"If I could pick anything else? Transformation," Garrett starts as we walk away from the ice cream shop. It's about fifty degrees, which didn't stop me from offering up the idea, and apparently didn't incentivize anyone to contradict me.

"Easily exploited by a smart enough enemy. The trick is to go big and aggressive as possible, but given our situation, that's a terrible idea. As long as we're confined to real animals, it's also borderline useless. I'm going to go with technopathy," Karen says. "Not that we know that I don't have it, but let's say I don't."

"Also useless, if you get far out enough into the wild," Garrett says.

"Drones," Karen retaliates. "Solar-powered drones. Plus, who says I can't just bring mobile robots? It's still the most overpowered thing you could possibly have in a city, too."

Garrett bites his lip. "How do you feel about telekinesis?"

"I think you might have me on that one. Telekinesis is super, super exploitable. You can rend organs, push houses in on people, just fling your opponent into the sun... it's kind of strange you don't see it on more conventional superheroes," Karen says.

"Galactus, Doctor Strange, Jean Gray..." Garret pauses. "I could go on."

Karen says, "You know what I mean. Superheroes that normies would know."

"Oh, so people like you?" asks Garrett.

Karen looks mutinous.

"Are we listing superheroes or superpowers," asks Amanda. "I'm confused."

"Better superpowers than what we got," Karen says. Her ice cream remains in the bowl, melting under the sweltering heat of her hands. Mine has been carefully combed by my tongue so I don't spill any of it, which happens to be a great way to avoid conversation. Garrett's is in a bowl because he opted for toppings. Amanda's is gone. No one has mentioned it was a lame idea yet, so I consider this a major success for our first-ever out-of-uniform get-together.

"Mine are pretty good," Amanda says. "Versatile, pretty powerful, I don't know how many paint colors I get but I'm pretty sure it's more than I've unlocked, you know, the works." She winks.

Karen looks down at Amanda's hands. "How did you finish your ice cream?"

"In about five bites?" Amanda suggests.

"I was wondering why you sounded like you were choking. For some reason I figured I shouldn't ask," Karen says. "Do we know where we're going next? I need to tell my folks where to pick me up."
"Well, my house is a little far from here, but..." I begin, and trail off. We are not walking two miles. There's no way any of them will tolerate me for that long. What am I going to say to my parents when I bring two strangers into the house? How do I explain anything to my brother? How do I get him to leave us alone? What's Adam going to say later? "I mean, people might be busy in it. I don't think I could-- it might be unreasonable to-- is anyone else willing to volunteer their house? Please?"

"Sure," Garrett says. He points over the hill. "It's right over there, anyways."

After a brisk walk, we come up on a white house that has to be twice the size of mine, with pillars on the front porch and everything. Garrett escorts us right past the warm entrance, lit with scented candles in abstract, likely expensive glass vases, and into a far more recognizable kind of room. The room just off his basement is clean, but only barely, like he shoved everything back in the drawers this morning (likely). There are cabinets all across the walls, and a TV in the middle, right across from his bed. I recognize a vast library of video games, spanning five consoles and at least three generations of hardware. There are some equally choice books on the left wall, which Amanda pulls titles out of.

"Wow, speaking of normies." Amanda pulls a manga out of the shelf and begins spinning the book between her fingers. "People read Black Clover unironically?"

"Put that back," Garrett warns. "That was a phase."

"Mhm," Amanda says.

"So, you want to play Mario Kart, or..." Garrett trails off. "I don't really have people down here, often, so it's a mess. Sorry."

It's a mess, but it's a mess that smells harshly of citrus. (Not that I can vouch for myself when my bathroom smells strongly enough of Axe deodorant to give someone nosebleeds.) The bed's made, the library's impressive, and I can't help but think that I wish I could live here. Not with Garrett, necessarily, but it would be nice to live alone. I hadn't even thought of what my room might look like if I did.

"I also have shooters?" suggests Garrett upon our total silence. "Do girls play shooters?"

"No, but that's a preference. Karen. Mario Kart?" asks Amanda.

Karen shakes her head. "You know that's not why we're here. Will probably has something to say about the mission, so he called this whole thing together because it was easier than asking us for whatever it was he wanted straight out?"

