I could use the Wretch, I knew. It had reach, it was invisible, and if it got her, it would pull her in close and tear her to pieces.

Except I didn’t want to be that kind of person, and the computer by my feet was in the Wretch’s reach too. I could trust an invisible hand to probably seize her outstretched hand, but I couldn’t trust anything else.

The gender confusion from earlier was resolved as I glanced back and saw how one of her arms was altered. It was hairy, veins running down the back of the arm, and it was a little longer than her usual arm. The bodysuit’s fabric didn’t roll past the thickest part of the bicep, so she had rigged some other kind of detachable sleeve to pull over and up to the shoulder.

Her power hadn’t effectively covered it, so it regularly figured into my processing of the scenes, and it lingered in my head even as the rest of her threatened to disappear while my focus was entirely on her.

“I’m going to need you to move the bookcase, G.G.”

I locked eyes with her. She motioned with the gun, tilting her head so the lenses of her mask caught the light in a different way.

I used flight and a bit of strength to move the thing. It screeched loudly with the motion. I wasn’t even done moving it when Imp pushed the door open.

She immediately leaped back. I could hear Ashley’s power, almost entirely hidden by the raggedd sound of the bookcase moving over hardwood.

Ashley or Damsel was approaching, and I could hear the sound of it. The power shredded the door and the surrounding frame as she stalked forward. It was Damsel, and her claws contained a large sphere of destruction, annihilating everything in front of her, flickering and storming as power ran through it.

⊙

“Move a hair,” Imp whispered in Damsel’s ear, “And you’re going to get a bullet in your throat to match the one your sister got. Except yours will be the last body mod you ever get.”

I wheeled around. Imp had her gun to Damsel’s throat, her man-hand wrapped in a death-lock around Damsel’s front, pulling her off balance. Damsel had her hands out to her sides, no power active.

“Pick up the computer, Glory Girl.”

“It’s not my name anymore.”

“I don’t care. People change names too often. It’s better to have one good one that you stick to.”

“Imp was taken, you know,” I told her.

“I don’t care.”

“You don’t really have it.”

“I don’t care. Pick up the computer. Fly it to the ground outside the window. No games.”