It is a bad day when you have more than one potentially world-ending threat at the bottom of your to-do list.
Taylor Hebert is having a very bad day.
The city looked bare to him now.
Dead.
It wasn't the fact that it was dark, though it was very dark indeed: an overcast night made darker by the scant few lights marking high priority locations with generators. It wasn't the lack of traffic — well, not directly.
It was the sheer lack of people.
Ever since that day, two and a half years back, he'd been aware of the people around him. And, for all the times he'd tried to describe it, it wasn't easy. It wasn't sight, though it had elements of color; it wasn't hearing, though it had elements of rhythm and melody both; it wasn't really any of the senses he'd known before though it had elements of all of them.
The psychologists initially called it synaesthesia, which was a fancy way of saying that he perceived these new sensations through a rearrangement of existing sense-impressions.
He disagreed.
He described this sense with words used for the standard senses, but it was clearly its own thing, distinct. He'd never had any issues confusing the colors-that-weren't-colors that he didn't 'see' with the color of the clothing that someone was wearing, never been confused about whether that jittery melody that started up was anxiety or someone's new ringtone.
The fact that he didn't 'see' not-colors in 360° had always seemed the clinching argument that his eyes weren't really involved at all, even associatively. He'd raised it, and then been told that what he was experiencing must be ideasthesia, that what was triggering the not-colors wasn't perceiving emotion but conceiving of emotion.
He was pretty sure that was wrong too — no such not-music when truly alone, even when thinking about emotions — but that had just led the psychologists to explain that it was ideasthesia triggered not by emotions as such, but by how he conceptualized what he did perceive of emotions. How, exactly, this could be distinguished experimentally from his own explanation — that it was like using metaphor to explain color to the blind — was unclear.
It had been a relief to opt out of the study, and focus on productive activities like patrolling.
The useful range wasn't much: shouting distance and line of sight for any kind of detailed understanding of what someone was feeling. Even then, being able to see all the layered nuances of what someone felt wasn't much help without knowing why they felt it.
Outside that range, there were...clouds. Impressions. Where groups assembled, swirls of collective emotion rose up: unfocused, immense, and usually indecipherable. Oh, it was easy enough to tell, say, when the Patriots scored without checking the radio or tv by the way the city as a whole changed flavor for a moment, but that was about it.
Twice, when he happened to be looking in the right direction at the right time on a patrol, he'd 'seen' a spike of intense emotion flicker through the formless billowing of human activity in the distance — like lightning flashing within a storm — and been in time to intervene. Attempted rape and (briefly) successful robbery, respectively.
Twice, in almost two years of patrols.
He still wondered about the other seven 'flashes' that he'd seen on patrols, what moment of terror must have inspired them, and what he could have done to be there in time to help.
In theory, there were lots of innocent causes for momentary utter terror: everything from energetic five year-olds to almost slipping into traffic to realizing you'd drunk-dialed the wrong person. He'd even 'seen' one like that in person: a classmate who forgot that the calculus midterm had been moved up to Thursday. It helped him sleep better, knowing that false alarms really did happen, that maybe he hadn't failed whoever had felt those terrors.
In some ways, the blurring of his sense with distance was a blessing. With the right vantage, he could 'see' the whole city. What would it be like to be able to clearly sense the emotions of an entire city? Merely being able to sense them clearly nearby had been devastating.
Neither his friends nor his family had been the people he thought they were.
He loved them: it was only natural that they got the benefit of the doubt. Being able to directly perceive their emotions removed a lot of doubts. Combine the growing awareness that his loved ones were often petty and spiteful with the discovery of all the ways in which he had casually, unthinkingly, made lives worse in turn, from the small (clicking his teeth when he thought really did annoy his best friend) to the large (his grandmother had always been able to tell that he was lying to leave early) — with the realization that he wasn't as good as he'd thought he was either… it had made for a really bad couple of months.
He'd contemplated suicide then, more than once.
And, in a very real way, the old Dean Stansfield had died on one of those late and lonely nights.
Everyone liked the new version better.
That wasn't the point.
That wasn't even what he was trying to accomplish. Getting people to like you, when you can directly perceive what they like, is trivial.
Being liked was never the point.
Being able to face himself as reflected in the lives around him… would always be.
Even when it meant doing some of the hardest things he'd ever done.
He took one more long look out the window at the darkened city below, and then turned around.
