She kept an eye out for Chicken Little, and an eye out for some of the Heartbroken. She met Foil’s eyes, and Foil folded her arms.

Scared.

Parian—

Out of her element. Against this. No halfway, no negotiation.

March, monsters in her own ranks, monsters over the next horizon. There was the balance of things, trying to do her part to keep the city upright. The pain in her legs, the years of not wanting anyone romantically but feeling like so much of her day was empty, no matter how much she did. She was worn out in the face of everything that she needed to do.

Quietly, she came to a resolution.

This anger that threatened to stoke the worst fears of the anti-parahumans, and empower and vindicate the do-gooders? She would let it happen. It was an inevitability in response to an inevitability.

She had moves to make elsewhere.

Polarize 10.10

“Bluuuuurggh,” Crystal said, as we left the station.

“Blurgh,” I responded. “Cold enough for you?”

“It was seventy-four degrees out where we were stationed! What is this? Why can’t it be warm all the time everywhere?”

I smiled—not just because Crystal was being silly, but because I could see the crowd filtering out of the station. I was pretty used to the looks a cape got in public, and Weld, Laserdream and I were all costumed or known capes. It was pretty obvious when I compared the attention we got from some compared to the lone individuals who didn’t give half as many shits.

The latter group had either worked closely with capes for a long time, or they were capes themselves.

“So,” Crystal said. “How you been, cuz? Because I can’t help but notice that you went and hurt your other arm. Hand. Whatever.”

“We ran into a parahuman who burns powers. Sets forcefields and auras on fire. That was a thing. And Lung was there. I don’t suppose you had any access to Gimel news? TV?”

She shook her head. Her expression was nearly blank, but her eyebrows were up toward the center, creating a line of wrinkle on her forehead.

“Don’t make that face.”

She reached up and adjusted her hair a bit, so the part that swooped down over one half of her forehead and one eye now covered the eyebrows and some of her other eye. Still making the face, just hiding it.

I elbowed her while she was still adjusting, and her hair came loose of the hairband.

“It was a thing. Goddess against Teacher. Gimel caught in the middle. Monokeros, you know her? She was a thing a while back.”

She took a second, bending over so her hair draped down, so she could then comb it with her fingers and arrange it, before fixing her hairband into place to lock its position. A single finger helped adjust the curve of hair to where it tucked behind her ear.