I flew down, one-footed landing, being gentle with the one I’d sprained.

“Please don’t,” Tristan called out, while stomping forward on the steadiest ground he had available, which wasn’t a lot. He sounded like he was out of patience.

“You’re talking to me,” a cape said. A woman with a costume where I couldn’t tell how much of it was winter wear and how much was decoration. It looked like grunge with a parka, messy hair and sunglasses that reflected light as a mix of electric blue and sky blue, but scratched up. I had no idea how she could see through the things. Liquid dripped from her hands and formed clusters of icicle spikes as it hit the ground. The ‘ground’ in this case was the edge of one of Tristan’s messy rubble bridges, all the rubble crushed in together to jam the crack up.

“Yeah. Please don’t fuck with it,” he said. Each ‘please’ came with a tone that sounded more like he was saying ‘fucking’.

“That won’t hold,” she said, indicating the rubble. “If it doesn’t hold while a cape is on top of it—”

“I know it won’t hold,” Tristan said. “But you’re making ice. Ice expands, especially, it seems, that ice. Ice melts, given an excuse. Your ice expanding and then melting is going to mess up my work. Ice is slippery, and I don’t know about you, but I don’t want people slipping while a matter of feet from a hole in reality.”

“I’m just helping, dude. Seriously.”

“That’s not help. Please. I appreciate the effort but my brother used to be an ice manipulator, I’m speaking from experience.”

“Whatever, dude.”

The woman walked off.

Crystal and I floated down the rest of the way. He saw us and huffed, still clearly annoyed. “She was ignoring me.”

“Happens,” Crystal said.

“I could read her mind too. Stubborn, ‘I’m going to continue, show you I can do a good job, and you’ll stop griping at me’.”

“Could be,” I said. I thought about asking him how he was, and I wasn’t even sure how to frame it. “Progress?”

“Some,” he said. “I miss my old power. Just about… any of the power variants I’ve had would be better for this situation than what I’m using now, insect legs excepted.”

“Insect legs?” Crystal asked. “Ugh.”

“Yeahh. I’m not even sure what to call ’em. Turned up for a while after I killed my brother. So, y’know, I’ve adapted. But I like elbow room while I’m adapting, and—mi madre, why?”

He stopped with that, stopping short of saying or doing something, and stuck his arm out.

Shamrock was hopping along the bits of rubble, and as she set her weight down, the rubble shifted, scraped against other rubble, and even groaned.

“Shamrock!” I called out.

She stopped, looking over.