A little messy, but—

At the same time, the stone detonated a second after being flicked, well before touching the ground. It was at eye level for the cape who had sound-manipuating touch, fingers singing as they moved through air and the ability to deafen on touch. He reeled back with a bloody nose.

Not his biggest concern. March put her rapier through his chest cavity, pulled it out, and then drew a line through the face with her power. A hole in the heart, and four point three seconds until face became crater.

A merciful way to go. It was also about to become a dramatic and cool way to go out.

She cut a scrap of his costume away, doing a small circle with her sword to keep it airborne, cut it in half, then pushed her power into one of the halves. Time delayed explosion. While Megan’s power boost was running through her, she could work with shorter fuses.

The explosion was just in time to intercept a lob of ice through the air.

Her sword danced, keeping the other scrap alive. “Bash, right turn! Deal with ice guy for three seconds!”

Ice guy reacted, backing away instead of going on the offensive. That was fine too.

“Tori, about face! Your twelve in three, two, one!”

The explosion at the face knocked the cape’s helmet off. Tori caught it with her tractor beam, pulling it to her with the same force as if it had been thrown full-strength. It clocked the ice guy across the side of the head, while he was focused on Bash.

Across the battlefield, a cape created a flash of light. As it faded, March found herself alone, in a maze filled with moths.

One by one, defenders of the ruined Brockton Bay began to appear in the maze with her. Phased into this space.

Do you want to see me go all out? she thought.

“If this is a hallucination, I’m not bothered,” she said. “I trust my team to handle things while I’m out.”

One of the capes shook his head slowly.

I still have the power boost from Megan. One against seven. No, eight. And the world is moving in slow motion for me.

She could do this.

“What do you gain by messing with this stuff?”

“That would be telling, and you would put more people between me and what I want.”

“You lunatic.”

March smiled. “You guys are the crazy ones. If you knew what I knew…”

⊙

Homer had grown, in a lot of ways. He was well-dressed now. He still had the dreads, but they were shorter, bound in gold—it looked like wedding rings. His mask, too, was gold. He had a golden baseball bat, and as he walked, he dribbled a baseball with the bat. A flowing black costume swept around him.

He liked the aesthetic and she didn’t hate it, herself. She watched the baseball bounce up and down. Black skin, gold stitches. It was getting a beating, just from being dribbled.