I couldn't remember exactly when I had realized I was different from other boys, but I did know the exact date, the exact moment, I realized my parents wouldn't accept me for it.

I sat my phone down on the side table, trying to swallow down my nerves. We had finished the dinner the staff provided an hour ago. I had been probed about how my academics were going while we ate, and afterward we had all retired to the sitting room where they both dove into their work without a further word. Another day in my gilded cage. And come Saturday, I'd be on a flight back to school, my chance gone. It was now or never. "Father…? Mother…?"

When one grew up the heir to a prosperous family-run and -owned company, there was no such thing as school break. That isn't to say we never went on vacation, though I remain convinced most, if not all, of the trips we took were just shows of status, no different than my constantly updating designer clothes. No, I meant that I had no life outside of the one my parents were shaping for me. Elite boarding school, personal tutors, leadership camps, etiquette lessons—my parents were sculptors, and I was their marble to shape.

"Yes, Dean?" My mother looked up from her tablet, stylus tilted in her hand as she regarded me. Father remained fixated on his laptop, but I perhaps had half his attention. He thought himself a multi-tasker, and maybe it was true. Maybe I was just selfish, wanting his eyes on me instead. "What is it?"

We had been in LA for a conference on emerging trends in the tech sector. Or rather, my parents had been, and I was brought along as well. As a rising middle schooler, I had apparently reached the age where I needed to begin learning how to handle myself in business situations, and my parents had deemed the conference 'low stakes' enough for me to practice. It went without saying that it was a test. But if it hadn't been for one particular moment on that trip, I don't doubt it would have become just another hazy memory of a childhood sacrificed upon the altar of capitalism and high class society.

"I, uh—" I faltered, and in doing so had already failed. My mother's eyebrows lifted by the slightest margin, nigh unnoticeable if one didn't know what to watch for. My father's eyes flicked up towards me, lingered for a moment, then returned to his laptop. A charitable reading of their reactions might conclude they could tell I was anxious about the topic I wanted to discuss and were giving me space to speak. But all I heard was echoes of my decorum tutor's silent judgment for using an unintended filler word.

That moment began so innocuously that my memory of how it started remains hazy to this day, not at all like what followed. As we rode the elevator from the penthouse down to the lobby to depart for the conference, two women had gotten onto the elevator. Looking back on it later, I might have noticed they looked a bit different. But regardless of whether hindsight had colored my memory, I had identified them as women then returned my attention to my posture, knowing Mother was likely watching me and taking note. A perfectly normal, everyday occurrence—right up until my parents hurried me out of the elevator.

"I need to tell you something," I forced out. I was already admitting weakness; compounding that with failures would only make this harder, would make them more likely to reject me than they already were.

Had we been late, I wondered? My parents never rushed and were never late, but it wasn't an altogether alien concept—merely incompatible with my view of my parents. I might have asked, but I nixed that the moment I had glanced up to Mother in confusion only to find her expression stony. I learned why a few minutes later once we were in the back of the car and Father had sealed the divider between us and the chauffeur.

"Any further delay, and we'll die from suspense." If one was unfamiliar with Father, they might have laughed at the deadpan delivery. I recognized it for what it was; a mask to hide his impatience.

The women had been men—crossdressers, deviants, abominations—Father had informed me. People who had no business being in such an establishment, Mother had added. And as they went on to explain the signs to look for, what to do if I encountered one, and so on, it took every fiber of self-control that had been drilled into me to keep my face placid, to 'mhm' and 'yes' and 'I understand' in all the expected places.

Any further delay, and I might not say it. Might let it lie another day, week, month, year. Might keep the truth trapped in my chest, where it would wither and die, where the rot of its corpse would contaminate me, poison me, until I too died. Because when the only choices left were certain death or an impossibly thin ray of hope, the odds of failure stopped mattering.

Because once upon a time, a little girl that everyone thought was a little boy was told by her parents that she was an abomination. "I'm trans."

###

Brockton Bay was an oddity in New England. The ocean to the East and the hills enclosing the city on all other sides meant the Spring evenings weren't cold enough to kill the unprepared.

It was easier to imagine I hadn't been allowed to pack a bag or take a coat because my parents knew I wouldn't meet my end at the weather's hand.

They threw me out. I felt numb, staring at the gate to our property. Their property. The metal bars gleamed with the bloody light of the sun setting behind me. A distant part of me knew I needed to find somewhere to stay overnight, but— but surely this was just another of their tests? Or if it wasn't, then cooler heads would prevail? They wouldn't really throw me out…?

I wasn't sure how long I waited, not without my phone. Long enough for the sun to finish its retreat. Long enough for the light in my parents' bedroom to turn off.

"They threw me out." The bars were cold in my grip. Wild laughter bubbled up out of me. How long had I wanted a life outside these bars, outside the cage I had been born into, and now I wanted back in?

