I didn’t have a response for that. I got my things together and beckoned the kids. As we walked beneath the building, Sveta dropped down from the roof, reeling in her arms with enough force she wobbled mid-step.

The Wardens were a block away.

Narwhal. A big name. She was tall and her horn exaggerated that fact. Her body was covered in scintillating shards of forcefield that looked gray-blue in the light from the sky above.

Weld was there. He had a bag with him that had to have weighed a hundred pounds. Gear for a teammate.

There were seven others. They were faces I didn’t recognize.

And, last but not least, Vista. She had to be seventeen now. As old as I’d been when I’d been hospitalized. She’d updated her costume to show the skin she hadn’t been able to show as a Ward, with legs bare, shoulders and arms uncovered, and she’d dressed up other parts, with new gloves and boots with less cloth and more armor, and a redecoration of the breastplate, so it had grooves running through it. There was a texture to her visor, to the point that it just looked like a pane of opaque green glass, etched with ripples. She had a scarf loose around her shoulders more than her neck, which made me think of Miss Militia.

“Hey, little V,” I said. “Not so little anymore.”

“Hey big V,” she said. “What a time to meet, huh? We need to hang out.”

“We do. So much,” I said.

She approached and gave me a hug, the breastplate of her armor clacking against mine. She squeezed me and I squeezed her back.

“I heard you were better,” she said, quiet.

“Great to see you,” I said. “It seems a lot of other Brockton Bay names are appearing.”

“Tattletale. Rachel. Foil. The other Undersiders.”

“Yeah,” I said.

We broke the hug. She gave my arm a pat as she stepped back. Weld clasped my hand. His other arm was already around Sveta.

“You’re down for this?” I asked.

“You know I am,” Weld said.

“Oh yeah,” she said. “Point me at the bad guys. I’ll turn their world upside-down.”

“They’ll be here in a minute,” I said. Tristan wasn’t here, so I was the de-facto leader on our side. “You’ve read the doc?”

“Yes,” Narwhal said. “Vista, would you do us the honors?”

We weren’t far from the edge of New Haven. The surroundings began to distort.

“My cameras!” Looksee cried out. “Ugggh. They don’t like so many powers and so many of those powers are from your city.”

“You’re staying, Looksee,” I said. “Narwhal, do you have a group hanging back?”

“Our thinker and our blaster,” Narwhal said. “They’ll keep your tinker safe.”

“Don’t talk their ear off, Looksee,” Chris said.

“My cameras do not know how to deal with this power,” Kenzie said, oblivious.