"Jeez, why is your intuition so good? It's kind of scary," I ask, flinching a bit on Garrett's bed.

"You've always got whatever you're thinking painted all over your face," Karen says. "You're just waiting for someone to ask you what it is, and what they can do to help, you know? I'm guessing, if you want to hear something really scary, that it's because people don't ask very often."

"Guilty." I laugh as confidently as I can, so not very. "I just, I mean, I thought... I um...wouldn't it be great to have some protocol before the next mission, just so we're all together next time? You know, we did a pretty okay job, but it would be nice if we actually succeeded and didn't have to go through with it ever again."

"Should Will keep calling fallbacks and plans and all that? Since he's tuned into what Shiloh wants?" asks Amanda.

"Is what Shiloh wants the right plan of action?" asks Karen.

"Yes," I say.

"Really," Karen puts her hands on her hips. "You're real sure of that."

I close my eyes. Might as well get this one over with. "I went back and talked to Ignatius against Shiloh's orders last night. It went terribly."

"Oh," Karen says. "Team diplomat, huh?"
I nod weakly. "Look, he seemed like-- I don't know, a normal guy?"

"Man clearly talks to plants. Normal is a relative term, Will," says Garrett.

"Normal's the wrong word. He seemed nice. Sane. Other positive adjectives. I thought if I just talked to him, he would see the light, but instead he gave me this whole terrifying spiel about being alone, and how other people are an impediment, and suddenly he sounded so much like a supervillain that I felt like I was going crazy," I say.

Amanda puts a heavy hand in my shoulder, and I lean back against it.

"Don't let it get to you," Karen says. "Man was probably gaslighting you. Typical supervillain tactic."

"Okay," I say. I sit up a little straighter. "Okay."

"I was going to go with Tesla if we needed code names in the future," explained Karen. "Because screw DC."

"Marvel fan?" asks Garrett.

"Direct current," Karen responds. "Not DC Comics. Maybe you should brush up on your science instead of hyperfixating on media franchises."

"Look, I didn't invite you here for you to attack me--"

"Really? I can see the contempt all over your expression," Karen says. Her breath rattles in her throat as she suppresses a sigh. "I'm sorry. I guess I'm still coping with this."

Garrett's expression falls. "Oh, um..." he pauses. "That's... fine?"
Yeah, I wasn't expecting her to apologize either.

If we're feeling especially kind right now, it would be a good time... no. I mean, potentially, I could say it right now and it would go well, no, it's stupid, but what if Ignatius brings it up? Do I want them to think I keep secrets from them, even secrets small as this? It's a matter of team security. I should never have mentioned this to him. It was a tactical oversight.

"I had something else to say," I say. "I mean-- regarding superhero names?"

"Oh, we're going with that," Garrett says. "In a genre sense, I would regard this as being closer to the Japanese tradition of magical girls, what with the transformation sequences and the conduits, but I suppose it's all arbitrary."

My hands curl up. "I was thinking, Amanda chose Usagi for me, but if it's all the same to you... I'd prefer if we used Luna, from now on?"

Silence. Silence is good, right? Silence could be acceptance. I'm free to falsely believe that silence means acceptance.
"Kind of..." Garrett starts. "Feminine?"

"Non-threatening," Karen corrects him. "Feminine part's not an issue."

"You could have just told me you didn't like it," Amanda says.

Rapidly, I correct myself: "I love Usagi. It's objectively a better name. It's just that I've never gotten to choose anything for myself before, and I kind of had this going from the beginning."

"Okay," Amanda says.

"Is it?" I ask.

"Yes," Amanda says. "Dude, why wouldn't it be? None of us are hung up on what you do or don't want as your name. Luna's shorter, anyways, so objectively it's going to be more helpful in the field."

I breathe out a sigh I didn't know I was holding in there.

"Speaking of names," Garrett starts.

Attention's off me. I can breathe now. Something lifts a cold, dead hand from around my throat.

"I was going to go with Phantom Loop," Garrett says. He looks across his audience and gets a lukewarm reception. "Too long? Too showy? Just not having it?"

"Somewhere in between those three," Karen says.

Garrett puts a hand to his face. "Man. Will, if I could pull off a reveal with any of the aplomb you have, then things would be so much easier."