I hadn't put together any sort of supplies. I'd been only just keeping it together, and acknowledging the very real chance—likelihood—of being disowned would have sent me teetering into the abyss. Damned by my own ineptitude, I made my way to the nearby park, the only place my brain could scrounge up right then. I settled on a small copse of trees off the path I could only barely make out in the thin moonlight, and I eased myself into the groove between two of the thick roots sinking into the cold dirt.

Where would I sleep tomorrow? A shelter? Would they ask for ID? They had to, I was a high school freshman, clearly not an adult, so they'd want ID, and I wouldn't have it, and they'd call the police, and they'd find my parents, and I'd fail the test because this had to be a test, it was always a test, so no—no shelter, no. So I needed to find somewhere warm to sleep because I was so cold, and I didn't know if I could do this another night, and oh—oh, what about food? I wasn't hungry now, dinner wasn't so long ago was it? (I didn't know) But I was going to be hungry, and that meant I needed food, and I would be hungry before I needed to sleep, so that meant food, then food two more times for lunch and dinner too, then sleep, then all over again until the test was over. (It was always a test).

I blinked. The sky above me had begun to turn… blue? I slowly pushed myself up out of the roots, confused and drained. My body heavy, I eventually climbed to my feet and stumbled past the tree trunks and found burnished hues creeping over the skyscrapers dominating downtown. Sunrise—I hadn't slept. I thought of the boys in the dorms back at Horizons Academy, of being roped into all night movie marathons the night before break and falling asleep on the flight home, of fanciful dreams where I was made into a girl for some outlandish reason, of my parents being forced to admit it was all beyond my control, of there being no choice left but to just be a girl. I hadn't failed the test—the test had failed me.

My stomach growled, and I put one foot in front of the other. I couldn't eat dreams.

###

It took me three weeks to realize I had failed.

I met Gin and Hana on my third day, an older pair of homeless, who took pity on me. They were cautious of me—of my clothes, I later learned, which marked me as not one of them—but two nights of fitful rest in the dirt and grime had sullied the image enough to inspire doubt. My desperation had done the rest. They showed me the ropes, let me crash in their tent at the abandoned ferry station, let me use the heavy shawl Hana had found in a dumpster behind a boutique on the boardwalk some years ago, apparently so out of style it couldn't even merit the discount rack. Perfectly serviceable clothes, thrown away instead of being donated. It was no blanket, but what little warmth it afforded me during those cool nights left me feeling like a queen.

It all came to an end two weeks later. It wasn't cops chasing me down for rummaging through dumpsters like I'd feared. It wasn't my parents somehow finding me and welcoming their daughter home after passing their test like I'd hoped. It wasn't anything particularly special about my newfound homelessness whatsoever. I was hit by car. Running a red light, because of course they were.

A car driven by my parents' CFO.

He didn't run. He called 911 when I couldn't stand, and he gave the EMTs his insurance information while they loaded me onto a gurney, and he apologized to me and wished me a swift recovery, and he was telling the officers called to the scene what happened as I was wheeled away—

—and he acted like he had never met me in his life, like I hadn't dined in his home more times than I could remember, like he hadn't given me personal lessons on financial investment at my parents' behest.

"I'm Dean!" I shouted at him, as I was loaded into the ambulance, the name like ash in my mouth after Gin and Hana had used my name, had called me Therese, after I had been me for two weeks, but I needed him to see me—! And he did. He looked right at me, and the officer did the same and asked if he knew me.

"No."

I wanted to scream and shout, to get answers, but the EMTs did something, then I was limp and loose, limbo swallowing me. And they asked about my family, and I don't know what I told them before I woke up, my side sore and the lights bright. The nurse asked me about my family, and I thought of the man I had known, who had lied directly to the police, and before I knew it, I was rattling off the name of the CIO. And when they came back and said she didn't know me, I gave the CPO instead, and he said he didn't know me either—

Name after name, denial after denial. People I had eaten with and learned from, people who had told bad jokes I politely laughed at, people I had loathed but pretended to like anyway, people who I had known for years and years. And with each name I gave the staff, each denial it bought, the staff grew more distrustful. A patient advocate came to speak with me, to reason with me. "I want to help you, but I need to know who your parents are, 'Dean,'" and I could hear the quotes around my name when she used it. And as much as I hated that name, as much as I never wanted to use it again, it was me, the mask I took off to feel free, that I needed to wear again.

"Dean Stansfield," I whispered, not looking at her. I couldn't stand looking at all the little tells, the skepticism she was trying and failing to hide. "I'm Dean Stansfield."

"I thought you might say that." That got my attention, dragged over my unwilling eyes. Her expression sent dread trickling down my spine, ice pooling in my chest. "We can notice a trend, 'Dean.' It's impressive, memorizing so many names from the Stansfield Systems org chart like that."

I know them, I wanted to say, to scream and shout. But there was no point.

She showed me an article from the newspaper. The lie that two weeks ago, my parents had unexpectedly pulled me out of boarding school in the middle of the semester, citing health concerns necessitating home schooling for the foreseeable future.

It had taken me three weeks to realize I had failed the moment I admitted I was trans.

