“What do you call yourself?” I asked into the darkness. I could barely hear myself over the noises around us. I could barely breathe to utter the words. The battery indicator on the shield had an unfair share of my attention. Without it I’d have to use the Wretch in an environment where I wasn’t sure where all of my allies were.

“Sarah,” was the answer.

“No cape name?”

“Photon for now.”

“Not Lady Photon?”

The response was drowned out, but I was pretty sure it was ‘someday’.

For a short while, there was only the effort, trying to stay sane and focused on what needed focus while fighting in the dark against an army that could see.

She didn’t ask about Crystal. She didn’t ask about me.

Didn’t ask about Mom, Dad, or how we’d gotten on.

“Crystal’s okay.”

“Good.”

“I think she might be here. She would have joined and I didn’t hear from—”

“She’s at the far end.”

Curt, crisp.

A lot of the guns being used by the thralls in the dark were dark. No glowing chambers, no glowing projectiles, no muzzle flashes. The only signs they were being used were when our defensive squadron was pummeled, wounded, or knocked flat. Blood splattered against one side of my face.

“Hit,” was the guy’s grunt. “F-ffuck. Muh face.”

“Stonewall’s all the way out! Fighting retreat!” Balk called out. “Someone get our wounded!”

‘Sarah’ pushed past me, touching my arm in a way that suggested she could see me enough.

I couldn’t think of what to say, or what to do. The flash of the indicator and the hum of the shield I was carrying dying distracted me. The shield was next to useless now, and I had to do my part.

“Keep your distance from me if you can,” I said.

I stepped away from the group, away from Sarah, and knelt down, head down, activating the Wretch, hoping I wouldn’t take too much fire.

I went to your funeral, I thought. After Gold Morning. You meant so much to us and we couldn’t even properly grieve, because there were so many people who needed the chance to hold services. I put flowers on your doorstep every time I went to old Brockton Bay.

I looked away, tried to get a sense of directionality. There were powers being lobbed at the rank and file, bright enough to be seen in the darkness. I could see where tech was being used to diffuse the impacts, break it up, or limit the damage.

It wasn’t as easy as using a single big, wide-area power.

We retreated, using guiding lights of powers as an indicator. Ashley’s eyes glowed white in the dark. I could see the single eye of Sveta’s, Precipice’s, and Capricorn’s, and the crack across Precipice’s mask.