One hand still on her face, she pointed at him and blasted before his expression could change.

Darkness, shadow, distorted space and visual static ripped through armor, flesh, and armor again, tearing a hole clean through him. The hole caved in on itself, metal creaking as it bent, blood fountaining out and splashing up on half the people nearby.

“You stop,” she said.

Shadow 5.11

“Damsel!” Sveta cried out, as the initial shock wore off.

Everyone was backing away from Beast of Burden and from Damsel, who caught her footing and looked down at the body. Sentences were an overlapping jumble.

“What did you do?” Disjoint asked, eyes wide. His mask was a black stick-on sort, but it was divided into two halves, one for the brow and one for the cheekbones. As his eyebrows went up and his eyes went wide, the two halves separated, revealing red-painted skin beneath.

“What I did is obvious,” Damsel said.

“Fuck,” Sidepiece said. She ran her fingers back through the sides of her hair, and there was enough residual fat and blood on them from her using her power that her hair stuck where it was pushed. “He hadn’t paid me yet.”

“Why?” I asked. “Why did you do this?”

“He stepped on me. He struck me. In a fight? That’s fine, you can hit me in a fight. But like this? When I’m helping? I’ll hit back.”

“That’s not a hit,” Sveta said.

Damsel paced a little. People were giving Damsel and the blood spatter a wide berth, and as she moved, people backed up more.

Nailbiter was on the far side of the group, furthest from me. She prowled on elongated limbs, silent, staring.

Damsel spoke up, “I will not be stepped on. I will not be beaten down and take it with a smile. He wanted to be a tyrant but he couldn’t lead. He didn’t know his own place in things and he thought to tell me mine?”

“So he dies?” I asked.

“He knew what he was doing,” she said. “He—”

Her power misfired. She staggered a bit, and Capricorn and Sveta backed away more. Damsel found her balance, but when she did, her hair draped down in front of most of her face, and she let it hang there.

She continued, “He knew the risks when he went toe to toe with me. When he struck me, it wasn’t heated. It was cold, logical. He knew if he didn’t do something, he’d lose his team. He calculated the risk and he calculated it wrong.”

“You pushed him to that point,” I said.

Sveta touched my arm. Fear that I was provoking Damsel when she was in a dangerous state? Or because I sounded accusatory? Both?

“I calculated wrong, I thought he was smarter.”