As I arrived, Sveta delivered the Brandish-Ball, whipping it down hard. Water flowed down from upstairs, as a distant offshoot of the water gun that had deposited Brandish here. The ball ricocheted off the ground, hit the ceiling, then, in the center of the room, expanded into Brandish, who was loaded with pre-prepared Flashbang grenades. While she was in her ball-state, she was in total stasis. The grenades had a timer, but the timer didn’t count down while she was frozen and not of this world. She scattered them, throwing them wide.

In a half-circle around her, grenades exploded with light and concussive force. Some of that force caught one or two people badly enough that there might be long-term injuries. For the rest, it took the fight out of them for the moment. Everyone who had been standing in or near the portal was laid low.

The dominoes engagement—named by Amy. Which sucked, because that ruined it a little. Me, Brandish and Flashbang all hitting like dominoes toppling. A series of devastating blows. Brandish wasn’t bothered by light, and in the midst of the chaos, knowing which she’d thrown were duds by experience, she could weave through while her targets were just trying to get out of the way.

The explosions cleared out half of a roomful of forty people, many of them armed. Sveta and I picked through the remainder. Women with guns. Men with masks covering their lower faces. Tossed aside. Sveta couldn’t really be shot, and the Wretch protected me from being shot, even though it was mostly pandemonium and people reeling.

And Sveta’s movements only continued to make sense to me again, now that I could parse why she was so reluctant and reserved. I’d known her at one point in time when this was all she had. She’d been hesitant to get to know me, but she’d settled in.

But she was a teenage girl. And for a brief time, she’d had a body. A covering she loved for a shape she hated.

Back then this body had been her in entirety. Now? After a body and paint to decorate that body, after clothes and clothes we’d shopped for? To lose her suit was to be stripped down, naked before the world. Vulnerable on multiple levels.

She wrestled with that even as I saw the visible triumph in how each extension of a tendril moved just a bit more accurately, just a bit less self defeating. And just a bit was a hell of a lot when there were so many tendrils.

“You’re doing great!” I cheered, because words were all I could offer and what I really wanted was to hug her and have her hug me back with those arms she’d built.