Teddy slumped back down and started licking her fur over the spots that had been burned the worst. Most of it was on her shoulder and down her left forepaw. The fire stopped, but it still felt tender, and her fur was matted and burned. It didn’t smell nice at all.

“Well done,” Melaton said as she ran over. She was panting slightly, but seemed to be in good enough shape that it wasn’t too bad. The Hero bent over the fallen oil guy and placed a hand over his head. “Watch out for me for a bit,” she asked.

“Yeah,” Teddy said.

The lights in the houses around them were all on, and at a glance, she could make out some people staring out of their windows, some of them with phones pressed to their ears.

That wasn’t good.

The sound of someone coming up behind them had Teddy turning, but it was only the Boss. “Teddy!” Emily said.

“Boss,” Teddy replied. “I got burned.”

“Oh, oh no.” The Boss ignored her own lack of breath and moved closer to Teddy to look over her wounds. She didn’t touch them, but she did hover her hands over it as if she didn’t know what to do. “Will it stay if you turn back?”

In answer, Teddy returned to her boring normal body, one hand up to make sure her mask was fixed over her face properly.

The Boss winced as she looked at the ugly skin over Teddy’s shoulder and down the part of her arm not covered by her dress. “We’ll need to put some water on that,” she said. “Maybe some bandages.”

“Yeah, okay,” Teddy said.

“Is there anything I can do to make it better?” the Boss asked.

Teddy nodded. “Pizza.”

“Pizza?”

“With lots of meat,” Teddy confirmed.

“When you two are done discussing your meal plans for the evening,” Melaton said, “we might have a few things to go over.”

The Hero stood up from over the oil guy’s knocked-out form and glanced around.

“Crap. We’re going to have the cops here soon.” She gestured to the Boss and to Teddy. “You two should head out. We don’t need to bog you down with all the paperwork and the questions they’ll ask. You didn’t actually commit a crime or anything, but they’d bring you in on principle and then you’d need to fend off recruiters for the next week.”

“I— That would be bad,” the Boss said.

“It would,” Melaton agreed. “Head out for a bit. I’ll call you tomorrow, share what I got on our target.”

“Oh, okay,” the Boss said. “Um. Tonight was . . . well, it was educational?”

“Uh-huh,” Melaton said. “It was that. You girls be careful, all right?”

The Boss nodded, grabbed Teddy’s unburnt hand, and pulled her along.

“Are we getting pizza now?” Teddy asked.