“Are you all finished out there?”

“Just about, yes,” Matilda Albrecht said while she cuffed the last criminal. He was muttering curses at her, but she ignored him, lifting his entire body up with one arm and tossing him onto the backseat of a police car.

“Yep, all done,” Warp added. He fiddled with his costume’s sleeve on the other end of the street, next to another member of their team, who remained silent. That was understandable. Scalestrike couldn’t exactly talk in this form, which Matilda found rather comforting sometimes. The rest got rowdy enough as it was.

Josiah, their point of contact in the field, hummed over their comms. “Great. Now, as much as I'd like to send you kids home, there are people in need of your help.”

“Like always,” Warp laughed. “Just tell us where to go.”

Matilda frowned. “Warp. Be respectful.”

“I don’t need you telling me that, Damsel,” Warp shot back, saying her field name as if it were an insult. “Ya think you can order me around just because we’re doing split patrols, huh? Is that it? Cuz last time we did, it was your fault we got caught out by Homeland.”

Irate, she strode up to him and got in his face, speaking in a measured, deliberate tone. “And how many times will you bring that up before you understand that I am not the only person to blame? Pointing fingers won’t do us any good. It’s unproductive.”

Her white-clad colleague crossed his arms. “Says you, the idiot who after months of combat drills fucks up on her first day. Easy to shift the blame though. Not like we had to save your ass from getting split in half.”

Just when she was about to retort, Scalestrike put a massive claw on each of their shoulders, looming over them. They looked up at him, and he shook his gray-scaled head. His shifter ability resembled a pangolin, made larger and far more resilient.

Had it been anyone else, Matilda would have felt that familiar shudder of disgust at their touch. But somehow, her transformed teammate had a reassuring quality to him whenever they were patrolling the streets. It must have been the monstrous proportions, since she definitely didn’t feel that way about his human form.

Before they could speak, he picked them both up by the waist and jumped up a building. The silent hero put them down and continued to run, prompting them to follow along.

“Mind your language, Warp,” Josiah admonished as they headed to their next location. “Let’s take a step back here, remember that you’re supposed to be a team. This all works out better when you think of yourselves as a unit.”

Warp scoffed. “Right. We’re not shit without Nar, anyway. Thanks for reminding me.”

“Warp…”

The boy said nothing more as he used his power, creating localized wormholes in front of himself, stepping through them to travel over the rooftops.

If she was being brutally honest with herself, Matilda didn’t disagree with Warp on that last part. The situation two days ago would have never become that dire if they’d had Nar with them.

That wasn’t to say she thought the other Junior Aces weren’t capable in their own right. They just weren’t on the same level as their leader. She worried what would happen when he moved on from their team. Who would take his place? She wanted to take the reins herself, but it seemed at least one of them still wasn’t ready to accept that.

This was their third day in a row doing split patrols. She’d suggested they group up again, but Josiah and the rest of their supervisors seemed to disagree, going on about the value of covering more ground.

She couldn’t tell if that was due to safety or publicity reasons. In her opinion, they were limiting themselves this way because there were some threats in the district her group wouldn’t be able to take on by themselves. What was the point of splitting up only to run into an obstacle which required them to call in the others?

And if the DHD was just being image conscious, then she didn’t know what for. Matilda had looked herself up a few times since her debut, and her ratings weren’t bad. Far from it. Just from the fact that she was a girl, she was already the second most popular member. She even had her own fan forums online. Some of the posts on there made her uncomfortable, but it was nice to know she was finally inspiring people.

Here and now, she needed to focus on the mission. They had wasted enough time with their childish bickering. She cleared her mind, bounding over the next ledge faster and higher than any normal human could. As a warrior type, one thing she didn’t mind was running long distances. It didn’t make her tired in the least. Not that she would complain if it did, it was part of the job.

Glancing over the readout on her helmet’s built-in display, she learned that they were supposed to help with a fire caused by a villain fighting against two vigilantes. In the distance, smoke billowed into the night sky, rising from the blazing inferno.

