Love Lost lashed out, whipping for Swansong. She saw a shift in expression, a tell, and immediately changed course. The whip cracked twice in quick succession, and the defensive blast that Swansong fired didn’t reach the length of the weapon.

The gun went off.

Imp collapsed, off to the side.

Colt. Stupid girl. What was she doing?

“Imp!” the littlest girl present screamed. She wheeled on Colt. “I’ll end you!”

Colt turned the gun on the girl.

Love Lost lashed out, cracking the blade. Colt flinched, no longer aiming at the littlest girl.

“Fuck. Fuck!” Imp gasped. “Oh no.”

Swansong lunged, power flaring. Others were closing in—

And Colt erupted into a nimbus of light.

It was weird, perhaps, that Love Lost had so often ruminated on the power seminars that she had been given back at the station, in a past lifetime, in another world. She’d hoped, ironically, that the victims she worked for would get powers, that they would just this one time be able to fight back.

It had been a frustration that every lesson and tutorial she’d been given had been for nothing, and a part of her had been waiting for eight or nine years for it to be relevant.

Somehow her getting her own powers hadn’t counted. The thought had never connected, because it was her, and she’d been expecting someone else.

Now… now it was Colt.

Colt pushed out with a power, and Love Lost felt her thoughts scatter. She reached up to her mask, adjusting the dial, and changed the focus for all emotions she was absorbing and reading.

That dampened the effect.

With her lash, she struck Swansong down, while Swansong reeled. The cut went through Swansong’s arm, exposing wires.

Colt was a parahuman. That wasn’t—it shouldn’t be. The idea scared her, because it took everything that made Colt important and utterly destroyed it.

Love Lost snarled behind her mask, angry, inarticulately upset. Nailbiter had tried to reach out to the girl and convince her, and it hadn’t worked. Love Lost had hoped Colt would either prove herself to be a child or be adult enough to make a decision and Colt had done neither. Naibiter had given the girl an upper, something to keep her from backing down at the wrong moment and opening their flanks to an attack.

Colt’s power continued to blanket the battlefield, creating more openings. Love Lost struck out at Romeo, who ducked the claw-lash’s tip as it cracked.

Colt rose into the air, flying, and her hands turned into blades, edged in dark smoke.

As Colt rose, Love Lost’s heart sank.

She would deal with that later. Gritting her teeth, she turned her focus to the ongoing fight.

Imp was a problem. Whether this was a feint or not—

Love Lost reached up to her mask, releasing the catch. As the mask fell away, she drew in a breath.