A short set of stairs led down to the front of the house. Her group’s cars were parked out in front. Bar and Angel stood by Bar’s car. Both were dressed, but still soaking wet.

“Everything okay?” Bar asked.

“Mm hmm,” Ashley responded. She took stock of the pair. Angel was still visibly dripping, trying to keep a straight face. “Did you enjoy yourselves?”

“Yeah,” Bar said.

Angel’s straight face slipped. Ashley bent down, bringing her face closer, and Angel had to fight harder to keep her composure.

Finally, Angel failed to hold herself together, and started giggling.

Ashley smiled, turning to the group that was still making their way down the stairs. J was at the very rear, locking the house. “Someone go back inside. Steal a few towels.”

Angel’s giggles intensified.

“I guess I can pay them back for the towels,” J said.

“Please,” Ashley said.

☽

Angel slugged the heroine. Fist to face. She backed off, shaking her hand. It wasn’t because the heroine was tough, it seemed. Only because delivering a punch that solid hurt.

The woman backed off, hand reaching up to her hand and mouth.

It was chaos and the chaos was something Damsel could well and truly embrace. It was simple and it was easy.

Well, not easy. Four capes against her and her crew.

“Hey, kid,” the big guy of the group said. “You want to try that with me?”

“No way,” Angel responded.

“Rhetorical question,” the big guy replied. “You just punched my wife.”

“She shot my boyfriend with a laser, so fuck you!”

He advanced on Angel, shoulders alternating back and forth as he walked. There was a lightness to his step that suggested super strength. Angel’s head was constantly in motion as she retreated, checking where the clothing racks and shelving units were and weaving between them without really slowing down. There was a lightness to her step, too, but it was more of the sort of lightness that came with a boxer’s training.

The woman Angel punched looked up, peering over her hand, and a forcefield materialized in the middle of the storefront. Angel continued retreating, and her back and head smacked into the wall that had appeared.

“Big guy,” Damsel said. “Don’t pick on a girl half your age and a third your mass.”

The man turned her way. It was weird to see a cape without a mask. He was older, thirty-five or forty, and his blond hair was styled, slicked into position with something that hadn’t faltered in the heat of this skirmish.

“What do you think I should do then?”

“Given the prospect of having to deal with me? Surrender,” she said, with a smile.

“You’re proposing I stop picking on her, half my age and a third my weight, and I pick on you, half my age and, what, a quarter of my weight?”