Some of them had laptops or tablets. Chevalier was one of them. He’d taken off his gold and silver helmet and wore a cloth mask beneath. Not his serious armor set. Valkyrie was in full costume, helmet on, and had no technology. She did have a specter standing just behind her right shoulder. A man with a hazy silhouette.

I wore my costume. The white decorative trim on the black fabric was missing, and I planned more ornamentation for my gloves, but the rest was intact. Spires of gold like my old tiara stood up at my shoulders, the middle-center of my breastplate, and decorated the armor around my legs and on my gloves. The decoration at my forehead was a weight that kept my hood down, and my hair draped out over my right shoulder. A protective mask hung from my belt, the curved surface resting around the curve of my thigh. I’d don it if there was danger, and if I didn’t need to speak.

The costume had a weight to it. It felt almost right.

“Talk to me about containment,” Chevalier said.

“The worst-case scenarios here are that this becomes a problem for the city,” I said. “If the Fallen lose but aren’t wiped out, precedent suggests they’ll hit back harder. We could expect guerilla tactics throughout the city, terror attacks, and a hit against Cedar Point in particular.”

“The area that has been colloquially named Hollow Point,” a woman said.

“Yes, ma’am,” Capricorn answered.

“We’ll be operating from the perimeter, because getting into the thick of the situation would be beyond our abilities. Part of our aim will be to keep Fallen from splintering away to regroup and lash out. We’ll have a tinker trap waiting on the main road out of the area, and we’ll have eyes on the logging roads.”

“Does this perimeter extend to containing the villains of Hollow Point?” a man in a suit asked. “If they rush in… does this tinker trap trap them there?”

I looked to my left, where Capricorn stood in his armor, then to my right, where Sveta was. She’d donned some decorative additions. As I wore spikes that echoed the wretch’s hands, Sveta wore armor that curved and curled away.

Kenzie was workshopping and had an earlier bedtime. Chris had wanted to come, but we hadn’t been able to get him in costume, and having him around and uncostumed wasn’t a good look when we wanted to present our best face.

He’d been a little upset.