“Trophy collects parts, has an aura that grants subtle mutations to people around her based on what she’s collected. She gets the same thing at double strength, just for herself. Nightvision if she tore out a cat’s eyes, manual dexterity if she has some person’s amputated hand, ability to land on her feet if she has a cat’s tail, raw strength if she has a strip of muscle from a large animal, sharpness of nails if she has the claws from someone’s pet cat. She’ll have important ones inside her coat.”

“Great,” I said. That made Backwoods even more problematic. He was the most wanton with his power, that power was disruptive and dangerous, and now he apparently had a mess of minor benefits granted by being close enough to Trophy Wife.

“Backwoods, nothing too special. He’s dropping traps here and there, trying to be subtle. There are two big branches extending over his shoulders, but they really form an ‘X’, and he’s grabbing from the lower prongs.”

“Good to know,” I said. I floated up a bit, watching the guy.

“Mockument… we don’t really know. The minions aren’t strong, they barely have powers, they don’t really have brains, they’re just conduits for a thinker aspect to his power, but…”

Snow White looked over at the caricature of me. It was perched on top of a car now.

“Jesus,” she said.

“Yeah,” I tried to sound casual, and I sounded too quiet instead. I spoke more normally as I deflected with. “It targets parahumans only?”

“Think so.”

“Probably uses some weak connection to the power or replicates what it can track nearby.”

“Barely replicates. Weak powers.”

“Its good to not underestimate powers. Even broken, intermittent ones.”

Snow White seemed to accept that. “Right. About Torso—”

There was a crash.

Powers in use. Damsel, primarily. With a blast, she totaled someone’s car and most of the things they’d brought with them through the end of the world and this evacuation.

I clenched my fist.

“Do what you can,” she said. In the tone of someone who was resigned to not doing a whole lot.

I flew straight up.

The tallest rooftops downtown were left below me. The air got colder and the precipitation more ferocious as I rose up higher, and if I had any trouble breathing, I wasn’t sure how much of it was my cold constricting nasal passages, and how much was the thinner air.

My eyes closed, fists clenched, I slowed my ascent. I continued upwards, more gentle now.

I could feel the transition. My flight was like an ice cube, sliding across a slick floor. If there was any resistance, it was in the air. But up here, the air was thinner. I panted for each breath.