"'Dean'?" She waited for me to respond. But I couldn't. "Okay. I'll let you get some rest then. But if you change your mind, if there's anything I can do to help, you can use the bed phone to call my extension, okay?"

She scribbled 'Yelena #0320' on the room's whiteboard and left after one final look over her shoulder, her black curls disappearing around the corner. Dinner came a minute later, and I aimlessly picked at my fried green tomatoes until I eventually drifted off, exhausted with failure.

I dreamed of my parents, of tests, of darkness and stars, and when I woke up, I had powers.

###

"PRT non-emergency line. How may I assist?"

Having powers meant I had options, choices I hadn't had when I fell asleep. I could be an independent hero or a rogue, though things would be very rough until I got well established, perhaps even then. Vigilante laws gave independent heroes some leeway with what they could do with money secured from villains during their capture, but I'd heard there were lots of caveats, and the nature of the 'income' could obviously be sporadic.

"Hi, yes." I winced, clearly envisioning my parents staring me down. "I-I have powers. And I, uh—" I winced again. "—didn't have them yesterday?" A lovely summarization.

Rogues had less limitations that I knew of, and I could envision a few careers where sensing emotions could be beneficial—less so for my energy blasts I intuitively sensed I could make but dared not test while trapped in a hospital bed. I could be a therapist, an interrogator, a lawyer… just about any job where having a sense of what someone else was feeling would be helpful, really.

"Okay, understood," the operator replied, his tone shifting slightly. I felt a small twinge of annoyance that I couldn't identify what he was thinking as easily as I had seen my morning nurse's mild frustration laced with frantic worry and weariness. "Are you calling to inquire about joining the Wards?"

But being a hero, joining the Wards, that appealed the most. I could help people without needing to charge them and without needing to worry about meeting my basic needs. I could have room and board while saving money, and maybe… maybe I could have a fresh start.

"Yes, b-but, I need more info." The words practically tumbled over each other out of my mouth. My cheeks burned with the shame of failure, of judgment I couldn't shake. "I'm at Bayside, room—" I checked the board the advocate had written her number on "—1803. My parents, they're… please, they can't know."

That hardly did the situation justice. I could only hope it was enough. "I understand. There are some special circumstances where that may be appropriate. Our field rep is on the way and will be able to make a better determination."

###

It wasn't.

"Thank goodness you've found him!" my mother said as she rushed past the PRT field rep to my side, perfectly playing the part of the worried sick mother. Disgust, deceit, determination—her colors, cold and contracted, swam and shifted so rapidly I had trouble keeping up. "Dean, love, are you okay?"

"I'm terribly sorry for the hassle," I heard my father tell the rep by my room's door in hushed tones, his apparent relief contrasting starkly with the greedy glee that dominated most of his aura.

My parents were the CEO and CMO of a lucrative tech company, and it wasn't because they were stupid.

"Emotion reader, hm?" my mother whispered into my ear, as she leaned in to wrap her arms around me.

"We pulled him out of school after a breakdown on campus," my father lied with such ease I almost believed him, almost doubted my own sanity. "All this powers business… We hadn't expected he'd just walk out in the middle of the night."

They hadn't just disowned me for being an abomination. They had also sown the seeds of the perfect cover story, just in case.

"You threw me out," I croaked, too quiet for the rep to hear. I wish I had yelled. Shouted. Screamed. But would it have made any difference?

"What are you talking about, dear?" she hummed into my ear, the tone dissonant against my thoughts, out of time with my thundering heart.

"I've spoken with our staff, adjusted responsibilities. We'll make sure he's kept at home until he's better."

They would have security footage from the night I was thrown out, artfully edited to show only what they wanted. They'd have pulled strings with their C-Suite, who would all suddenly recognize me, all with believable excuses for why they didn't recognize me before.

At home. Satisfaction and vindictiveness. Where they controlled the narrative. Each flowed into the other. Controlled everything. Looping endlessly. Where they could do anything. "I—" Anything they wanted to me. "I—" ANYTHING THEY WANTED.

Something was beeping.

"You're welcome to do so, but the Wards program is happy to cover—"

"I'm sure the PRT's therapists are experts where powers are concerned," my mother interjected, her hand on my arm nearly as cold as the emotions wrapped around her heart, "but I think our boy needs better care than that."

More beeping. I needed— needed to say— needed—!

"If you're— I'm sorry, nurse? Nurse?!"

###

In the end, I didn't join the Wards. Dean Stansfield did.

There were mornings when I'd wake up, and nothing felt real. When I looked in the mirror, Dean Stansfield looked back. When I looked in my closet and drawers, I found Dean Stansfield's clothes. When I went to the abandoned ferry dock in Downtown, I never found Gin or Hana. When I went to my parents' parties, everyone knew Dean. When I unmasked to my teammates, they met Dean. When I had therapy, we talked about Dean's week, Dean's dreams and fears.