The fire department had already been called in, but it was spreading, and they were having a hard time keeping it contained without being able to get near its source. So it was up to them to get the remaining people in the surrounding buildings out of their homes.

Nearing the sight after a few minutes, Matilda squinted her eyes against a particularly bright flash, though that wasn’t necessary with the protections her visor offered. Explosions kept coming, creating even more smoke.

They passed right over the firetruck evacuating people from one side of the area, and headed over to the next building, feeling the temperature rise. At the head of their group, Scalestrike curled into a ball and rolled onto the streets below. He picked up the prone form of a costumed figure lying unconscious on the sidewalk and retreated. She was fairly sure that it was Orion.

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Next, she shifted her gaze to the ongoing fight a short distance away. It was a spectacle. The two vigilantes, Calliope and Shade, faced off against the raging Ignis.

Brightly glowing sparks were drawn in from the fires, swirling around the villain to either fly at his opponents or reinforce the searing heat whip he was swinging around with one rock-clad hand. Shade danced around the attacks, taking every opportunity to reposition himself with his grappling hook and support his partner. She even saw him disappearing from view every so often, reappearing in one of Ignis’ blind spots to strike with his dark metallic staff.

Calliope seemed to be the one responsible for return fire, sending forth shock waves to disperse the sparks and push Ignis back. This wasn’t always successful, and some hits she still had to dodge, never jumping too far off the ground, despite clearly having the power to do so. She was trying to keep herself low for some reason Matilda couldn’t discern.

Ignis straightened out his whip and turned it into a spear, running straight at Calliope. She couldn’t dodge in time, but Shade once again appeared from nowhere to pull her out of the way. Unsurprised, Calliope blasted another shock wave into the face of Ignis, causing him to tumble over the ground, spear dissipating in a shower of sparks.

All the sparks in the air converged on him, forming a protective barrier around Ignis. His two adversaries were already out of the way, though. Matilda watched with a slack jaw. How were they able to coordinate so well?

“Damsel, please don’t get distracted. You need to get the people trapped inside those buildings out,” Josian said.

“I’m on it,” she replied, not bothering to argue. She had not been getting distracted. The fire would have been dealt with more easily if Ignis was stopped, which was why she’d stood there and looked for an opening.

Warp was already inside, getting people out through his wormholes. It was a shame only one person could travel through it before he had to remake it. But he was still getting a lot of people out. Thankfully, they didn’t actually have to look for anyone, since their displays indicated where all the remaining civilians were trapped.

Damsel’s greaves shattered the glass of the top floor window. She landed with a roll and sprinted through this apparent kitchen, shoulder ramming through the front door.

In the hallway, she was greeted by a wall of flames, and it was hot. Not to a level she couldn’t tolerate. No, the real problem was how difficult it was to breathe in this environment, which made her fear how bad it would be for the person in the opposite room.

She punched the apartment open, and was met with a cloud of smoke. She coughed, rushing toward the old lady in the bedroom. She called for Warp to help her get the victim outside, and a swirling portal opened in front of her. She pushed the woman through it, the portal closing behind her.

Finding the stairs would take too long. Her gauntleted fist struck the floor three times and broke through. Even without super strength, her power allowed her to imbue metal with the ability to compromise a percentage the structural integrity of any material it came into contact with, per impact. Whether it was a papier-mache or a wall of diamond, she could break it.

Falling into the empty apartment below, she had her sights set on the closest civilian to free, and went straight in that direction, not caring about the wall between them. Precious seconds ticked by on her display as she continued to free people from the fire.

Outside, the battle concluded with a maneuver from Shade. He managed to get his hook to latch onto Ignis, then yanked the man off his feet. Calliope stepped up immediately and landed a shock wave straight on the villain’s head. Ignis rocked back a few paces on the street, then fell down, the rock and metal covering him receding. Clusters of sparks in the air burst apart, the remnants carried away by the wind.

