by for a patrol? You should have come by earlier, the best one just wrapped up!" He turned both thumbs towards himself, making a show of glancing down and turning one of them towards Gallant.

"I'm sure I'll survive, somehow." I muttered. What a dork.

A quiet beeping started up, and Gallant tapped his wrist. "We should head out, just to officially close up the patrol." He turned to Vicky. "You coming down?"

She turned back to me. "Actually, if Terra's running a patrol, I kinda' want to go with, and catch up."

"That's fair. C'mon Clock, we've got reports to fill out." Gallant nodded our way and started for the elevator.

"Ladies." Clockblocker added, with a low bow. A third of the way to the elevator, he spun, put both hands to his visor, and waved them our way with an exaggerated kissing noise. "I'll be here all week!" He cheered, before jogging over to catch up to his teammate.

"...is he always such a goofball?" I half-grumbled to keep the amusement out of my voice.

Vicky shrugged. "Around the girls, sure." I froze, considering the thought that he might have been flirting at me, before shaking my head. Nah, he seemed like a pretty fun goofball if you were into that sort of thing, he probably had a girlfriend already. "You been waiting long?"

"Not really." A pair of figures replaced the boys in the elevator after a quick chat, and it started on its way up to the lobby. "Patrol starting soon?"

"Should be." She chirped. "Aha!" She added with an overacted point towards the elevator when it dinged open, revealing Aegis and Vista.

They both chuckled at her antics, Vista stepping through an eye-itching lensing effect to beat Aegis to them and share a girl-power fist-bump with Vicky.

"GG, pleasant surprise." He stated as he walked over, not sounding in the least bit actually surprised. "I'm going to guess you want to tag along, since you're still up here?" There was an odd emphasis at the end I couldn't figure out, but Vicky'd known the Wards a lot longer than I had.

"Yup." She popped with a cheerful grin.

He shook his head, but I could see the smile hidden by his helmet. "Well, let me update console, and we can head out." He wandered away with a hand to his ear, speaking quietly into his comms.

"'Sup, Lil' V." Vicky leapt at the chance to fill the silence. "How's life?"

Vista took the opportunity to stop glancing nervously my way from behind her mostly opaque visor. "Could be better."

"Problem? Anything I can help with?" She cheerily asked, and I got the feeling she'd be more than happy to punch whatever her young friend's 'problem' happened to be.

Vista chuckled. The rueful, almost jaded sound felt wrong in her young voice. "Not that sort of problem. I'll manage." She felt unsure, but wasn't lying outright.

Still, I felt like I should at least offer what support I could. I hummed inquisitively, drawing their attention back to myself. "Ah! Vista, this is Terra. Terra, Vista." Vicky gave the girl a light shove in my direction.

"So, uhh, I'm sorry if it's weird I asked to patrol with you." My delivery didn't quite have the stoic confidence I'd been trying for. "I thought it'd be good to get a perspective closer to mine, since they were asking..." You're rambling, Taylor. I shook myself and held out my hand. "Anyway, looking forward to working with you."

Her anxiety spiked a bit as I was fumbling about, but she smiled and shook my hand when I offered it. I couldn't tell for sure whether it made it to her eyes or not, since I could only barely make out the rough shape of her face with my eyes, but I thought so. "It's fine, don't worry about it. Looking forward to seeing what you can do."

"Alright," Aegis cut in as he returned. "we good to go?"

We girls shared glances and shrugs. "Should be." Vicky answered for us. "Ooh! You know what? We've got two fliers and two walkers. We could almost run two patrols if we wanted!"

Aegis frowned. "We have to stick to-"

"I said almost, I know we have to stay nearby." She snapped, before continuing in a more pleasant tone. "Still, we could scout ahead and fan out, covering more area." She dug a hand into one of the little pouches on her belt and drew out a small pair of wireless earbud headphones. A quick examination later, and she stuck one in her right ear and held the other out to me. "Console knows New Wave's frequencies. They can flag us down with these if they need to."