"We've had a routine patrol tonight so far. Start with a standard show-the-flag stop at a camp, then walk the streets. They're mostly empty, these days — you'd like it. Especially at night."
He paused, listening to the periodic beeps, eyes roaming over the softly glowing displays.
"Easier for you that way. Not much of a strain, either way: things are… quiet. At least, quiet compared to last month. Lung's laying low, no one else even could pick a fight with E88, and they want their areas to be peaceful right now. There's some looting, and the camps are a pressure-cooker… but we've kept the lid on so far. It's amazing how much people quiet down at night without artificial light."
No change in her breathing.
"Even so, we're being given light duties. None of the supply convoy escorts; none of the ready response slots. It makes sense: there's only two of us active. Barely enough to patrol the safest routes at the safest times. A couple of the rogues have been walking with us, which is nice, and New Wave is basically acting as our entire ready reserve right now with their flyers, but we're overstretched. The Protectorate is down to four, with Assault and Battery both out…"
A change, subtle but there, in her emotional state.
Could she hear, or was she dreaming?
No way to know.
"I don't know if you remember my last visit, but it turns out waking up Assault when he's concussed is a bad idea. He knocked out three nurses and went through the wall, Kool-Aid Man style, looking for Battery, to see if she was all right. If Leviathan had gotten her. She got him to calm down, told him it was a hospital, not a prison, and put him back to bed. Three hours later, he woke up again and got halfway through the same routine before she could catch up to him. So Director Piggot transferred them both out to a hospital in Boston, with orders to not be more than ten feet apart until he gets his head on straight again."
He cracked the seals, and took his helmet off, settling the familiar weight against his hip.
"It's kind of sweet, really. A second honeymoon. You can't say he didn't earn it the hard way: Leviathan was coming down on his team, and he bought them an exit. Bravest damn thing I'd ever seen, for about half an hour."
He sighed, and rubbed his forehead.
"Probably what gave Carlos the idea. I miss him, and Dennis. Especially Dennis. We could all use some laughter right now, and I never saw him at a loss for a joke. Remember, on that roof, just before it all went to hell, when the rain started and he…"
Dean jerked his head, and wiped his eyes.
"They're the only reason either of us lived long enough for Armsmaster to get us out. Chris never even made it into the fight, so it's just the two of us and John right now. And you're not pulling a full schedule, exactly. I know she was a pain to work with, but even having Sophia transfer back would be welcome. At least we're getting reinforcements tomorrow… or maybe it's today now. Either way, we're picking up Insight and Skotos in the afternoon for their debut on the right side of the law. And Weld."
He pinched the bridge of his nose.
"I hadn't even gotten used to command yet. Not that I envy Weld taking it. He's senior, and he's done good work up in Boston. Besides, we've both seen that the price of command can be… high."
He lowered his eyes for the first time, to look at the still form of Missy Biron. Small as she was for her thirteen years, she looked smaller still now: lying in a hospital bed sized for an adult, overshadowed by the IV drip and all the machinery monitoring her coma.
"It'd be nice if you could make it back soon. I miss you."
With that, he reached out and squeezed her right hand.
No response.
He sighed again, settling his helmet back on his head, and waited through the hiss-click as it reconnected to his powersuit.
The HUD took a few seconds to initialize, and then faded to a minimalist overlay.
Seventeen past midnight, and the third leg of the patrol still to go.
This was a half hour that he really hadn't had to spare… but she was one of his teammates. Injured under his command. A friend, that crush of hers aside.
One of the better people he knew.
She didn't deserve to be in this coma, and she definitely didn't deserve to be left alone through it. Her family wouldn't visit, and of her closest friends… who else was left alive?
He waved to her, and then turned and left the room.
A nod to the guard at her door, and he strode down the hallway toward the stairs. Very few people rated their own hospital room under the circumstances, but Vista — cute, young, heroically wounded in that desperate stand against Leviathan… if Triumph was Brockton Bay's martyred son, Vista was everyone's favorite little girl.
His lips quirked up.
She'd hate that.
She hated being treated as a little girl, instead of a veteran cape with more time in-service than he had. Someday, she'd figure out that she could be both. Probably after she lost that particular option to aging, actually.
If she woke up. She was getting the best care available in the world: checkups, twice a day, from Panacea. It was why she'd been moved out here from the PRT building, and while Panacea couldn't fix brains, having literally everything else about her body set in perfect order had to help… hopefully.
He shook his head and pushed on, speeding his pace.