And my parents, they loved Dean. They were more successful than ever with Dean's help. Mandatory family bonding time, part of the agreement their lawyer struck with the PRT. And Dean's parents loved bonding with him when they were at the negotiating table. Not with him, of course, that might have made the PRT bring down the hammer of NEPEA-5. But he could see auras just fine through walls, and if he happened to talk about the pressure points and weaknesses when there was microphone nearby and broadcasting directly into their hidden earpieces… Well, that was just the best way to bond with them.

And Therese? She was no one. A fiction made up as a coping mechanism, Dean's therapist told him. Understandable for a young boy under so much pressure to succeed.

There were mornings when I'd wake up, and nothing felt real.

"What? I'm hungry."

But June, she taught me to dream again.

"Good. You've arrived." Armsmaster started towards Faultline and Meteor, and I dutifully followed while puzzling over the conundrum in front of me.

Of course, I hadn't known her name was June at the time. Meteor, she called herself. A new cape in the city who had made some waves with the local gangs before joining Faultline's mercenary outfit. A maybe-Tinker, definitely-Shaker I had been brought along to help assess. A girl whose voice and body seemed… off from the footage I'd found of her in my preliminary research, different in ways that didn't quite fit the transition from a recording to the real deal.

A girl whose aura was utterly mesmerizing.

"As promised."

If I had been asked to summarize Meteor's feelings in that moment, 'unfettered elation' would have been the best response I could muster.

"Indeed. Let's keep this short. The boots, if you would?"

Every move she made, everywhere she looked, her aura radiated unadulterated joy, the lovely pastel pink dominant in a way I so rarely saw, the depth of her aura boggling to behold. She was feeling everything so intensely, her aura so saturated, that I wasn't sure if I had ever met someone feeling so much at once.

Meteor whined, need and affront welling up in her, not even remotely dissuaded by Faultline's, "Meteor," in rebuke.

This was her boss, her source of income. She was a new cape, likely in dire straits if the petty robbery we'd tied to her was any indication. She needed this woman's support right then. And she stood up to her as easy as breathing.

"But I'm hungry!" And she was. She was… intensely hungry, the need I'd never seen anything like it.

Before I knew it, I was feigning a chuckle, a half-baked excuse tumbling out of me. "I must confess I'm interested in some food as well."

Armsmaster paused. Was he consulting his lie detector? God, why had I said anything? I was a bit peckish… Hopefully it was enough.

My heart skipped a beat before he grunted, "Faultline?"

"I was planning to let Meteor get food while we were here anyway," she began, her irritation softened by the fondness bleeding through it, "but I suppose we could join you."

Disaster averted, my attention moved back to Meteor and dissecting her enchanting aura as she began to order her food. I'd seen the shade of her joy, but never so much all at once. Feminine pride. Why? Why was she feeling it so strongly? It made no sense! I'd almost exclusively seen that shade at clothing stores, the few school dances Victoria had dragged me to, flirting in the halls—times when girls leaned into their femininity. Meteor's costume had a skirt, but it hardly exuded femininity, so why…?

"That covers it, yeah? I'll take my change in coins."

Having missed most of her order, I was shocked to notice the $18.03 on the register's screen. "Wow. That's… a surprising amount of food for a girl your size."

Worry. Gratitude. Mild deceit. And beneath and over and through it all, that feminine pride surged.

"Well I was dieting until recently, but my doctor told me, um—" Oh. Oh. "—I was overdoing it and needed to stop for now."

Everything clicked into place. Her suddenly long hair. Her seemingly different proportions.

"I… see."

And Amy Dallon's complete one-eighty.

"Do you think…?" I started to ask, the words escaping me before I could stop them. Too late. Too late to take the words back. Too late to stop me from dreaming again.

"Think what?" Meteor asked, a gentle confusion rippling over her overwhelming pride in how far she'd come.

"Do you think she could do me too?" "No, never mind. I'm sure your doctor can handle it."

Meteor was a terrible liar. "Not interested, sorry. Trade secret."

She was irreverent. "And I am obligated to not give you the finger."

She was outrageous. "She's saying I'm a crude bitch who speaks what's on her mind."

She was a messy eater. "Hughly scheet, dhish eesh gooooo!"

She was a back-talker. "Whaaa? But take-homesies!"

But one thing she was most definitely not was an abomination.

"It was nice meeting you or whatever!"

I think I successfully masked my laugh with a cough.

It was nice meeting you too.

And if she wasn't… then maybe I wasn't either.

###

"Please tell me you're joking."

She wasn't.

"I wish I was," Hannah said with a grimace, her aura a complicated swirl of sympathy, vicarious anger, and a myriad more colors competing for dominance. It was a cold comfort that she was handling this instead of Colin.

My hands trembled as I pulled the paperwork closer, colored tabs and obnoxiously bright yellow 'sign here' arrows jutting out of it. Years of experience at my parents' negotiating table had my eyes instinctively processing the tidy table of contents at a glance. Dossiers for potential relocation cities. Rebranding ideas from marketing. Application for a GED. The forms for a legal name change order.

"It's out of my hands." I didn't need my power to hear how much she hated to admit that. "They've… at least given you a few cities to choose from. New York is on the table—learning from Legend could be a game changer for you."

