Malcolm hadn't kicked him out or anything, but he hadn't seemed particularly thrilled at the idea of Red staying another night. He'd been about to let it happen anyway—mostly out of sheer guilt once Red said he didn't have anywhere else to go—but then Stretch had stepped in and offered the free couch in his apartment.

Good guy, Stretch. He and Red had become fast friends. It was only natural after they'd spent some time beating the crap out of each other.

Still, Malcolm's place also served as their official headquarters, so now the new roommates walked back there for the day. Red squinted against the dawn light as it stung his bleary eyes, yawning, hating the world a little. He almost asked why they couldn’t just each get work calls on a cellphone, but it wasn't like he had a cellphone himself, so who was he to talk?

"Y'know, I figured you'd be more of a morning person," Stretch said, strolling alongside him. He spun his keys around a finger, jingling them in a meandering rhythm, long sandy hair bouncing with each step. Dude was definitely playing it up.

Red scowled at him. "Please don't tell me I have to do this every day from now on."

"Okay, I will not tell you that."

They turned the corner and saw Malcolm's place—an old fire station flanked by townhouses. The Roxbury Outpost. It was a squat thing made of dull red bricks, its garage built for big trucks but containing only Stretch's old car. Not at all what anyone would consider home to a bunch of professional Magicians, but it seemed they valued their comfort over presentation.

Climbing the white steps at the entrance, Stretch reached for the knob and opened the door without bothering to knock, and as innocuous as that was Red felt strangely pleased to see it. Friends barging right into each other's houses was as true a sitcom staple as any, and he'd never expected it would be one he'd ever get to act out.

Stepping inside, Red saw an older girl around Stretch's age sitting at the kitchen table doing newspaper sudoku. Her long limbs and black skin were covered by baggy overalls, and her hair fell out like a lion's mane down her back in thick and tangled curls. On the table in front of her sat a bowl of grapes and a tray stacked with buttered toast.

"There you guys are," she said, idly twirling the pencil in her hand.

Stretch waved. "Hey, Clover. This is Red. He'll be joining the team today."

Clover looked up at him, and Red saw kind brown eyes that seemed incapable of suspicion. "Right, I heard from Baba. It's been a while since we had a new face."

"I'm sure Kitty will appreciate having some seniority. Where is she anyway?"

A new voice came just over Red's shoulder, barely above a whisper. "I'm here."

Instinct kicking in, Red swung at the sound before he could think, arm arcing over in a backhand. Just as quickly he saw another girl dip low, dodging like a shadow under the blow and rising up before him. Her small pale face framed by a bob cut of silky black hair, the girl stared with eyes dark as ink, gaze boring into him like a drill.

Now seeing her standing there, and seeing that no one else was freaking out, Red calmed himself. He felt a little bad about lashing out at a stranger, though that was at least partially her fault as far as he could tell. "Hey, a little warning next time?!"

Only an inch or two shorter than him—and, from what Red could gauge, maybe a year or two younger than him—the girl stared directly at his dual-striped tattoo. When she spoke, her voice came softly and calculated and was directed towards Stretch. "What use is he?"

Red sputtered. "I'm super strong!"

That was all he could say. The girl's eyes passed over him once more, and in that brief instant Red could tell by sheer instinct that she was calculating all the different ways she could hurt him. Then she turned her nose up and made her way back to a now exasperated Clover.

"Kit, seriously? Be nice," Clover said. Turning back to the boys—one mildly offended, the other mildly amused—she waved them over. "Come on then, help yourselves."

They all sat down. Red looked sideways at Kitty, who now made a decided effort to ignore him, popping a grape into her mouth and wordlessly taking Clover's sudoku. The girl started blowing right through it, solving half the thing in a couple of seconds.

Clover let her have it, though not without a stern glance. "Sorry about her. She's not good with first impressions."

"Aw, you jealous, Kit?" Stretch asked, reaching for some toast and sending an arm to the kitchen to pour some water. The extended limb worked the task like it had a mind of its own. "I promise you're still my favorite."

Kitty finished the sudoku and moved right onto the crossword. "I'm not jealous."

Clover rolled her eyes. "Anyway, it's nice to meet you, Red. I would have yesterday, but Kit and I were busy."

Stretch pulled in his drink and leaned in conspiratorially. "Clover always makes Kit sleep over and watch lame romcoms with her," he said, and Clover didn't wait to punch him on the arm. "Ouch."