This of course reminded me that myself and our team really didn't have anything in the way of proper gear, yet. I'd have to see how much this sort of thing cost, and see how quickly we could scrounge up the loose hard-to-trace funds for them. I'm not sure I wanted to wait until we started getting donations to handle the basics. "How do they work?"

"Radio app on my phone, and a bunch of Bluetooth connections after that. This one," she tapped next to her ear. "has a microphone and sensors for button toggling. That one's just the other ear's speaker." Her face scrunched up in thought. "What is it, like thirty or fifty feet?" She shook her head. "Never mind, I'll try to stick close enough, and if it doesn't work you should be staying near Vista, anyway."

I glanced at the girl, who tapped her visor. "Right, that works. Are we doing streets or rooftops?"

After a bit more examination while she answered, I stuck the bud in my ear. "That's up to you. If we go streets, we'll get mobbed by people... but we'll need to do a lot less walking to fill out the patrol." Her tone darkened as she finished. I got the feeling she didn't like punch-clock heroes.

"Nah, I'm terrible with people. Let's not do that." She sagged a little in relief. "Besides, it'd give us more time to chat." She tensed again.

"Sounds good." She was a fairly good actress, but I could tell something was still bothering her. The anxious tension had refused to abate completely... then again, it was entirely possible she was shy and faking social skills with the aid of a literal mask like I was, just better at it from years of practice.

I chose to believe that, rather than humor the notion that she had some legitimate reason to be scared of me.

"Well, I guess that's the plan, then." Aegis mumbled to himself, seemingly resigned to having his leadership for the patrol usurped by Vicky and the majority. "Let's get started." He added louder, leading the way from the building. He probably felt a little better that the pictures people were taking of our little group had him out in front.

He and Vicky floated up into the air, while Vista gestured and the air in front of her warped. It looked a bit like looking through a tunnel of funhouse mirrors. I could still tell the destination was a rooftop, but not which one. I stepped around it, and it got harder to look through as I went, glancing up at where the compressed space must be. There was another eye-watering space up above, but if I didn't know it was there I wouldn't have been able to spot the slight lensing of the space between them.

"It's safe, you know." She huffed.

"Sorry," I chuckled, closing my eyes and stepping into it from the side. It was incredibly odd to have one foot telling me I was in front of the PRT building, and another announcing my position on a rooftop across the street. The moment passed, and I opened my eyes, turning back as she followed me through. "you probably get that a lot, the first time."

"Ehh, more than I'd like, less than you'd think." She shrugged, sounding tired of it, in more of a resigned than frustrated way.

"Well, you are a hero. People trust you." I said, trying to focus on the less negative side. "...usually." I muttered, thinking of my own reaction. That was mostly curiosity, though. It looked like she wanted to say something, before her jaw clenched and she shook her head, feeling frustrated and more of that resignation. "What's wrong?" Her head snapped back to me, about to insist it was nothing. "No, what is it?"

"I..." She stopped and groaned. "I think it's more that everyone thinks I'm harmless."

I took a moment to ponder the problem before answering. "I mean, from their point of view, aren't you?" She shot a dour look my way, and I held up my hands. "Being a hero, you're not going to hurt them, and being a Ward, you're not supposed to be getting into big fights. It kind of makes sense they'd think that." I could feel her face trying to twitch itself into a sneer, so I jumped to continue. "Not that that makes them right, it's just that harmlessness can be pretty subjective. Besides, it's probably better than looking scary, like I do. I spent a good chunk of Sunday trying to convince people my powers are pretty, rather than deadly."

She felt confused with a sour, puckered look for a second, then shook herself out of it. "It's not that bad."