The stairs made a welcome change from hallways lined with gurneys, most of them occupied — there just weren't enough beds. Not quite a thousand, in normal operations. Five times as many crowded in, and still more on waiting lists out in the camps. Even with Panacea living on site (the only other person he knew who got her own room), there were too many injured or ill to keep pace.
The gathering of so many, in such straits, was… uncomfortable. Hospitals were rarely easy in the best of times, and these days Saint Jude's was filled with a choking mixture of hope, despair, pain, and sheer weariness.
It would be good to get outside again.
He blinked three times, opening a channel and simultaneously muting his external speakers.
"Browbeat."
A pause.
"Gallant?"
"Ready to head out?"
"I'll meet you out the back."
There was distant chatter coming through on Browbeat's end: high pitched shrieking noises.
He stepped out of the fire exit on the ground floor and walked to one of the railings, leaning on it and looking out. It really was a magnificent view of the city from here: the hospital had been built on a hilltop, back when people feared the swampy air of low lying wetlands. The same precaution that had served against mosquitoes two centuries ago had let it survive Leviathan's tidal waves almost intact.
He knew what his city looked like when it was healthy, the way the movements of the people and their feelings blended together to create a pulsing, organic whole with a toe-tapping rhythm all its own... and this looked nothing like that. The refugee camps were overloaded pressure cookers, and only getting worse now that people were beginning to come out of shock: they shone like green tumors to the west, grinding dissonance up to the clouded sky.
He'd spent a lot of time looking at Brockton Bay, looking at the clouds of human emotion, and trying to pick out the thunderheads forming. At this distance, he couldn't pick out anything or anyone specific. Even so, it had its uses as a barometer, a way to see where crowds were on the edge of boiling over. That was the more practical use of his senses on patrol, in identifying trouble spots and adjusting the route to cover them.
Tonight? Nothing.
Nothing beyond knowing that a lot of the people in the camps were crowded, uncertain, and unhappy, and it didn't take a parahuman to tell you that.
Silhouetted against the bonfire of the hospital, a dense shadow approached from behind. He stood and turned, blinking the sequence that dialed up his lowlight amplification.
A lean girl, almost as tall as he was himself, wearing dark grey spidersilk with integrated armor panels and a disquietingly insectoid mask, complete with mandibles.
"Tailor."
She nodded and drifted over to the railing to join him.
He turned back to the view, his attention on the rogue beside him.
"Browbeat's late."
"He was playing a game with some of the kids in the Pediatrics ward: one handed pushups with them piling on his back. It's taking him a bit to get them settled down."
Gallant grunted. "He's a natural on the PR side of things."
"Not in the field?" Her voice was calm, almost disinterested.
"He's new. A few months as an independent, not even a month with the Wards. Just hasn't had any real fight experience yet."
She nodded.
Tailor had even less time as a cape than Browbeat, and she'd gone directly for non-combat work after that fiasco of a trial run with the Wards orphaned her… but after you'd fought an Endbringer beside someone, the rest of their combat resume was basically irrelevant.
Not that he blamed Browbeat for staying back on radio duty — what could he have done, punch Leviathan in the leg? The kid was three hundred-odd pounds of muscle and bone, and could hit even harder than physics could explain. Still not even close to enough to break an Endbringer's skin.
Browbeat, though, Browbeat did blame himself. He felt guilty about missing the fight that had killed so many, and ineffectual. Gallant thought that he might have even been thinking about quitting the Wards, after Leviathan. For now, at least, it looked like he'd managed to head that off.
Not by using his power: the emotion-altering blasts he could emit weren't anywhere near delicate enough to induce a mood deniably: the concussive shock involved tended to clue people in. Then again, you didn't need delicate if you were trying to rattle someone, and a dozen sharp mood-shifts in as many seconds usually left targets in no shape to fight. No, persuading Browbeat had been done the old-fashioned way: time, conversation, and care. One reason why Gallant had arranged so many patrols with him. No one was supposed to work solo, but technically Tailor, Parian, or someone from New Wave could be the second… at least under the current emergency circumstances.
"Any news on the Empire?"
He shook his head. "They're still keeping things quiet, with the exception of testing us on supply runs. They're not getting anywhere with those raids, but the Protectorate can field a max of three units right now: Armsmaster, Miss Militia, and then Dauntless plus Velocity. Even that arrangement has two soloes built in."
"Think they're planning something?"
