“Two brutes, like you and me, heavy hitters, we’re liable to have a brawl. I’ll avoid breaking anything breakable because I have an investment in Hollow Point here. You’ll avoid breaking stuff because you’re one of the good guys. You don’t want that bad PR.”

“Makes sense,” I said.

“We’ll have a really polite knock-down brawl, as such things go, and you’ll trounce me.”

“I’ll trounce you?”

“I said I’d tell you how this was going to go, and I’m pretty sure that’s how it’s going to go.”

“Thinker power?” I asked.

“Only thinker power I got is decently good common sense,” Moose said.

I nodded.

“So you’ll trounce me. Thoroughly. You’ll embarrass me, even. Not because you’re a girl and I’m a guy, but because you’re strong and you have more experience, and because fighting someone who flies is a massive bother.”

“You could surrender.”

“Can’t. Invested in this place. But there’s more to it, Glory Girl.”

“Not my name anymore, by the way.”

“Oh, really? Sorry about that.”

“I don’t have another to give you, not yet, but I thought I’d let you know.”

“If you’re going to stay, I gotta fight you and I gotta get trounced.”

“That’s a shame,” I said.

“But there’s more to it. I’m pulling from that common sense, now. You’ll trounce me, I’ll be embarrassed, and in the time it takes for that to happen, others are going to show up. They won’t interfere, but they’ll stand around and they’ll be ready to fight you if you’re insistent on staying. You’ll be outnumbered and they won’t be inclined to play fair, except that they’ll let you leave if you’re willing to leave.”

“Which I will.”

“Good to hear. Except… can we just skip straight to the part where you leave? I don’t want to be embarrassed and you don’t want to run scared from a group of menacing looking capes.”

“I’m supposed to run scared from you instead, Moose?”

“You can knock me around as you make your exit, if you’d like.”

“Really?” I asked, a little incredulous.

He shrugged.

“This isn’t a trap?”

“Nope.”

I used my flight, and rose up off the ground. He didn’t react.

I flew at him, forcefield up, fist out.

He met my fist with his, moving faster than I’d expected. The shockwave from the impact knocked me back and up into the air. I righted myself and hovered on the spot, ten or so feet off the ground.

The shockwave was weird. Intense, and focused. There was more to that brute power.

“I can’t embarrass myself too badly,” he said. “There’s an audience.”

I looked.