"Stutter a little more," I suggest. "Imagine that you have fear in your heart when you're saying anything, and the words just blossom up against your control."

Garrett 'hmms' like he's considering this, but the whole time, he looks like he might want to refer me to the nearest therapist. (We're not doing that. We are not doing that.) He walks over to his shelf and plucks out Mario Kart. "Mission time over. You guys leave the house, or we do something fun."

It's settled. The end of the world goes on hiatus, and we play Mario Kart.

---

The front door is locked. We ring five times, but no one comes to it.

"Ignatius?" I ask, looking through the mail slot. There's movement in the house, but we don't even know if it's him. My mind buzzes, sensing Diosite, tasting Shiloh's hunger under my own like a knife under my tongue. The metallic taste is unsavory.

Back door.

"Back door," I tell the group.

We're happy to get out of the open. It's a false relief. If anything's more dangerous to us than the people out here, it's the person behind the back door. This one's locked, too, and the blinds are drawn all around the house. The sky overhead is a moody gray, so there's nothing for the plants to take in, anyways, but it still seems like overkill to bolt your doors shut and close the blinds.

Unless you're hiding something.

Or if someone's trying to break into your house.

Thanks, Shiloh.

"Are we going to have to break it down?" asks Karen.

Garrett sucks in a breath. "Well."

"Oh, right," Karen says. She steps aside. "Go ahead. Portal behind the door, portal in front of the door. You can handle that, right?"

"Be quick," I add. "We don't want to give him time to prepare--"

"I get it, I get it! Calm down," Garrett says, waving us off. He shifts his weight a few times, hands tensing, and he at last lays his hands upon the door. A portal cracks into being, reality chipping away, and then the darkness it causes abates slightly. "You don't want to put something through to test it first, or..."

Amanda stuffs a hand through. "Seems fine," she says, then smiles. "I'm flashing you a thumbs up right now. With the phantom arm." A green tendril emerges around the remaining stump of her arm, reaching towards her waist, and then drags her through. There's a thump in the house, and things become significantly less fine.

"We're going in," I say.

"What?" Karen says.

I'm already gone. I didn't realize how much I didn't want to see him until he was standing in front of me, surrounded by the same throne of distended plant matter, but watching Ignatius leer down at Amanda strikes a primal kind of panic in my gut. Shiloh's might holds me back from the portal home, but it's effective like a sandcastle trying to hold back a wave breaking on shore. I'm stopped less by him and more by a startled Karen and a mortified Garrett pushing through behind me.

Amanda wrests an arm free when the vines go slack, and red paint lights the vines around her. She props herself back up onto her feet. "Do we have a plan, Luna?"

Ignatius's eyes widen, vines still writhing at his command. They stretch back to the basement, which seems to be the point of origin. "I'm glad you told them," he says with a thoroughly genuine warmth.

"You can't-- you can't be proud of me," I say, backing up.

"Do you have a plan, Luna," Karen yells from the sidelines.

This isn't about me this isn't the time to have a breakdown. "The Diosite has to be on him," I say. A pocket on the white overcoat of what must be his Diosite-empowered form is slightly curved by the presence of something underneath. There's an equally suspicious flower on the side of his head, tucked like a pencil around his ear, sealed shut. "Try to take the flower out."

It would have been great to start scheming ahead of time, because Ignatius can tell exactly what we're doing from over here. He dodges a rush of paint from Amanda, which almost hits his wall before a seething mass of vines rush up to take the hit. I charge in on my own, shield at the ready, like a sword, and when I'm about to throw it I feel thorns sink into my arm. The pain is excruciating, and though the fiber of my outfit is strong, I can feel it being parted by the pressing force of the vine. I cry out and fall, which leaves my teammates behind me.

"Stay down." His voice softens. "Please, for your own health, just stay down."

I'm not going anywhere. I can't go anywhere. Amanda brandishes her brush, but even as she grabs me and aims for Ignatius's face, there's an implacable fear holding her back.

"I'm sorry," Ignatius says, his vines withdrawing to a protective stance, "But I knew you'd be back, didn't I? What was I supposed to do? Let you run me over? What am I supposed to do?"