"Thanks for not killing that golem when you had the chance," Clover said. "Mal said it got pretty spotty. It'll take some time, but it can grow those arms back, fortunately."

Red took some of the toast, stomach grumbling, and bit into it. "You're welcome, I guess. To be honest though, I thought it was dead. Wasn't moving around or anything by the end."

"You need to get to the core to kill one, but if they get hurt enough they go into... I guess you could call it hibernation." Clover reached for some grapes, popping a couple in her mouth. She took a couple of seconds to chew, swallow, and only then continued talking. "Hopefully it gets put away somewhere it can sleep peacefully from now on. There aren't too many of them left."

"What, like an endangered species?"

"Yup. There's only like 500 of them as far as anyone knows. It's hard to tell since they don't really reproduce. No one knows where they came from in the first place." Clover sped up as she talked. "And it doesn't help that they're so hard to find, usually underground, and could sleep for like a million years under a parking lot without anyone knowing any better. This one probably just woke up and freaked out about all the people around it. Doesn't happen too often, but when it does they can do some serious damage."

Talk about animated. "You seem pretty into this stuff," Red said, having gotten about half of that.

Clover blushed, looking down at her grapes, and Stretch chuckled. "Clover here's our resident environmentalist."

"It's literally my job to know these things!" she said.

"Really?" Red turned to Stretch. "Is there, like, a textbook I need to read?"

"Yes," Stretch said, hiding a grin behind a sip of water as Red cringed.

"He's kidding," Clover said. "There isn't a test or anything. I mean, it doesn't hurt to know, but I'm the Eco-Scout, so I'm the one who needs to keep up with this stuff."

"... Eco-Scout?"

"What, did no one explain that to you?" When Red merely blinked in response, Clover sent Stretch a frown. "I know you had time to hash out the details."

They'd actually spent the night arguing about whether or not Die Hard was better than Lethal Weapon. Red preferred the spectacle of the former, but Stretch preferred the buddy-cop chemistry of the latter, and of course the discussion couldn’t be resolved without them watching both back to back. Needless to say, the two had not gotten around to talking about work.

"I obviously did tell him," Stretch said, "but since it's still his first day let's just pretend I haven't."

Clover looked at him, deadpan. "You're useless."

"That's hurtful, man."

Leaning on her elbows, Clover got down to business. "Basically, every Outpost like ours needs a liaison from the ELD—the Ecological Logistics Division. That liaison's called an Eco-Scout."

Red scratched his head. "Wait, so you're not a Ranger?"

"We're still in the RC, so you have to get a Ranger license to even apply for the Eco-Scouts, but I guess it's more like a formality. My main job is keeping track of any Mystic Beasts you guys deal with, like that golem. Y'know, being a Ranger's just as much about keeping the Mystic World safe from the normal one as it is the other way around. Scouts like me are here to make sure you guys don't go overboard."

"She also gets to go to some crazy parties," Stretch added.

Clover gave him a flat look. "They're conferences."

"Uh-huh. I've heard the stories. You have a total rager happening this weekend." He leaned in close to Red, conspiratorially. "It's called 'Jubilance.' Happens in a giant treehouse and everything."

At that Red had to ask. "Treehouse?"

"Yeah, man. But it's not some backyard thing. I'm talking, like, an Empire State Building sized treehouse."

"That’s crazy."

"I know." Stretch's face turned solemn. "We're not invited, though. Guess we're just not cool enough."

"Hey, I'm cool."

Kitty put the pencil down, crossword finished. "Doubt it."

Red refused to acknowledge her, and looked to Clover. "I wanna see the giant treehouse."

"First of all," Clover turned to Stretch, "it's called Jubilee, not Jubilance. Second of all, it’s not a party. Third of all," now she turned to Red, "it’s a carefully furnished World Tree, not a giant treehouse." She watched Red pout, her eyes softening. "Look, I'd love to invite people, but really, it's an important ELD thing. Members only. And most of it is pretty boring anyway. Everyone pretty much sleeps through meetings for two days, so mostly I'm just going to see my mom."

Stretch smiled knowingly. "Meetings every day, open bar every night."

Clover frowned at him again, though she couldn't quite meet his eyes. "You have to keep spirits up somehow."

Red leaned towards Stretch. "Do we get any parties?"

"We kind of get parties," Stretch said. "No open bar though. It sucks."