He held his hand out, tilted it back and forth. "Maybe. Perhaps they just want to make sure we can't assemble a strike force large enough to go toe-to-toe with them. The only time they've picked a major fight was that supply convoy raid two days back, as a cover for that attempt to break Alabaster out."
"What about New Wave? That's another six combat capes: as many as the Protectorate and Wards have put together, right now."
"And the Empire has maybe ten. If we dropped everything else — keeping order in the camps, ensuring supplies make it in, S&R, even the little things like Browbeat visiting the children's ward here — we still couldn't match their numbers. Throw in New Wave — ALL of New Wave, and maybe a couple of the rogues like you? And for all of that, we'd get an even fight, or maybe two to one? With us fighting to capture, and them fighting for survival?"
He shook his head.
"No point. We're picking up three more Wards tomorrow; Assault and Battery will be back in a week, if that. Our position will be stronger as time passes."
She didn't say anything, but she didn't have to: he could hear impatience rising within her, a Shepard scale endlessly rising, never resolving.
"And their position won't? They can't recruit too?"
No point staying on this topic; he could tell she wouldn't accept any answer but total victory. Sometimes, though, you just had to buy time… and that was a kind of victory, too.
He shifted his weight slightly, and spoke. "How's Amy?"
"Sleeping. No amputation patients on the list today, so I didn't wake her."
He nodded. After the second time he'd come in, Panacea had asked him if he could not visit. He'd bit back a dozen retorts, from the angry to the well-intentioned, and said he'd leave her in peace, but if she ever wanted to talk…
The situation between her and Glory Girl was messy. Even for him, and he could see exactly how the sisters both felt about each other: love, trust, fear, anger... and guilt. So much guilt. Over how they felt about each other, over Carol's death getting them both clear of that strange case 53... over anything and everything.
At least Victoria had moved back in with her father. Not that having his highly attractive superheroine girlfriend move in with him was a problem, as such… but she was just running away from the wreck of her family. He was happy to have given her a place to rest up, but some things had to be faced. Getting Victoria and Mark back talking was the first step in getting Victoria, Mark, and Amy talking again.
Besides, watching his mother and his girlfriend have breakfast every morning was a problem.
He 'heard' Browbeat's swirling mix of happiness, weariness, and guilt before he heard the footsteps.
"Sorry — took a bit to get them all settled down again."
Gallant stood. "Don't be. Those kids have little enough to laugh about, these days. Good work there."
The thread of Browbeat's happiness brightened.
"One last stroll before we sleep, then. Two blocks east, then south on Lord until we hit the city limits, and the BBPD checkpoint there. From there, we've actually got a van waiting tonight."
A quiet patrol, so far. It wasn't as if there'd be anyone out on the streets anyway: all the trouble was in the camps these days. But even boring patrols beat staying at home or in the PRT building, sitting around and thinking about the dead.
He set a very swift walking pace as they fell in behind him: almost six miles an hour. Faster than he usually used on patrol, but tonight — running late and with the streets both clear and quiet — he just wanted to run the route and and get home sooner.
He had his powersuit, and Browbeat could probably sprint a marathon: they could double that pace, or more, and sustain it for hours. Tailor had a hiking backpack and no physical enhancements… he'd slow as she needed it.
···---···
Browbeat had taken her pack an hour in, but she'd kept pace the whole time. Jogging, much of it. Hadn't displayed any irritation, either, just increasing weariness and the obdurate determination that seemed to be her default emotion.
The lights of the checkpoint glittered, nearer with each footfall.
Soon, they would be there. Just a set of cones and spike-strips blocking the road as it went by the park, with the duty police slightly up the hill in a picnic shelter. A hot drink, some conversation, and then a short ride to showers and sleep.
He slowed to a stop, and Tailor went down on her knees, breathing hard.
Browbeat had her up in an instant, supporting her in a walk, telling her to breathe deeply and evenly.
Gallant nodded — letting Browbeat be of use was better for his morale than any dozen lectures — and turned up the hill.
"Officers."
One of them turned and raised a mug of coffee in salute. "Gallant! Stuck on the midnight shift with us again."
"Dan! Anything interesting tonight?"
He laughed. "Safely dull. They dropped your van down in the park pull-off. Coffee?"
Gallant shook his head. "We're going off-duty soon, and hoping for some sleep. Thanks, though."
He turned to look at the the plain white panel van, parked in the soft dirt by this side of the Robert Wilson Park, clear ruts behind it.