A mirthless chuckle spilled from my lips. "I'm actually pretty dangerous." I stated quietly. "Most capes aren't really scared of their powers the way I am, sometimes. Everyone I've really shown off to has been intimidated, at least... even when I'm not trying to." My thoughts went back to that first time, with Amy. I'd gone a little overboard, but it was only after seeing her reaction and through a bit of hindsight that it'd sunk in. I gave her a kind smile. "From what I understand, your powers are actually pretty hard to accidentally hurt someone with. I'm a little jealous."

She was quiet, throat muscles twitching as if she wanted to say something, an odd mix of emotions I wasn't sure how to parse. Irritation, determination, shame, jealo- no, envy?

"Hey, slowpokes!" Vicky called as she sped over. "We've already scouted around, are we going or what?"

I carefully lowered the fist cocked at my side, that had been about to launch a fireball into her face. "Just a chat that got away from us." I replied.

"You can walk and talk, you know?" She cheerfully needled.

"Not her virtue, patience." I snarked at Vista, trying to break the ice a bit.

From the snickersnort, it did its job. "Let's go." She stated, raising her hands to warp space again. I didn't think she actually needed her hands, but it's possible it helped with focus, or that she'd been trained to do it because it looked flashier. "Hey!"

Of course, by then I was already front-flipping through an aggressive tailwind- giving her a jaunty wave while I was upside-down and facing her again- right after she'd called out. By the time I'd landed, her emotions were a heady mix of irritation and determination, and she was fighting back a little smile. She seemed to be taking it as the friendly challenge it was, which should hopefully knock her out of whatever weird mood she was in.

She seemed to adjust the intended trajectory for her spacial warp, jogging out of it several buildings ahead of me. She turned with a smug smirk and an equally jaunty salute, before completing her spin and shortening the roof so her next step took her near its edge.

How cute. She thought that was fast?

Instead of chasing her directly, I launched myself over the main street we were next to, accelerating in midair using streams of wind, and landing on the face of the building across the street, above the windows. It was a very different experience, holding the stone at my landing firm to prevent damage, allowing me to convert the energy that would have gone into deforming the material into additional speed. I used the boost to sprint along the wall for half a block, curling back towards the roof to leap an intersection, repeating my wall running and road hopping down the street, laughing the whole way. Which Vista heard when I passed her by, again.

This was still mostly a PR event, right? I was entirely justified in showing off a little.

I hoped she took the laughter both ways I'd intended; 'I'm in the lead again', and 'yes, I'm having fun'. She copied my obviously crossing the street, seeming to stretch bits of roof into a bridge and show off where she was going to pop up down the street, crossing the distance almost instantly. The transit itself imparted much less spectacle than my own, but she was having to pick between flash and function, there. It wasn't long before we'd hit the waterfront, and by some unspoken agreement, turned to start heading North along the Boardwalk.

At least until she stopped, her body showing signs of a great deal of irritation, shadowed by lesser embarrassment and shame.

It was faster to circle around half a block and return, rather than slow down and accelerate the other way. When I hopped up to the rooftop she was quietly fuming on, I asked her what was up.

"Frickin killjoys." She grumbled. I made an inquisitive noise while Vicky zoomed by overhead, but Vista shook her head and waved back where we came from. Aegis slowed to a steady float about half a minute later, and I realized that while Glory Girl might have been able to keep up, he was only an average flier at best, and we'd left him behind.

"Sorry, my fault." I called up to him. With him in the air, I couldn't see behind his helmet, so I had to guess that he was floating imperiously, displeased with this turn of events. Either way, he shook his head and moved to follow Vicky. "Sorry about that." I told Vista, when we were closer to alone.

She waved my concern away, but I could tell the apology was dampening some of her frustration. "It's stupid, but the rules and regulations exist for a reason. Not everyone can take care of themselves."

I gave it some thought. "Right, the Brockton Wards are pretty solid, but I don't know anything about the other teams." Most of them Vista's age would be pretty green, right?