That did suck, and Red would’ve complained some more, but right that moment he saw Zelda walk into the room. Her hair bobbed with a rich yellow sheen and her purple purse matched her skirt and her makeup looked like a model's and overall she seemed like the one annoyingly otherworldly perfect thing in what was otherwise a messy, lived-in house. Red remembered the single brief interaction they had the day before, and any annoyance he felt over the Jubilee thing focused itself on her instead.

"Morning, Zelly," Stretch said.

Clover raised a hand in greeting, but Red silently stared her down from his seat. Had he turned to Kitty, he would have noticed her doing the same.

"Morning, losers," Zelda said, heading right for the door. "Sitting around wasting time, I see. If you'll excuse me, I have some actual important things to do today."

She walked out without another word, closing the door behind her with a resonant click. They all sat in silence for a moment, then Red and Kitty both said, unprompted and at the exact same time, "She's the worst."

Surprised, they turned to each other.

Kitty sized him up once more. "Hm… Maybe you're not so bad."

Clover sighed. "You're painfully transparent."

"What? She is the worst."

"I don't get it," Red said. "Why is she even here if she doesn't like anybody?"

Clover crossed her arms. "She might not look like it, but Zelda's a tough gal. Any Outpost would be lucky to have her."

Stretch nodded. "Plus, she's Jay's girlfriend."

Clover grumbled at that, though she didn't deny it, and Kitty looked like she'd swallowed something sour.

"Alright, who is this Jay guy?" Red said. "I remember hearing that name yesterday too."

"He's our Captain," Stretch said. "Been on assignment for a while now. I'm sure he'll turn up one of these days."

So basically their boss? He hadn't been there when Red signed all those papers the day before. Well whatever, he'd learned things came when they came, as did people.

"What now?" Red asked, grabbing a handful of grapes.

"Now we wait," Stretch said. "If something turns up, we'll get a call. Until then..." He leaned back, head turning to the TV and the Xbox sitting pretty right under it.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

On his first day, Red would learn that, if Ranging shared anything in common with the average job, it was the sweet, sweet waste of downtime.

- - - — MKII — - - -

Malcolm sat by the window, taking notes as his teacher droned on at the front of the class. Geometry was easy enough. Just follow directions. That came easy to him. Better than English class, having to read some book and pretend like he had anything interesting to say about it. Good story, bad story; what more was there to think than that?

When you write a congruence statement for two polygons, always list the corresponding vertices in the same order, blah, blah, blah, like he hadn’t already read it from that day's chapter. Get to the exercise already, please. Malcolm was too tired for this and his body still ached some from the most recent fiasco. He'd rather just blow through some worksheet and spend the rest of their class time getting ahead on his homework.

Something tapped on the back of the head. He looked down and saw a rolled up ball of paper bouncing to a stop on the floor.

Malcolm then turned and saw Luke sitting a couple rows back, blank faced and staring straight ahead even as everyone else's eyes silently darted back and forth between them. He wore the white collared shirt and dark green slacks that made up their school uniform, same as Malcolm, though he wore them tighter thanks to who knew how much football practice. His jutting chin held back a snicker.

Army-cut, square-jawed douchebag. Malcolm flipped him off, then went back to his notes. This was important. Everyone else might not take it seriously, but he'd ace his way through and go to college and earn his six figures with a real job. Still, he kept some wary attention behind him, and the next time Luke mutely threw a crumpled ball of paper at his head Malcolm's hand darted up, catching it like a snake bite.

Time passed and Luke didn't bother him again for the rest of the class, but then the bell rang and they walked out together.

"I'm just testing your reflexes, Column," Luke said. "Making sure you're not slacking."

"Clearly I'm still good there," Malcolm said.

The two walked past a few rows of slate lockers before finally getting to theirs, one next to the other as they'd picked out at the start of the year. Rummaging through his stuff, Malcolm stored his brick of a Geometry textbook and pulled out the copy of Fahrenheit 451 he'd read through when it got assigned a week before. Fine enough novel, he'd thought, though all he really cared about was jotting down enough notes that he'd have something to work with whenever the inevitable essay got assigned.

"So, didn't catch you here yesterday," Luke said, looking through his own locker.

"I got sick. Bedridden."

"Uh-huh. Did you hear about the fire nearby a couple nights back? Wonder who decided to burn down a random park."

"Some maniac, I guess."

Smirking, Luke shook his head. "Guess so. Probably a shorty too."

