I saw lights in the distance. Advance Guard had the costumes with panels, sharp angles, illuminated sections and hyper-modern cuts. Some of the panels, it seemed, acted like reflectors, or were bright enough to make them distinct from a distance in the dark.

“There they are.”

“I see them,” Sveta said.

“We’ll talk about this later?”

“Please,” she said. “I don’t know who else to ask about some of this stuff.”

I got Capricorn’s attention with a wave, pointing. He nodded. The orange motes swirled more.

He hadn’t solidified the motes into anything. He just kept drawing, the motes remaining in the same spaces, filling in gaps between orange lines.

Flapper had her wings out—her clothes had altered, sleeves extended to great length, formed into great wings that she beat, as she swooped and dove to ride air currents. The wind was at her back, and she had the natural flier advantage of not needing to worry about following the road or terrain. Where the road curved, she could fly in a straight line. Nothing like the old-timey flapper style to her, except the short dress in the Advance Guard style.

Shortcut—I could see him on the ground, periodically obscured as he moved behind trucks and obstacles. He was fast, but it was hard for him to see where he was going. He zig-zagged, with careful movements.

And then Spright—who had both the wings out, though he wasn’t flying. His feet were on the ground, and the same stop-start zig-zag motion, if a bit freer.

I flew for the spotlight that Sveta was under. Gripping it, I twisted it around, aiming it at the incoming pursuit, keeping the worst of the light out of Shortcut and Spright’s eyes. Flapper was high enough up that she wasn’t going to be blinded.

Two trucks, what might have been postal vans or armored trucks—I wouldn’t know until I was closer. One eighteen wheeler, that lagged behind the rest. One parahuman—a man in what looked like a blurry hamster wheel. All traveled on the flat ground to the side of the road. Traffic of construction vehicles had torn up the ground already, and the passage of these vehicles kicked up geysers of mud and dust, depending on how dry or cold the ground was where they passed.

The hamster wheel was the worst of it, when it came to the collateral mess. The geysers of flung dirt would’ve painted the face of a two-story building.

“Don’t engage just yet!”

“Right!” Sveta called.

I gave the hamster wheel guy a wide berth, flying to Spright. The moment I got close to him, though, he kicked off the ground, taking flight with what looked like a combination of my flight and Flapper’s.

“Yesss!” he called out, before lunging forward with a combination of wing flaps and Glory Girl flight.