"That... depends." The girl hesitantly muttered. She gave me a moment to interrupt, then took the time to start warping space and continue our 'patrol' while she thought, before continuing. "The different teams are very different, it depends on the city and its situation. Like, a lot of the time we get new Wards and they transfer away because the Bay isn't safe compared to similar sized cities, and we don't have the numbers to support multiple teams that can be cherry picked to cover weaknesses, like the biggest branches. New York has five Wards teams."

"Well, millions of people across however many other cities New York City has eaten up over the years. If they don't have different districts for Manhattan, Brooklyn, the Bronx, or whatever... that's a lot of city, with a lot of people."

"And they've got Legend." Vista cut in. "It's the head office for the Protectorate. Capes transfer to there, not away."

"You'd think they'd have enough, eventually." I muttered. "You don't hear about many gang problems there, not like Boston and here."

She scoffed. "They're generally smart enough not to fuck with Legend, if given the option. They've still got a couple gangs almost as big as the Empire, even if they're less explosively violent or murdery. Quiet crime doesn't make the news the same way as Butcher, Lung, and Hookwolf."

"Fair." I shot back, and we continued on in silence for a while. We'd stuck to the rooftops, waving at crowds and checking things, but we weren't as worried about spotting crimes ourselves. The fliers had that covered, circling around and dipping down sometimes, crossing overhead once or twice a minute for a quick 'hello' or 'all clear'. Vista seemed to be wrestling with something on her mind, though. She was starting to feel nervous again, biting her lip when I couldn't 'see' it, and tensing up whenever she'd hear or catch sight of the fliers. I decided to break the silence for her sake, again. "So... what's it like being a hero? Uh, female hero I mean. Most of the other heroes around are either outed or male."

Vista started, and stopped, chewing on the question and her response for another rooftop. At the next one, she sighed. "You're not joining the Wards, are you?" I tilted my head. "Like, absolutely, definitely not joining up?"

My reply drew itself out, hesitantly. "Probably not, why?"

"Just... wondering what all I can say." She muttered.

"Well, I'm starting my own team, and I know some of the people I'm talking to would never join the Wards or Protectorate. They're just not interested at all. I want them to have a place to go, some option they're happy with, and that means I'm pretty unlikely to ever join the Wards."

She shook her head, took a deeper breath, and seemed to firm up her decision. "We're supposed to give everyone a soft sold cheery look at the Wards, in case they're on the fence even if they say they're not interested." I gave her a sharp look that she picked up through my mask, and she continued with a sharp chuckle. "Oh, don't worry so much. The boys probably don't even remember that part of the PR training. They had me stuck in basic for longer than the others, so a lot more actually drilled in and stuck." Her smile fell into a grimace. "They're still trying to push me to spend my hours on the online seminars and training, rather than patrolling. I already know it all, though." I thought she muttered something like 'Piggot good for something' but wasn't sure. "Anyway, if you're not, then I can tell it like it is. What do you want to know?"

The shift caught me somewhat flatfooted, and it took me a second to reply. "Well, what's the worst part? Might as well jump to the deep end."

She let out a deep groan. "The worst part is the creepers."

"The creepers?" I prompted to keep her talking. I hadn't really experienced any untoward attention, but I was sure that was more because I'd only done the one PR thing and was avoiding the internet.

"The creepers." She hissed. "Be glad your costume has pants. If you ever swap to a skirt, wear thick shorts under it. They've been trying to get pantyshots off me since I was ten. Seriously, fuck those guys." She was rambling now, just mindful enough to keep herself quiet so her voice didn't drift the couple stories down to the crowd. "And the PRT is almost worse. Like, they're more worried about me finding out about it than they are with punishing it, like I haven't known the whole time!"

"Everything okay?" Aegis cut into the silence a few seconds later. I jumped a bit, but I'd been getting better about the surprises over the course of the patrol.

"Fine." Vista called up. "Just girl talk." She turned and wandered to the edge, giving a broad smile and a chipper "Hello!" Waving for a couple seconds before returning. "Seriously, it's fine." She nearly hissed.

