“Maybe. Probably,” Fume said. She looked at Crystalclear. “Feeling better?”

“No,” he said.

Fume nodded at that.

“Would you stick around?” Crystalclear addressed us. “I wouldn’t mind the backup, if you’re here to help, and I have the sense this is going to get worse before it gets better.”

“Gut feeling sense or… power sense?” I asked.

I could hear the commotion as people started to leave. I could hear the complaining. Even before he answered, my gut feeling sense was that he wasn’t wrong.

“The latter,” Crystalclear said, corroborating.

Daybreak 1.3

This was the point in time that I would have liked to be able to take to the skies. Information was important, and if I didn’t have surveillance cameras, I would have been pretty content with a bird’s eye view of the scene.

I clenched one fist, cracking my knuckles, before wrapping my other hand around it, cracking them again for good measure.

I turned to look at the people from the Patrol. “Set up around the building. Watch what’s going on outside, stay in touch, report anything unusual. Jasper? Hang back.”

The others turned to go, some looking back at the capes one last time before leaving. Interest, other things.

“Can’t hurt,” the painted lady said.

“I’m Victoria,” I said. “That’s Jasper. I know Fume Hood from the notes we got, and I caught Crystalclear’s name.”

“Longscratch is the one who just left,” the painted lady said. “I’m Tempera.”

“Thanks,” I said. “Good to meet you. Crystalclear, can you fill me in on your power? What are you getting?”

“I see through everything,” Crystalclear said, tapping the chunk of crystal that stood out from the lower edge of his eye socket. “As if everything was crystal. I’ve learned there’s a lot of nuance to it. A little bit of seeing into the past, a little bit of seeing into the future, a little bit of a sense of people’s focus.”

“He has a blaster power too,” Tempera said. “Goes through walls and the ground. Synergy.”

“I really hope it doesn’t come to actually using that. Right now, I’m more interested in how this points to possible trouble in the future,” I said.

“Uh,” Crystalclear said. He looked around. “It’s hard to explain because it’s not a sense anyone else has. Say I was looking at a wall. It looks like a chunk of clear glass and the light catches at the edges and corners and they’re highlighted.”