Malcolm sent him a scowl, too far, but Luke just kept on smirking. Dollar-store bully, he almost said. You hit your growth spurt early and made that your whole personality. But they were unfortunately something like friends and he didn't have it in him to really go after the guy.

It had started after one of those jobs where no one knew anything other than that something strange was going on around a certain block. Go in, look around, eliminate the threat; basic search and destroy. Night had turned all the shadows into voids of danger, but Malcolm hadn’t learned to summon fire for nothing, so it hadn't been all that hard to head into the alley with a personal lamp for a hand.

He'd found the monster along with its unfortunate prey soon enough. Crawling up the walls had been a big-ass spider the size of a car, prodding at a web large enough to put any haunted house to shame. And stuck there on the web Malcolm had seen a half-formed cocoon wearing a white and green uniform. It had only taken him a second to recognize Luke, the very classmate who never stopped giving him shit at school.

Well, a job's a job, so a couple fire Tricks later the beast had been burnt to a crisp and the web got taken down along with its victim. Malcolm would never forget Luke's face that night: the complete shock of pure belief. Seeing it, Malcolm knew at once it would be too late for the guy to retain any semblance of rationality about all this as so many others often did. He'd seen what he'd seen, and he wouldn't forget.

Didn't mean Malcolm had to tell him anything beyond what was strictly necessary, and that didn't mean Luke had to stop asking about it even after all these months. Sharing that secret had turned out to be solid grounds for an acquaintance. An annoying acquaintance, but there it was.

Now, Malcolm set himself to close his locker, but as he did he saw a group split off from the mid-class current of students and head for them. Rebecca and her gaggle. Adjusting his glasses, he turned back to his locker, pretended to look for something, tried not to stare at her pretty face framed by thick red curls, nose a freckled peach button, wait, no, stop you idiot.

Still smirking, Luke toned down the sass. "Walton, looking good as always."

"And as always, Luke, the picture of a gentleman." Her voice dripped syrup-sweet, and Malcolm liked to think it belied a certain amount of sarcasm, though it wasn't easy to tell for sure. "I thought I'd invite you early. My parents won't be around all of next week and it looks like I'll have the house all to myself. At least unless you're good for a few kegs."

"Ah, right, right. You're full of great ideas."

"Let me know by Monday. And I guess your… friend is invited too?"

Malcolm felt Luke's elbow dig into his arm. He turned, saw Rebecca and a couple of other girls looking at him, all very prim and proper in their uniforms, eyebrows drawn up in a question. He rummaged for his voice, found part of it. "Ah, uh, yea?"

A beat of silence. The other two girls giggled a bit, but Rebecca turned to Luke again, professional. "Perfect. Remember, Monday."

"Sure, no worries," Luke said.

Rebecca nodded, her smile slight but there, and Malcolm kind of hated how it roiled his gut. "Pleasure doing business," she said, and without another word turned to leave, her and her friends dipping back into the hallway flow and swallowed out of sight.

Malcolm watched them go, first wistful, then thinking back on his words, then calling himself a moron. Before he could think himself into a spiral, Luke wrapped an arm around his shoulders and hunched over, looking on along with him at the roaming crowd.

"Congrats, Column," he said. "You're officially going to your first cool people party. I don't really need a 'thank you,' but it would be appreciated."

That was enough to dig Malcolm fully out of his embarrassed introspection. He shoved Luke off and slammed his locker shut. "First of all, I've been to parties with cool people—"

"Riiiight."

"—and second of all, I'm not going, dude. I have work."

Luke thumbed down and blew raspberries. "No, bad, lame. Column, you got invited, you gotta go. It's gonna be on the weekend anyway."

"I still work on weekends."

"Take a day off."

"I really can't."

Seeing that Malcolm wouldn't budge, Luke's smirk returned. "What if I told you that you actually have a shot with Walton? No bullshit."

Malcolm stared at him. Luke stared back. Malcolm sighed.

"... I'm listening."

He was so easy. "Check it." Luke closed his locker and leaned against it, throwing his hands up to mime. "We show up, a little late obviously. Grab a few drinks. I go over to Walton, 'no prob always happy to help,' I say, and you're close by but off talking to someone else because you have other things going on. So I talk you up a bit, 'this guy is actually awesome,' y'know, then I call you over. You come, friendly but like you don't really care, then I'm like, 'show her your stuff Column,' and you blow her and everyone else's minds by setting yourself on fire or something." Luke shot Malcolm the finger guns. "And boom. You're in."