I didn't think he was convinced, but he nodded along anyway. He was probably going to hang closer and drop in more frequently for a bit.

"It's really that bad?" I asked when he was gone. She grumbled unladylike things I couldn't quite hear. "I would've thought the gangs would've been worse."

She barked a laugh. "No. Give me Hookwolf over a smiling fan with an unsubtle shoe camera literally any day."

I grimaced. Now I'd be looking for things like that, and I'd never be able to unsense them. "Uch, yeah. Okay yeah, fair point."

"It's supposed to get worse when you hit 16 and 18, depending on what's 'legal' where you are. They actually cover that in the girls' version of 'Wearing Tights 101'." She chuckled ruefully. "Not sure why they think they can hide it while also educating you about it, but I blame conflicting mandates with the Youth Guard."

"The name sounds familiar, but I don't know who they are."

"Probably saw it on a bumper sticker." She paused as we transitioned between rooftops. "'Militarized Soccer Moms: Parahuman Edition'. They're not that big a thing in the Bay, but other districts have to bend over backwards to 'save the children' or else."

After a second's thought, a group like that made sense. "You'd think they'd be bigger here in the Bay, not the opposite."

Vista shrugged. "About two years back there was a hushed up lawsuit. I was still 'new' then, so I don't know all the details, but it was something about levied fines ENE had been literally incapable of preventing. PRT won, somehow had control of the Wards transferred over to them, and the Youth Guard have backed off the Bay since then."

"Huh. So, what do they even do? Is it okay they're not around anymore?"

"Yeah, we're fine." She answered, perhaps a little too quickly. "They're just worried about child rights and family stuff. Making sure we're not being turned into child soldiers. But even without them breathing down Piggoh's neck, we're still not deployed to real fights or trained with actual weapons. Just PR events and kiddy patrols to free up adult heroes for more important jobs." She actually kicked at the rooftop in frustration. "We still get all our online training, self-defense stuff, mandated hours limits to give us 'family time'... nothing really changed with them gone." She stopped and pointed my way. "But you've got a team, right? If the Youth Guard come calling, asking to set up a liason or anything like that, tell them no. They just want the authority to fine you for letting kids actually be heroes."

"Who the what?" Vicky piped in before I could think of a response.

Sweet cheezus I hated sneaky fliers. "Youth Guard."

Had to admit, the 'catastrophically constipated' look that put on her face was a little funny. "They're not all bad, they got Amy to stop overworking herself... but they tried to get the rest of us to stop patrolling, too. I think some of their arguments are part of why Crystal and Eric don't care as much about it as they used to."

"That... sucks?" I wasn't sure if they were actually keeping them from heroics, or trying to help enforce a healthy work/life balance. Still, I didn't think I wanted to deal with them if I could help it. "At least they helped a little, and you're still doing fine."

"Yeah," She started, but I felt a buzz in my pocket and ignored what she was saying to check my phone.

From Dinah. '95% now'.

Shit.

"Got a situation at the Market." I cut in. "You can keep up, right?"

I dropped into a runner's start, both of them telling me to stop. I thought one of them stumbled over my name a little, but I was already off like a bullet. I had to get there as fast as possible, since I didn't actually know what Lung was up to. There was a good chance he wasn't intending to start anything, just showing off and daring anyone to stop him. If anyone did though, there'd be fire and blood. Plus, trusting the logic or decency of someone like him was an effort in futility. Best to assume the worst.

I couldn't sense the fliers, but Vista was hopping through spacial folds as fast as she could make them. Vicky started to pull ahead of me, with me having to jump rooftops and losing acceleration from it, she still beat me in a straight line. Vista seemed to tire of lagging behind, I could feel her frustration, and the next time she leapt into a warp, it spat her out in the middle of the air ahead of us. She called out and Vicky juked to intercept, catching her and speeding back up to match me again.

When I got closer to the Market, I slowed a bit to give my feet more contact time to scan with. It wasn't that hard to find what I was looking for, there were exactly two men in Brockton that I knew of who could top seven feet tall, and I was pretty sure Manpower was at work.