There were more people that needed to be saved, but there was too much fire. No one could get past all of it.

As if hearing Matilda’s thoughts, Calliope went into a building on the other end of the street, the same one Scalestrike was in. She dissipated some of the flames with her power, but it didn’t hold for more than a few moments. Enough for her to get through, but nothing more.

Her eyes widened as got to another floor. She had been expecting the heroine to just leave. And maybe Shade might, because he was just standing there, in the middle of the road, not rushing to help his companion.

But he, too, proved her wrong. His arms stretched out to each side.

Then the world blackened.

The walls, the floors, the ceilings, the street, the burning cars. And most importantly, the flames. All of it lost its color.

It was surreal, experiencing this. As though she was in some kind of shadowland. She found herself amidst the black fire, unsure of what was happening.

“You seeing this?” Warp said over the comms.

“Indeed I am. We don’t have a detailed log of Shade’s powers, but whatever he did, it seems to have stopped the fire from spreading. Make use of it while you can,” Josiah urged.

They didn’t need to be told twice. As they ran, however, the flames turned even darker. Matilda wouldn’t have thought that possible, but she couldn’t deny it when it was happening right in front of her eyes. All light they might have emitted was now gone, making the flickering fire look like two-dimensional outlines, rather than the real thing.

And they were dissipating.

The Junior Aces hadn’t stopped moving, continuing their rescue operation, now made much easier with only smoke and residual heat to deal with. Soon after, everyone was evacuated, and the environment returned to normal.

Fire reignited in some places. A minor issue, seeing as nobody was inside anymore. The fire department had moved in, finally able to do their job now that the villain threat was confirmed to be neutralized.

Matilda had sent the last few civilians through the portal and moved to apprehend Ignis. There wasn’t much left to do. He was unconscious and looked to be suffering from heatstroke. She merely administered the precautionary measures, handing him off to Scalestrike.

She saw the vigilantes standing not too far away, so she approached them. Calliope turned first, Shade following a second after, swaying on his feet. Up close, Matilda could see his sclera were black as the night, giving him an inhuman look.

The bird mask Calliope was wearing followed Matilda’s every step. She raised both hands to show she meant no harm, then said, “That was fantastic work. I don’t think we could have evacuated everyone without your help.”

“The fight got out of hand,” Shade stated, as if that explained everything.

“Yeah, a lot of people got hurt,” Calliope spoke in a strange, vibrating voice. “I think…” she glanced at Shade. “I think it would have been safer if we just let that guy run away, maybe. It was my fault.”

Despite not being sure about the specifics of what happened before she arrived, Matilda doubted that was truly the case. Although the villains didn’t seem to be here to deliberately hurt civilians. The fires were more collateral damage.

“Invite them for squad try-outs,” Josiah encouraged. She ignored him. It was rude, but she didn’t want to scare these heroes off so quickly.

“You did a great job of subduing Ignis, and it wouldn’t do to let him roam free and attack again some other time, would it?” she said instead.

The heroine nodded. “I hope you keep him off the streets. I wouldn’t want to fight him again. It feels like I just got out of a sauna, but ten times worse.”

Unbidden, a chuckle escaped Matilda. Would Allen approve of her making friends like this? Surely, he would. It was not like there were any other girls on the Junior Aces.

“Are you open to sharing your training routine? I noticed your synergy appeared very well-practiced.” She wished she could just turn off her comms to have this conversation without a whole team listening in, but that would get her in more trouble than it was worth. And she didn’t want to get into trouble to begin with.

“Uhm,” Calliope began.

“Use rehearsed signals,” Shade recommended. He turned and walked away.

“I should probably go as well,” Calliope took that as her cue to leave as well, following him but giving Matilda a small wave.

“What a bunch of weirdos,” Warp came up to her after they’d left.

Matilda shot him a reproachful look he couldn’t see, crossing her arms over her chainmail vest. There was something off about those two, but she wasn’t sure if she disliked it.