I had already changed my name legally. Missy had given me such a big smile—and meant it!—when I told her it was the best Christmas present I'd ever gotten.

"They're just— just rumors." I knew it wouldn't make a difference. But I couldn't stop the words or the tears from coming. "I can— I could take a few months off, just rebrand, not— not—"

Not change my name.

"Therese—" Her aura shifted, shame and sympathy mixing with her resignation as I failed to completely suppress an involuntary sob. She'd realized too late that she had stepped onto a land mine, but she at least had the decency to nudge the tissues closer without otherwise drawing attention to my cracking hold on my emotions. "I'm so sorry, but it isn't. The PHO moderators have been doing their best to keep up, but you know how the internet is. Reporters have caught wind of it and are pressing for comment."

I hiccuped and pulled away from the paperwork. I couldn't meet Hannah's eyes. She'd left unsaid my parents' response. I hadn't heard from them since my eighteenth birthday just three days ago, but their company's press conference that same day had made their position quite clear. "Clarification in light of our child coming of age," their spokesperson had called it. I called it airing our dirty laundry in public, using the truth about our strained, non-existent relationship to obfuscate the lie that I hadn't had a future in their company for years.

I abruptly shot to my feet, practically tripping over my chair as I all but fled. Hannah didn't follow. That was good. I didn't want her to see me like this.

I stumbled down the hall, nearly swearing when I realized that meeting with Hannah in the Ward's wing meant I hadn't brought my helmet, a mask, anything that could hide I was crying. I started hurrying down the hall, rubbing furiously at my eyes in a vain attempt to scrub away the evidence. I passed the gym, the overnight dorm in sight. I just needed to get to my room before—

Light hunger and mild boredom came into view ahead as Missy emerged from the kitchen with a plate of snacks. Shit! I whirled around, but I'd seen the surprise and worry overwhelm her boredom.

"Tee?" I ducked into the gym, a last futile effort. No such luck. I felt the air behind me shift as she used her power to shorten the space between us down to a single step. She caught the door, following me in. "Tee, what's wrong?"

"Nothing!" I forced myself to say as I started towards the punching bags at the back of the room. The wall was floor to ceiling glass panes behind them, the city outside glittering in the setting sun. "Thought I'd get in an evening workout. Missed the door for the gym."

I didn't need my power to know she didn't believe that one bit. Her tone said it all, clear as day. "You're wearing jeans and a blouse."

"I-Impromptu." I would never—never—regret starting HRT, but I could have really done without the mood swings right then. I forced a laugh out as I reached the bags. I sounded like a balloon losing air. "Never know when Empire might try and jump me!"

Fuck, what the fuck was I saying?

She pulled the door closed, and I heard the lock turn. "C'mon, don't— I thought we were…"

"Dammit, Missy, I just—" Everything was out of control, my life, my breathing—dammit! I started punching one of the hanging bags, my half-ass excuse abruptly becoming real. "I just—" punch "This isn't—" punch "I just need—!"

DAMMIT! I snapped out another punch, hitting the bag as hard as I could. A blast the size of my fist gave it enough kick to smack into the ceiling with a plasticky thwack. I twisted on my heel, shifting out of the way of the bag's downward arc and rounding on my wide-eyed teammate.

"My parents have all but disowned me! I knew they didn't love me—had never loved me—but I thought that maybe they could at least love what I could do for them! Piggot wanted me transferred to another city when I came out, did you know that? Everyone wanted me to transfer, get me out of this hellhole, nazi-infested city, make a clean break, be a different hero. I told them no so I could stay, no so I could try and salvage something with my parents. And look what that got me!"

I only half noticed I had started pacing, the repetitious back and forth draining my steam. But I couldn't stop. Not yet. "I used my power for them, figured out how to pressure other companies into better deals! You know what that means, right? That's illegal! It was i-illegal, and I—I don't even know how many times I did it. I'm a c-c-criminal. I l-l-let t-them use me, and— and— and people somehow know I'm Gallant, and now I— I have to— to change—"

"Fuck them."

I started, shocked out of my devolving ramble. "W-What?"

"Fuck. Them." Missy jabbed a finger out the window in vaguely the direction of my parents' headquarters. "They don't get to tell you what to do!"

"It's not them though! It's—" Actually, maybe my parents were the source of the leak? Perhaps they had begun to fear the fallout if I revealed what I'd done and had preemptively triggered it while they could control the outcome better? That wasn't the point though. "—Piggot and Image, they're putting their foot down. Someone keeps leaking my identity. They want me to change cities a-and my name."

God bless her, she barely hesitated. "I repeat: Fuck. Them."

The image of Missy marching into the Image department downstairs and telling them all to fuck off left me giggling more than a little hysterically. "Missy?"

"They can force you to move—that's theirs. But your name—either of them!—that's yours. Yours, got it?"

All momentum lost, my resolve crumbled. I flopped down against the glass pane, the sleek surface cool against my flushed neck as I finally let myself cry. As it turned out, crying wasn't quite as bad with a friend.

It helped that she had a plate full of thin mints.