I skidded to a halt on a rooftop about a third of a block back from him. "Lung!"

He perked up and turned. I could feel the grin under his mask as he looked me over, and saw the pair landing beside me. He looked big, bigger than I thought his base body was. We didn't actually know what triggered his powers. Danger, conflict, and anger were strong contenders among the armchair power theorists, though. If I had to guess, he was hyping himself up at the thought of snipers trying to pick him off while he was walking in the open, bulking up until his Brute defenses could handle it. I couldn't tell with my eyes, but I could feel his body slowly creeping taller, moving slightly faster after confronting him.

His eyes panned back over to me. "You are that new girl." His words were slow, as if he was choosing each of them carefully. It could be taken as him seeming slow, or being bad with English... but I'm pretty sure he was doing it on purpose, stalling to give himself a little bit more time for his powers to work. What I could recognize from his body felt amused and confident. He grinned wider. "Are you here to make a mistake?"

Hmm. This was a bit of a puzzle. How to get him out of here, without tearing down any buildings or setting anything on fire? It was the work of a moment to take in every detail of the area around us, I just needed a few moments to use it to formulate a plan. "I'm here to make you leave." I could probably handle this quickly, but he wasn't in the best place to do so. If I taunted him, though... "This isn't your territory. These people did nothing to you." These people, notably absent from the street itself. "You have no good reason to be here. Leave, Lung. Go. Home."

"Terra..." Vicky muttered from behind me. Vista swallowed thickly, staring wide-eyed at the oncoming train. They were scared, but had no idea what else to do. Aegis touched down nearby, taking one look at the situation and quietly cussing, before snapping quiet words into his comms.

Lung started laughing. A deep belly laugh, his head rearing back slightly near the end of it. He took a moment to breathe, and shook his head. "You have fire, girl. This is good." He took a prowling step forward, and I thought I could see him growing, but it was probably an optical trick from the way he was hunching slightly as he moved. He had a terrifying level of control over his body, and knew how to use it. "But I am Lung." Another heavy step forward. "You do not command Lung." He stalked forward again. "No one commands Lung." Another step, and he raised his arms palm up, theatrically. "I am The Dragon." One more... "And a Dragon does as it w-" He made a 'whorf' noise as a pillar of earth and stone roughly the size of a locomotive engine slammed diagonally into his side at speed.

I'd dropped to the roof, thrusting my fists upward matching the angle until I was nearly unbalanced, launching him into the air towards the bay. I dipped lower again, pinching my fingers and tugging them upward from the roof to over my head, drawing a massive pillar of water up from the bay, which I used to catch Lung. It looked like he was already nearly a foot taller than he had been, and I quickly froze him into a solid sphere of water. I turned and swung my hands like a counterweight, the top of the stream swinging around and accelerating. I only spun the mass a few times before I released it in an arc that'd take him out into the ocean proper. I wasn't sure how far he'd get, but it looked like he'd be heading over the horizon at this rate.

The others were gaping when I turned back to face them. "Did you just toss Lung back, like a bad fish?" Vicky flatly asked. This prompted the others to snap back into focus.

"Why did you start that fight, that could have-" Aegis started.

"Why did you throw him like that, you had him!" Vista yelled at the same time, drowning him out.

"Are you kidding?" I scoffed. "He was already starting to crack the ice when I threw him. There's nothing I can do to pin him down without killing him."

Vista started asking why that was a bad thing, but my focus had shifted to the man behind them. He quirked an eyebrow behind his red demon mask- tilting his head like an inquisitive bird- while his finger popped the pin from the grenade in his other hand. I swiped my own hand up at him, the gravel on the roof spearing up through his body like buckshot, and he collapsed into ash. I struck my arm back in an elbow strike, sending a thick stream of fire into the face of the one that'd appeared behind me. His mask cracked, his eyes popped, his brain boiled, and he too turned to ash.