Clear ruts ahead of it, too. Different tracks.
Fresh.
He looked back at the officers in the shelter.
Four officers.
No car.
Bakuda had taken down the major freeway interchange, and Leviathan had wrecked most of the bridges in passing; roads had been cleared only as-necessary to bring in relief supplies and equipment, and there were still neighbourhoods you couldn't drive into except behind a bulldozer. Combine that with the fact that they'd set up one-way checkpoints — anyone who wanted to leave the city could, right now, but no one would be getting in without permission, at least until the food, water, and shelter situation stabilized — and vehicles of any sort were relatively rare on Brockton Bay streets, aside from relief supplies, construction work, or… emergency services.
No car meant no mobility for the officers stationed here.
He wasn't all that sleepy anymore.
"Hey, anything interesting happen tonight?"
"Dull as ever. Unless you count Frank learning not to draw to an inside straight."
One of the three by the coffee machine shook a fist amiably, before turning back to his conversation.
A midnight checkpoint, nothing to do, fresh tracks not thirty feet from their little outpost… that they hadn't noticed? They weren't radiating anything other than honest confusion… but it wasn't believable.
A triple-blink.
"We may have a Master/Stranger situation here. Tell Tailor, get up here, and be ready."
Confusion and concern from the Ward, and… no reaction from Tailor. Odd.
"Dan, never mind. I think I would like some coffee after all."
"Oh, sure. Hang on, let me…"
Gallant didn't wait. Armsmaster's powersuit could probably let him look through every camera for three states around all at once; the bare-bones version he'd built for Gallant… couldn't. Couldn't run for him, couldn't put itself on, and couldn't read his mind through some fMRI eye-tracking wizardry. It could review PRT or BBPD footage in the field, though, and right now he was grateful that the roadblock rated even a single camera.
Black and white, three men clustered around the picnic table, casting long shadows toward the blockade visible in the distance.
They shift positions, jumping about. One frame per minute? Two frames per minute?
A heavy transport truck with men clinging to the sides stopped at the blockade, the logo of Henderson Heavy Construction visible.
One of the officers walking toward the blockade; then returning with the truck gone.
More coffee around the table.
A card game.
A sense of pressure from behind, and he turned. Browbeat and Tailor, and apparently she had reacted to the warning. The same determination as ever, but the intensity… it felt like his temples were being gripped, lightly, between pincers of unimaginable size. Apparently, the pressure he'd felt in the Leviathan fight hadn't been entirely in his head after all.
Gallant rolled his neck.
Not a problem.
He'd worked with Armsmaster for years.
Back to the footage.
He increased the speed of the playback, images flickering past faster.
More cards. More coffee. Bathroom breaks. Conversation. Two talking. A third returns. Ration bars all round. Leaves again. Returns. Cards.
Wait.
Back up.
Slower.
One frame at a time.
One leaves. Someone else comes back — that 's not a police uniform, just dark clothing. Police uniforms don't have hoods. Talks to both. Leaves. No good angle. Profile, turning away. Tattoos around mouth: lips blackened, alternating two-inch fangs. And… check the timestamp. Barely an hour ago.
He grinned behind his helmet. A minor victory tonight, then… a distinguishing characteristic like that would give them a name, and from there they could begin trying to track him down. Or her, possibly: the image wasn't that clear.
Absentmindedly he took a cup of coffee from the cop. Not to drink — who knew what might be in it?
A triple-blink. "Confirmed Master/Stranger influence. We'll have to incapacitate them — carefully. They might not be turned or booby-trapped, but we won't know until they've been released from quarantine. Set up for an ambush."
"Dan?"
Gallant was debating calling for a surrender: three capes versus four normals was a fairly one-sided fight, even without the element of surprise, but it wasn't without risk. None of them were, strictly speaking, immune to gunfire, though it would take some bad luck for a handgun to seriously injure any of the three heroes here. Gallant had his powersuit; Browbeat had his enhanced musculature and bone structure; Tailor had her armored spider-silk costume (and, next month, she'd start delivering them en masse).
On the other hand, the unidentified Master/Stranger might have left contingencies behind… and being discovered was a common one. Even if they hadn't been meddled with, they could be expected to defend themselves if assaulted. Which set of risks was better?
"Yes?" The officer turned back toward Gallant… and then the choice was taken out of his hands.