"I might have stolen these from Dennis," she admitted in a dramatically hushed, conspiratorial tone. "He bought two dozen boxes! Two dozen! He's not gonna miss one."

Helping my parents violate NEPEA-5 was decidedly not on the same level as pilfering Girl Scout cookies. Missy had to know that. She also had to know that with my identity doomed to becoming public, that 'Therese Stansfield' couldn't just move to a new city without people connecting me to whatever new hero identity the PRT foisted on me. I'd be dooming myself to the whole cycle repeating itself.

I gamely tried to meet her halfway, though my warbly voice easily undercut my weak, attempted humor. "As a hardened criminal myself, your secret is safe with me."

I popped the last of my cookie into my mouth then froze. Wait.

"Excellent." She passed me another, missing that I was suddenly a million miles elsewhere, and bopped her own against mine in a faux toast. "Then we have a pact, fellow ne'er-do-well."

June. What if… What if I joined Faultline's crew? I'd mostly used ball-shaped blasts as Gallant, but I could change that easily, and my emotion-sensing wasn't public knowledge at all. The PRT would put two and two together, but the general public? That was a lot less likely, especially if I leaned hard into a very different cape persona. Could I do that though? Not 'would they let me,' but could I do that? Loosen my morals, use my powers for profit? I had debated it when I triggered…

Rationally, I knew that pondering whether to give up being a hero to become a mercenary wasn't why the Endbringer alarms went off. That didn't stop me from feeling like it had. It didn't stop my guilt.

And it didn't stop me from seriously considering leaving.

###

I thought I had made the right choices.

I can't stop this cape alone, I had thought as I went to Meteor for help stopping Loki, ignoring every sign something was dreadfully wrong with her.

She can help them after, I had thought as I convinced her to help me first instead of her teammates, dooming Faultline to bleed out.

We need to end this now, I had thought as I ignored that she was regenerating after crippling injuries, a power she hadn't had before.

These people need immediate medical attention, I had thought as I let her fly off after, unknowingly sending her off to find Faultline on the verge of death.

This needs to end, and she needs to know she's in control, I had thought as I set her on the path to making Nothung flee, to letting her fall right into Amy's arms.

She needs the truth, and Victoria needs it too, I had thought as I argued Meteor's mother down from murdering Amy on the spot, letting her daughter hear exactly what I thought she needed to hear.

I thought I had made the right choices. Made them with good intentions.

But good intentions didn't stop the consequences. Didn't stop the sound of Amy's scream from ringing in my ear or the image of June's horrified face from haunting me as the rest of the Wards left to go home, as I paced the hall outside her cell, as I desperately tried to remember what parahuman law attorneys I knew.

Didn't mean I hadn't failed.

I was falling, buried beneath my failures, trapped in a grave of shadows with the dull embers of everything I'd done, every one of my hopes and dreams. It was all so little, in the end. And at what cost? I couldn't find my way in the dark, couldn't walk that path again even if trusted myself to. I gave up and was glad for it, and in my acceptance, they found me. Lights more numerous than I could count, than I could ever have imagined. I remembered. Remembered they had trusted me, remembered the child they had entrusted to me, who had watched and learned and grown.

"—llant?" I groaned, heavy. Where…? "Gallant, are you okay?"

"I'm fine," I lied, trying to shake off whatever had come over me.

"You've been here for hours, kid." It took me a moment to place the aura as Cache, one of the Protectorate here. We'd only met briefly… before…

His aura was behind me.

He started ferrying me forward to where the elevators were down the fall. "C'mon, you need sleep. You've been up for, what, a day and a half?"

"I…" Beside me now. I wasn't looking at him. I wasn't looking at any of the auras I felt all around us. What? "But—"

"No 'buts.' And don't get back up until you've had some proper sleep, or I'll get Standstill to make you stay in one place until you do."

Behind us, June's shifting aura got further and further away.

###

To say it was unnerving, being mere steps away from the crossfire of an argument between so many dangerous people, did not do my feelings justice. Legend, a member of the Triumvirate with an absurd number of incredible powers at his disposal. Labyrinth, a cape so strong in the right conditions that the PRT had designated her a Shaker 12. Heavensword, a woman whose ruthlessness more than made up for any deficit between her own considerable strength and the two titans to whom she stood opposed.

And Meteor. June. My friend who could now obliterate a city if she wanted.

I shouldn't have been there. I should have fled the moment I had led the disguised Heavensword to her daughter. I should have trusted Labyrinth to convince her friend—her girlfriend, if perhaps no longer—to stop wallowing. I shouldn't have been there. I shouldn't have been allowed to speak, to make more choices, more mistakes.

But my friend needed help. "You're afraid."

June's gaze slowly drifted to me. Her aura was difficult to decipher, even after I'd changed, but I didn't need my powers to understand the haze of detachment settling over her slackening features.

"Of the harm you can do." She needed help, and for all their power, these three didn't understand what she was feeling. They didn't understand what it was like to be so scared of hurting what you cherish that you're left paralyzed, so scared of yourself that you can't act. "Of not knowing what's you anymore."

