Blessed paperwork, the little details that emerged.

That was awareness. It might suggest a grasp of the subject matters adjacent to the powers. A fire manipulator getting a sense of flames and how they burned, because that was the sort of thing their agent paid a lot of attention to.

And… of course, courtesy of a bit of paperwork from Golem, who stood next to Rain, while Cuff talked to Rain about girls… there was another dimension of parahuman–agent growth related to that. Because another thing adjacent to all powers was… powers.

Was my intuition augmented by my closer connection to the Wretch, that radiant, fragile, multi-limbed spectre I’d glimpsed last night? Did it give me a greater sense of parahumans, threats, and where threats lay?

If it did, how was I supposed to distinguish between my actual gut and my power-provided gut?

I typed: Tattletale?

“Bad time to start talking. I’m going to have to put the phone down soon so a little kid can jab something metal into my eyeball.”

I typed more: Blue bug person and the hunched-over woman with the scars that she hasn’t had Amy heal yet. Why are they grabbing my attention like they are?

“Hold on, kid.”

I heard Kenzie make a complainy-sound. Surprisingly whiny for Kenzie. “I have stuff to do!”

Through Kenzie’s perspective, I watched Tattletale look over to her laptop, switching the feed, and making the video fullscreen again.

“Did your power tell you something?” Kenzie asked.

“Yeah. My power,” Tattletale’s tone was almost sardonic. “The one in blue is the cocoon trump. Makes people beautiful, stronger, healthy. Gives them protections, keeps them a certain age.”

I typed: The one with the slouch is paying attention to Lab Rat.

“We want you gone,” Amy announced.

How ironic, I mused, with no humor.

“Not an option,” Moonsong replied.

Capes behind Moonsong had shifted position in the last ten or so minutes. The standoff hadn’t broken, and it was apparently a question of power and position. Amy could move, because the procession of giants she was treating and giving innate instructions to hadn’t ceased, but the Shin group was doing a better job of keeping still and staring down our side than the inverse.

Moonsong, I noted, hadn’t budged. Breakthrough was doing pretty well. Rain had only moved to square off against the Fallen, facing them. The Shepherds and the Shepherd’s sub-teams. They had a core team of about sixteen members, and another thirty lesser members who handled the ground game, focusing on neighborhoods and sub-communities within the city. The Huntsmen were there, I noted.

Breakthrough was there too, but only half of the group.

Opposed by a stubborn Amy who had found her next cause to be stupid over. She was backed by Chris, Fallen, Shin capes that had apparently been tortured, and prisoners.

The sides looked to be about even. Not counting the ‘Mother Giant’, nor the army she had gathered in rings around her. Shuddering fonts of fertility, flesh, and afterbirth.