“On and off,” Crystal said. “I’m kind of figuring it out, if you include me muttering ‘what the fuck’ to myself a third of the time, ignoring reality a third of the time, and feeling very complicated wanna-cry feelings the last third.”

“Sounds about right,” I said. The image of Amy flashed into my head. “She’s not mom right now?”

“Right now she’s the battlefield commander. The mom who was out for two hours every night, minimum, right after dinner or my bedtime, depending on if Eric or me needed help with homework. Sometimes all-nighters, napping, then waking up to see us off to school before sleeping again.”

Aunt Sarah had been more ‘into it’ than my mom, in that regard.

“Can I do anything?” I asked. “I don’t know if she’s upset you’re distant, or…”

“She’s not really noticing. Which is fine. It’s good, because that’s what we need, right? We need to be good capes on this battlefield and we get through this, and after, I’ll spend time with her and bits of my mom will come back, until I don’t feel like I’m insulting my mom by comparing her to this flock member who looks just like her.”

I nodded.

“You just keep your head on straight, baby cousin. Communicate. Weren’t you saying that was important, when you were bringing everyone together for the Hollow Point thing? You can’t go staring off into the distance while doing superpowered heavy lifting.”

“Right,” I said. “Engel stirred up some thoughts, sorry.”

“Me too, Vic. Especially in the aftermath of the powers going crazy.”

I nodded. “Is your forcefield strong enough to be a bridge now?”

“No idea. But it feels different. Harder to stretch into a ball.”

She demonstrated. Sure enough, it wasn’t really working that way.

“And your laser?”

She fired into the forcefield. Rather than a thin beam, it fluctuated more around a central line, and took on a magenta hue where the fluctuation stretched it thin.

“Stronger, I think. But less cut, more heat, and I’m not sure if it’s as accurate as it was. To get the most out of it, I might have to be in the thick of it.”

“Then don’t get the most out of it,” I told her, seriously.

“Yeah,” she said, sounding disappointed.

Capes were shouting out orders and trying to communicate, but it was a bit of a jumble. I surveyed things, looked over to make sure the change in volume wasn’t because a Titan was appearing, and then made sure nobody was in dire need of a lift.

“It’s a good thing our targets are so big,” she said. “Just sorta sucks. But that’s enough about me. That thing I was saying about you taking care of your teammates? Tristan’s yelling.”

I turned to look. Sure enough, his voice was among the jumble.