But I did.

"It's too much for just you, and having powers doesn't make that any better. You don't believe in yourself."

I didn't believe in myself either.

Heavensword's frustration and anxiety swelled, her self-loathing worst of all. "This is not help—"

But June had. "But you're not doing this alone."

Even when I had told her I was what she feared. Even when she had left for space to process, there had been trust in her heart. Doubt, yes, and so much fear, but there had been trust, and it was still there.

I latched onto that. The determination burning in my heart, the need to stop standing still, to act.

I stepped forward, my power rearing up in me.

"Please forgive me."

I wrapped her in my arms and let go, my power flowing into her. Changed. Untested. I was going on pure instinct, on how my power felt like it would work. It could have been the worst mistake I ever made.

June stirred, the detachment washed away—replaced. And in its absence, my feelings remained, burrowing into place.

"Nothing permanent," I had told her at the park. Not anymore. God help me, not anymore.

Please forgive me. I started to pull away, shaking as I waited for her to realize what I'd done, to crush me like she had Amy. She grabbed my arms, and my heart leapt in my throat as she tugged me closer.

She hugged me. It was brief, so quick I almost didn't believe it had happened. And when she pulled back, there was a fire in her eyes. A fire I hadn't seen in months. Some of the weight on my shoulders bled away. Barely any, truth be told.

But it was enough. "Now let's go save your friends," I said, the words tremulous.

"Labs." June turned to Labyrinth's wolf projection, her hand reaching for the helmet under her mother's arms. Hope sparked in the woman's aura as she let it leave her grasp, metal and non-metal components alike warping and twisting into liquid metal. "Help with my costume, please?"

Even before she'd finished speaking, the PRT prisoner fatigues had begun to shift like the helmet, the loose, uncomfortable cloth shrinking around her body and settling into the form of her costume while the liquid metal flowed around different segments of both her and me. June—no, Meteor was in the air before her scarf had even finished wrapping around her face.

"Let's go."

The rusted iron gate blocking Labyrinth's stairway to the surface were thrown wide as Meteor flew us up. I slapped my hands over my cheeks, the wind whipping past us fast enough that I worried my temporary domino mask might get torn off. We were at the surface in seconds, thrown straight into the madness. The square surrounding the PRT headquarters was gone, replaced with an ancient maze of cracked stone walls standing easily several dozen feet high. At one of the nearby entrances to the structure, PRT agents and a hero I couldn't place at that distance were trying to take cover from several of the Teeth while holding them at bay with suppressing fire.

"I'll focus on the remaining capes." Meteor set me down, the metal around my limbs withdrawing. "You're not anchored, so Labs' traps can affect you. Stay out of the maze. Are you safe to provide support with armor?"

I let the somewhat dimming determination in my aura swell, the steely hue of it filling me up again. This wasn't the time or place to explain the changes to my powers, so I simply told her, "Got it. Go."

I saw a flash of steely trust in her aura before she shot off into the sky. I started running, not wasting a second. Up ahead, black lines began to appear in the air and enclose one of the Teeth, only for the bone adorned figure to leap out and pepper the cape's position with shots from an automatic rifle. Cache, if I remembered correctly; a cape best suited to ambushes, not a protracted fight from behind cover.

Let's even the odds. I was upon them a few seconds later, one of the Teeth turning to cover their rear at the sound of my sneakers striking pavement. I might have been able to survive the gunfire, but I didn't have nearly enough faith in my untested powers, much less when I was beginning to feel emotionally drained. Instead, I took the fear that spiked in me as they lifted their gun to fire, and I pushed.

They yelped and fired, which wasn't ideal, but the spray went wide, making my instinctive dodge unnecessary. By then the other member had realized a bigger threat was upon them, but it was too late. I smashed the first one's rifle aside with a backhand, sending it clattering to the pavement. Their stance broken, I then punched their sternum hard enough to send them flying back into their compatriot.

"Keep them down!" I heard one of the PRT officers call out, the sound of boots on pavement in my ear.

Couldn't give them my focus. The one who'd been bowled over had somehow managed to keep a hold on their rifle. I lashed out with a kick, but his grip on it was strong. The first burst of bullets grazed my shoulder, the rotation of my kick having twisted me out of the way. Dumb luck made the next burst miss altogether, tearing through where I would have been as I lost my footing from inexperience judging the strength and speed to expect from my emotions.

Shit! Still falling and about to be shot, I threw my aura forward, swiping desperately at the rifle. The glowing embodiment of my wavering determination pulled out of me, the life-sized self-image of pastel pink energy on the Teeth in a flash, mirroring my swipe and knocking aside the barrel just as the third burst erupted from it in a burst of sound and light.

Another bang made me flinch as I fell, but other than the strange sensation of falling onto pavement and only dully feeling it, no pain came. The man who had just been shooting at me, however, snarled in agony as he was roughly flipped over onto his face by the officer. Blood began to pool under his arm as his wrists were secured, so I moved my attention back to the first person. Just in time, it seemed, as they had been about to scramble out of the black lines forming around them. I pushed my fear into them, my heart still hammering from nearly being shot, the sudden shift in their emotions disorienting enough to let Cache's power finish snapping into place.

