The figure that had once been Dauntless loomed above them. Dormant, quiet, alone.

As alone as any of them were.

Narwhal’s costume was layered, crystals grown large and each gap covered by another crystal, enough times that her entire figure had changed. Crystals were her boots, so her feet weren’t resting against snowy ground, and they framed her chin, nose, eye sockets, and ears, while providing the structure that held up her horn. A lot of that was to keep the cold off. Temperature didn’t conduct through forcefield, so it kept her insulated. Here and there, she adjusted, exposing neck, collarbone, and shoulder above the crystalline suit.

Her heart was pounding, breathing was hard, and getting past it seemed impossible. She kept her shoulders back and square, her feet securely beneath her, and hands at her sides. People looked to her, and if she let the facade crack, then it would affect them.

She had never been good at giant slaying. She could hold her own against the Endbringers and the other enemies of similar scale, throw up defenses, launch her forcefields for offense, but it wasn’t the environment where she felt like she did the most good.

And she’d been stuck here, facing down the attack from March, and she hadn’t done enough good here. It was more frustrating that the higher-ups and paper pushers would blame her, because a power like March’s didn’t translate to paperwork.

It meant expressing that Defiant and Dragon could have three ships in the air, and a squadron of parahumans and soldiers could be in just the right spot at just the right time to make them dangerously able to flank if the ships tried to fly past. Move around, open fire, the routes were blocked or there were other obstructions. People who would get caught in the collateral damage.

Not permanently, there was always a way, but by the time that way was sought and found, March was on the offensive. And it was always easier to attack than defend.

The paper-pushers wouldn’t get it. They’d talk about budgets and hint at budget cuts, and blame would be shifted, and it would be a repeat of prior engagements against Jack Slash all over again.

But they had the boy who had beaten Jack Slash in the Wardens. Jack Slash had had an unknown factor giving him an edge. His power gave him the upper hand against any parahuman, and his ‘Slaughterhouse Nine’ made it next to impossible for civilians to get to him.

March’s coterie didn’t cover a weakness so much as it augmented her strengths.