"Move!" I yelled, dashing forward to scoop Vista into my arms before leaping off the roof to the open street below. The fliers followed a moment later.

We were quickly surrounded by doppelgangers on the rooftops, who started lobbing grenades down at us. I grabbed at my belt, snapping the cheap fans open and spinning, whipping the air around us into a small cyclone and pushing the explosives far into the air to explode seconds later like fireworks popping in the sky. This had the benefit of buffeting the clones, preventing them from easily continuing their assault until they timed out and dusted.

The moment of respite allowed me to close the fans and beckon towards the bay, drawing a stream of water from it to traverse the block or so to us barely in time to start whipping it around at the new clones that formed. There was a moment of silence so deep I expected to hear the shrapnel finally tinkling into the ground, but the lack caused me to realize the grenades were nothing but fleeting copies as well.

A handful of probing attacks came next, but the clones never lasted more than a second. Less if they were close to us. I yelled into the next lull. "LEE! What's the point of this? I can keep this up all day! Why fight, instead of fishing Lung out of the ocean? There's no point to this!"

It was Vicky who replied to his response, shoving an arm through the chest of the copy behind me before I could react. This wasn't going anywhere, and worse, it was getting dangerous. If Lee was switching to knives, he might actually tag someone before I can stop him.

That just meant I had to react faster. I took a deep breath, released it, and closed my eyes as I took another. My eyes weren't fast enough. Throwing everything behind my earth sense might do it, though. I slowly raised a heel from the ground as I waited. He was circling around, copies popping up a block out and immediately collapsing. I had to wait for the right moment. He stopped at the end of the street, another copy popping up on top of the rubble of the pillar I'd thrown Lung with, and I heard Vicky swat a clone out of the air above me. My heel came down.

The copy that appeared next to us hopped into the air as a four foot pillar thrust up into the almost three feet of space between the ground and his crotch. He wheezed and started falling over, but I caught him with the water I still had and froze it around his arms and the vest with all his gear. Another copy of him hit the ground a block away, unable to keep upright.

Damn it.

Aegis tackled the nearby clone, turning it belly-down and shoving its face into the asphalt about a second before it turned to ash. He voiced my internal cursing as he dropped the short distance to the ground. I moved to check over Vista and Glory Girl, who were scanning the area next to us. They seemed okay. "He got away." I muttered, watching the chain of copies stretch near the end of my easy range. "I don't think he's coming back, though."

The girls were still wary, but relaxed a little. Aegis felt angry and scared, and I couldn't tell what else. He floated back to his feet and glared my way for a moment, before shaking his head. "What is it with you and balls?"

"What?" He must have reconsidered what he was going to say, but I wasn't prepared for the line of thought he'd settled on instead.

"First Skidmark, now Oni Lee. What the hell?" He trailed off into a mutter by the end.

I was glad he couldn't see my face flush. "Not my fault they're a good target."

He shook his head incredulously. "And why did you pick a fight with Lung and Lee?"

"I-" My response was interrupted by the people tentatively leaving the shops realizing that the gang capes were gone, and starting to cheer. I gave a shy wave.

Aegis looked around and sighed. "Fix this." He waved at the rubble. "Then we'll debrief at the PRT building."

I nodded. "Uhh, Vicky?" I twitched my head over at the people.

She snorted. "Fine." Then she floated over to distract the forming group while Vista headed off to manage the other side, and Aegis started motioning people back from where I was going to be working.

It didn't take long to shove everything back into the ground, but the result wasn't as pretty as I would've liked. I loudly apologized for it to everyone nearby, but no one vocalized minding overmuch at the cost for having Lung gone ASAP. They were worried, maybe that Lung would come back, but this was far enough out of his way that today had been odd. There was a chance he wouldn't bother. Even if he did, there was a good chance of an increased Protectorate presence for a while.

On that cheery note, we left to head back the way we came.