Whatever interest Malcolm had fizzled out by the last few words. He began walking away. "I'm not setting myself on fire."

"I said 'or something!' " Luke said, following after him. "Come on, Column. You have—" He looked around at the other students and leaned in to whisper. "You have friggin superpowers. Don't you think chicks would dig that sorta thing?"

"How many times do I have to tell you? I just want to be a normal person."

"Okay... fine. Fine!" Luke grabbed his shoulder, twirling him around to a dead stop. "Well, normal people go to parties. How 'bout that?" Seeing Malcolm's mounting annoyance, Luke tried to tone down the energy. "Look, I get it, okay? You've got some kind of secret identity, live among the masses thing going on. That's fine. It's dumb, but it's fine. That doesn't mean you shouldn't have a life, right? When was the last time you even did anything with us so-called normal people?" Malcolm looked away. Bullseye. "Yeah. Just think about it, Column. I mean, if you fight literal monsters for a living, you can probably make it through one stupid party. What's the worst that could happen?"

Malcolm thought the worst that could happen was obvious: he could do something that would make him look stupid. But if he actually said that it would just make him sound like a petulant nerd, and he couldn't come up with a better argument. Plus, maybe Luke was right. If Malcolm was honest with himself, part of him did sort of want to try and be more than... than whatever the hell he was.

Just then the school buzzed, a voice booming through the PA. "Malcolm Column, please come to the front office. I repeat, Malcolm Column, please come to the front office."

With equal parts confusion and relief, Malcolm tried shrugging off Luke's hand, but the other boy held strong, brows raised, looking him dead in the eye.

Malcolm sighed again. "I'll think about it."

"All I ask," Luke said with a pat and a final, insufferable smirk. "See you around?"

"Yeah, yeah."

Almost bell time, but Malcolm didn't have to worry about it anymore, apparently. He weaved through the rushing crowd of students as they all speedwalked to class, jogged down a flight of stairs, and went for the door right next to the school's front gate.

Stepping into the fluorescent light of the main office, he saw Baba sitting there on the tan leather seat that stretched around the wall, graying hair tied up in a messy bun, dressed in the same black blazer she always wore whenever she went out. The secretary sitting on the desk by the door nodded at him, said "Have a good rest of your day, sweetie," and after nodding back at her Malcolm went to Baba, who stood at once.

"What's going on?" he asked, surprised. Legal guardian or not, it was the first time she'd ever turned up at school for him.

"We have a bit of an emergency," Baba said, and without any more preamble headed for the exit.

Malcolm thought about asking if he could go back to his locker—the books he had with him weren't really the ones he needed if he'd be skipping out until tomorrow—but Baba walked off so briskly that he didn't get the chance. Seemed pretty serious too, so his homework probably didn't top her list of priorities. The two went down the entrance steps and soon strode down the sidewalk. With everyone either at school or at work there weren't too many people out, but there were still a fair number of cars churning steadily down the road.

They went fast enough that Malcolm could already feel himself dampen some under the high noon sun. God, he couldn't wait till it got colder already. Heavy coats over sweaty armpits any day. "What's this about, Baba?"

"Turn here," she said, making for an alleyway. Perturbed, Malcolm followed her.

They walked between the narrow brick and concrete walls, stepped over fallen trash containers, and eventually Malcolm made to ask again what it was they were doing, but Baba beat him to it, speaking tersely. "There's been an accident concerning Stretch. Should've been a normal enough job, but your specialty could really help."

Malcolm stopped walking. "Concerning Stretch?"

"That's what I just said, so we should hurry up."

Her tired eyes met his, stern. Malcolm knew that look. He'd gotten it plenty of times, at least once a day since they'd known each other...

- - - — MKII — - - -

... But even as he knew it, at that very moment a door opened across the city. Red, Stretch and Clover all turned to it and saw Baba there, wearing the same messy bun, the same black blazer, eyes even more tired.

Unlike the rest, Kitty kept her eyes on the screen and with the press of a few buttons beat Red's life bar empty.

Red snapped back to the TV. "Hey, I was distracted!"

Kitty didn't even turn to look at him. "Should've paused."

"Fucking lame, dude." Red passed the controller over to Stretch, who took it with a face both pitying and resigned. They sat on one couch and Clover lay reading a paperback on the other, though even she looked pained for his sake. "How are you this good? I don't get it."

