Throwing herself headlong into the scene with people she knew she shouldn’t hang out with, and hitting some stupid pregnant woman who she still wasn’t sure wasn’t trying to get hurt. Costing that woman her baby.

Going willingly to jail. Thinking that would fix anything.

This, thinking she could make a difference.

And even more specifically, this very scene. Doing patrols to make sure traffic was moving and raiders weren’t closing in, and then accepting a gig dealing with anti-parahumans. When she had a history with the type.

She could have said no. Couldn’t she?

People didn’t forget. The bad stuck with you forever.

The guy in the gas mask was kicking her ass. Her gas wasn’t slowing him down. She created orb after orb, sending it flying with the intent of knocking the mask ajar, overloading it, or just blinding him so she could get in a few quick hits. But he had a baseball bat, and he’d clipped her once already.

“You’re going to pay for what you did,” he said, walking deeper into the gas, swinging where he thought she might be.

“Working on it, went to jail, doing a kind of community service,” she said, while walking to the left, before abruptly changing direction.

He seemed to guess what she was doing. The bat came perilously close. Long arms, long bat.

This was distracting her from helping the Malfunctions. They were kids, ten years younger than her. She didn’t want this in this kind of situation when they didn’t have other people at their backs.

Still pacing sideways, she could see him move to vaguely track her. It wasn’t perfect, but he was good. Good eyes.

She suspected she knew why. The fan at her back.

Reaching up, she peeled her coat off, holding it out, and slowly made her way to a nearby railing. She hung her coat there, the heated fan still going. Distorting the gas that flooded the area around them. It thinned out by the second as she ceased making new orbs, but she knew if she threw anything it would distract. She wanted to predict his movements.

And he did start to inch closer to the railing.

If she got the mask off, she won. There was a railing, she could use it as a jumping-off point.

It was a question of waiting, of timing the attack, staying low so that the thinning cloud wouldn’t reveal her. Her costume was tinted to blend in with the green-yellow.

She sprung forward. One foot on the railing-post that matched the one she had hung her jacket on. Giving her the height to reach for his head.

He saw her, in that last moment. The butt-end of the bat, hands close to it, came up to her stomach. Not much of a hit, but it distracted her from getting her hands on his mask or even landing properly.