Gotta keep going. I pulled my aura back over me, letting it overlay my skin, and started climbing to my feet while Cache's aura jogged over from behind me.

"Are you injured?"

Upright if a little wobbly, I checked my shoulder and found that though my t-shirt was torn, the skin underneath was red but whole. Apparently the emotion had still been strong enough to tank the bullets. "I'm good, thanks."

"Good. We appreciate the assistance, but this is no place for a fresh cape." …what? Did he think I was…? "How did you get through the maze?"

I turned to properly acknowledge him. "I was already here…?"

The strangely tinged relief I had come to associate with comprehension threaded through his aura. "Hadn't realized we were meeting a potential recruit today, sorry. Look, you still have your visitor badge? Get to the front door and show it to the officers posted there, okay? Go!"

He didn't recognize me. I could only stare as he rushed off with most of the officers, one staying behind to guard the captive Teeth. How had he not recognized me? He'd helped me to bed my first night here, he knew me. Did my changed powers really throw people off that much without my costume?

I didn't get more time to think on the matter, as a portion of the maze wall nearby exploded, peppering me with shrapnel and knocking me to the ground.

Shit. I scrambled to get back on my feet, my arm screaming at me. I eyed it concern and saw that while the pastel hue of my determination was still there, but it had gotten too weak to protect me. Some of the shattered rock had torn a gash in my forearm.

I didn't have time to curse the fickle nature of my durability—one of the Teeth had stepped through the newly formed hole. While some members, like the Butcher or Heavensword, had more widely known appearances, most of their members wore similarly barbaric outfits, making it difficult to tell which members were parahumans. I didn't recognize the headdress of bones and fur, but with no one else following him, odds were he was the source of the explosion. The satchel slung around his shoulder—was he carrying explosives? Something to aid an explosive power?

"Ayy, last wall," the man remarked with a leer, his eyes alighting on me as I finally got back upright.

He reached into the satchel, a sneer on his face, and ice shot down my spine. I wouldn't be able to dodge, not from this close. I wouldn't be able to dodge, and I had no idea if my power could save me, if what I was feeling would be strong enough even if it theoretically could.

And that was fucking terrifying.

I grabbed hold of that terror and shot forward into a sprint, my legs protesting from the sudden movement. My skin glowed a sickly green, the dark undertones making me think of a corpse.

He threw something, and I slammed my eyes shut, teeth clenched.

Thunder filled my ears, hot air rushing past me. No pain.

My eyes shot open as I tore through the explosion. I might only have a second before the effect failed. I shut everything else out as best I could, focusing as intently as I could on the fear that uncertainty elicited, the fact this guy might be a cape and immune to explosions, might drop another explosion right on my feet.

Snarling, the man drew back his hand, wild-eyed. To punch me? To throw another bomb? I still wasn't close enough to—!

A blue laser streaked with white tore through his head, spraying blood and gore over the wall.

Moving too fast to stop, I made a stumbling jump over the body as it flopped to the ground sideways with the force of the impact. Rolling over my shoulder, I skidded to a halt on the pavement and nearly gagged at the sight as the last vestiges of the dead man's aura faded into nothingness, my breaths ragged.

Legend shot over, coming to a hover beside me. "Easy, easy. You're going to be okay."

"Y-You k-k-kill—!"

"I killed him, yes. As I feared he might have done, for a moment there." He heaved a sigh of relief. "Fortunately, your new powers were up to the task."

I shook my head, trying to get a hold of myself. Some of my curls poked me in the eye. "You… knew?"

"Glimpses," he replied. I wasn't quite sure what to make of the answer. One of the apparitions behind him turned to look into the maze, and his own gaze moved to mirror it a moment later, relief filling his aura if not his what little of his expression I could see beneath his ornate masquerade mask. "This is not the best situation for unpracticed powers, but that is fine. The fight is finishing up as we speak."

Relief started to push back at the anxiety left behind by my withering fear. "That quickly?"

"Her teammates had been doing quite well, truth be told." His grin turned wry. "I would not have let Heavensword go on quite so long otherwise. They subdued Reaver and Hemorrhagia quite early, and Meteor handled Vex before helping with Animos. They should have Spree and the stragglers momentarily."

And you got Heavensword. I carefully did not look at the corpse in the corner of my eye. ... and Spurt.

"There we are." Legend lifted up into the sky as Labyrinth's walls began to creak and groan as they sank back into the pavement they had sprung from. My heart shot up in my throat when the body I'd avoided directly looking at began to twist and change, my aura springing to the ready.

Flowers. Hundreds of flowers sprung from what had already halfway changed into a grassy mound, a short, stubby sapling sat atop it.

"Ah." I exhaled, the tension that had shot through me flowing out. Labyrinth's doing. "Thanks."

I hoped she heard.

Behind me, up in the sky, Legend shook hands with Meteor.