The truth was that one didn’t live under this roof without getting a reasonable handle on Mortal Kombat, but Kitty wasn’t about to share how much time she’d put into this game. "You should change your character."

"Scorpion's so cool, though," Red grumbled. "He's got a catchphrase and everything..."

Baba walked over, digging into her pocket. "Yes, how are all of you, I'm fine, thanks. What a polite troop you all are." She pulled out a card, holding it up between her fingers. "Here's your license, boy."

"Oh, hey, thanks granny." She threw it at him. "Ow." Picking it up, Red saw himself right there on the plastic with a single star to his name. "Look," he said to Clover, who glanced over to see. "I'm official now!"

"Nice going, 'hon."

In a second Stretch passed the controller back, beaten, though he didn’t seem particularly surprised. Red took it distractedly, still staring at his license. Supposedly the blocky text spelled out his name and some other stuff. He couldn't read a word of it, but it felt important nevertheless. Weighty. Official, just like he'd said.

"Lawrence," Baba said, "if you could, the car's making those sounds again."

That was enough to snap Stretch awake. "Oh shit, really? Hold on." Clicking his tongue, he leaped to his feet and ran to the garage door.

Red watched him go, thumb idly scrolling through the character select screen. Then, looking at Baba as she sat down on her rocking chair nearby, he leaned over to Kitty and Clover. "I’m just guessing here," he whispered, "but Lawrence is supposed to be his real name, right?"

"Yep," Clover said, getting back to her book. "But pretty much everyone just calls him Stretch. Well, everyone except..."

- - - — MKII — - - -

"...except for Baba," Malcolm finished, standing there in the alleyway, broad daylight casting him and the impostor who'd led him there in soft shadows. Slowly, Malcolm shrugged off his backpack, setting it down against the alley wall. "You have a pretty good Trick there. I almost fell for it."

The not-Baba looked at him, eyes calculating. Then, she smiled, and her figure slipped away, face melting like wax, body morphing in a solid cloud. Soon she stood there as a young woman with short red hair and a thick fur overcoat, her smile playful. "Got me," she said, unworried even as she made to step back.

Malcolm tried to stare her down, hands itching to come together. "Who the hell are you?"

The woman took another step back, tutting when Malcolm stepped forward to match her. "I wouldn't worry about me anymore," she said, looking over his shoulder. "I'm only the hook. All yours, Seigfred."

Ambush. Malcolm swiveled around to see a man walking slowly towards him, large and imposing, so much so that he barely cared when the woman took the opportunity to run off in the other direction, her job done. The man—Seigfred—didn't even have eyebrows for christ's sake, completely shirtless save for a thin leather vest to show off a body carved from stone.

"You can try to run," Seigfred said, "but I will follow you, and I will catch you." His voice came like gravel, each syllable rolling solidly and deeply into the next.

That was as much a threat as anything Malcolm had ever heard. The danger buzzed at the corners of his mind, coming in like static. "What's this all about?" he asked, and as he did he felt through his pocket, tapping blindly at the buttons of his phone through the cloth, trying to call anyone.

Seigfred saw him do this, but seemed unbothered. Either he couldn't understand the action, or he was confident enough to think it would make no difference. Wordlessly, Seigfred took a heavy step forward, hand reaching behind his back. A weapon?

At once Malcolm clapped and breathed, shooting a wave of flame. It hit the man head-on washing over him with a loud sizzle. Something popped, a single loud firecracker. Then, the man took a second step forward, vest burnt away, skin now made from a shiny steel that morphed like mercury with each shift of his body.

Malcolm watched it happen, feeling both dread and exasperation, because of course it could never be that easy, and of course this would be the second time this week his Tricks proved apparently useless against something trying to kill him.

Seigfred showed no reaction to taking a fireball to the face. He pulled out the gun he'd reached for and showed it to have broken from the inside, the bullets exploding out from the handle. Dropping it on the ground, he stared forward single-mindedly, raising two metal fists. "We'll just have to do this the hard way, then."

Malcolm would've said something clever, but he could feel his phone rumble in his pocket, and the hope of it took up about all that was left of the free space in his mind. Please come help, he thought, I don't care who. Raising his own hands up in preparation, he resigned himself to what would at best likely be yet another round of injuries to recover from overnight. This was supposed to be a part-time thing, damn it.