Browbeat slipped into position behind Dan with as much stealth as he could muster. In fairness, he could step with a soundless grace remarkable in a six and a half foot tall, 300+ pound slab of walking muscle. On the other hand, everyone was watching this performance… including Dan who was twisting around, mouth opening to ask a question.
At least that meant no one was paying attention to Tailor, who'd drifted over toward the coffee table. Too late for a more subtle appoach, Gallant thought as he squared up on the cop refilling his mug.
Hmm. If Browbeat was drawing all that attention deliberately… either way, he'd cover it in the after-action analysis.
A muffled thump as Browbeat's fist buried itself in Dan's solar plexus, forestalling any questions.
Astonishment bloomed at the coffee table, followed by terror as a cloud of insects rose up, completely obscuring the table and two of the officers.
Tailor had left a clear line of sight to his chosen target.
Just luck, or had she known which he'd picked?
A crimson beam leapt from his upraised hand, striking that officer and knocking him back half a dozen feet. Three more blasts followed, blue-green-brown flashing in quick succession, leaving the man a crying, twitching wreck. Being whipsawed from rage to nostalgia to lust to depression in less than five seconds would do that to you.
He'd be out of the fight for half a minute, maybe more.
Long enough for this fight, and too many blasts in quick succession could leave a target shattered — emotionally — for weeks.
A sharp crackling sound, and the aura of one the officers caught up in the cloud of bugs dimmed into unconsciousness. No line of sight on the other one, yet. Gallant pivoted to check on Browbeat.
The heavily muscled Ward had his target suspended in the air, holding him by the neck with one enormous hand. A one-handed sleeper hold from the front? Looked like he had been thinking about the options his strength opened up.
Two gunshots, almost on top of each other, and Gallant's head snapped around. The cloud of insects wavered, letting Gallant see the final policeman firing his pistol at a denser shape in the cloud that flinched and fell backward as another crack sounded out.
A golden beam of light lanced out, flipping the target over the half-wall of the picnic shelter. Gallant took two bounding steps to his right to clear his line of sight, and re-engaged, battering him into unconsciousness with a dozen more rapid blasts. He turned to check on Tailor… and the fallen figure melted away into a skittering swarm of insects, while Tailor stood up over Gallant's first target, having secured him with his own cuffs.
Her emotional penumbra blended in disturbingly well with her clouds of insects.
Browbeat laid his unconscious man gently down.
"Cuff everyone, and disarm them."
A few busy moments later, they stood over four cuffed bodies. Three unconscious, one crying softly.
"An unidentified Master or Stranger waltzed through this roadblock just over an hour ago. He, or she, has significant tattoos on and around his lips, patterned like fangs."
"Do we pursue?" Tailor sounded as matter of fact as ever.
He shook his head. "Just finding out enough to identify the villain is a victory here: we won't get blindsided later. At the end of a long patrol, with no idea where to look, no idea if the villain is alone, no idea who the villain is or what powers might be in play… no. No, we don't pursue. We report this, have a BBPD wagon pick them up for transport, and then head back to the PRT headquarters at maximum speed. Browbeat can give you a piggyback ride."
The hero in question winked, and flexed a bicep roughly the size of Tailor's torso.
She shook her head. "Another time. I've got a meeting out at the Boardwalk staging area in the morning: some consultants coming in to talk about the reconstruction. That'll take me northeast to your northwest and, without a vehicle, I need to start walking now."
Gallant frowned. His father had similar meetings scheduled. People were already jockeying for position on the reconstruction contracts and redevelopment possibilities. Still… that implied Tailor had significant resources.
Being the world's sole supplier of spider silk might do that. Still, this was no time to be out alone. Armsmaster and Miss Militia were taking solo rotations, but that was a matter of necessity. With back up on call. And besides: short of Lung, those two were each more dangerous than any three villains in the city.
This was a bad idea.
A very bad idea, but since she wasn't a Protectorate cape, just a volunteer, he couldn't just tell her not to go. The most he could do, over something like this — not criminal, not endangering others — is refuse to accept her aid in the future… and right now, this city needed all the help it could get.
Perhaps she'd listen to reason?
"I recommend you stay with us. We don't know who this villain is or what they can do, and surprise can be deadly. At the very least, be careful."
"Yes, it can." She nodded, slowly. "I will be."
Was that… amusement, underneath the deadpan determination?
With that, she turned and strode away, all weariness apparently gone.
Gallant watched, lips pursed, for a long moment as she faded into the night.