I don't answer. I'm still holding my arm. The battle starts now, in earnest, and it might never end again. My eyes well up a little bit with water, which I try to brush away, but there's no use hiding the fact that I'm a weak leader, and I can't handle a little bit of pain.

Ignatius flees for the basement.

"Oh, thank goodness," Karen says as he retreats. "I was worried we were going to burn his house down."

"I wasn't," Amanda objects. She helps me back onto my feet. I'm still clutching my arm, feeling the thorns sink into my flesh, and there's blood all over my left arm. I think something might have been severed, or something terrible like that, because right now I can't feel anything. Vines close the basement door, and Amanda immediately rips it back open. The passage looks dingier and smaller than ever, and the walls are now raked with harsh lines, cutting the tan paint. "C'mon. Who's first? Come on. Come on."

I bite my tongue.

Karen steps forwards. There's a blazing discharge as Karen-- Tesla-- her electricity rattles through the darkness like a strobe light, seizing upon and consuming Ignatius's plants. After each discharge, some new monstrosity comes up to block our path, and I hear the slick, ugly noise of overgrowth sliding over growth, like bones snapping into position. I didn't know that plant growth even had a noise, but it does, and I hate it.

My shield swings out and severs a vine from under Karen's foot. I have to reach out to grab my shield, and then paint flies just over my head. If I had jerked up a second sooner, my entire face might be on fire. There's no way we can go single-file down there. He'll pick off the person in the front like it's nothing, and the vines could drag us anywhere. "We can't follow him down," I say. "We're going to have to call a retreat for now. Phantom?"

Garrett opens a door in the air. I look around at the room, the skew kettle, the flustered papers... some evil part of me wants to light fire to half of it, to snuff him out of his cage, but I hate myself for even thinking like that. We can't make him desperate enough to give up. We're just going to have to figure out how to get to him.

Ouch.

Amanda has my hand. "Will, are you coming?"

I stand in between doorways, clutching my arm. I think I can hear his breathing in the darkness. "I... am?"

She draws me through. Karen and Garrett are watching me, concerned, and when I sit down on the ground, like I can hide from the pain (I can not hide from the pain) Shiloh comes up to lick my arm. I can feel the comfort of his fur even through the outfit, which barely seems to be a barrier between me and the outside world. I might be mildly delirious, but right now I feel like I'm levitating above my body, an illusion doubled by the pulsing pain and heat generated from around my arm.

"You two should go home," I say. "It's pretty late."

Garrett and Karen look at each other. Karen stoops down to beside me. "We need to look for alternative ways to deal with him," she says. "None of us are brute forcing our way through that heaven forsaken basement, alright?"

I sigh. "Yeah, I think we've just about established that."

Karen's lips purse. "I'm sorry, Will."

"What could you possibly be sorry for?"
She stands. "Doubting you, I guess? Hesitating, for fear of collateral damage? I don't know. Just consider me sorry. Take better care of yourself. Garrett, let's go."

"Right," Garrett says. "We might want to... train a little more before we attempt that again? Not to be a downer, but the man wiped the floor with us."

"No shit," Amanda says.

Garrett pauses a few more times, but he's on his way out. "We'll do better," he says, practically to himself. "Yeah, we'll do better next time. We're just going to need a lot of practice. Give it a break. Work on our powers. It'll be fine. No one else's gonna get hurt--"

"Calm down," Karen says. She's practically halfway through the portal. "Breathe."

Garrett is breathing. "Fine. Good night."

They walk through the same door to different places.

"Good night," I say, but my voice doesn't sound like my own. I turn to Amanda. Shiloh is still licking my wound. He's not getting sustenance from my blood, is he? Like a vampire? That wouldn't work. There's no way Shiloh could perpetually sustain himself off my blood, given I'm not around very much. Great, I actually am delirious. "How do I explain this to Adam?"
Shiloh steps back. "I have healed most of it."

There's still a long scratch, but it's thin and shallow. It might not even scab up.

"You walked into a tree," declares Amanda.

"Like he'll buy that," I say.

"It happens to people, okay! It wouldn't be the first time I've walked into a tree," she admits. "There was this one time I was walking to school in middle school with headphones on, and I may or may not have been singing along to this great anime opening... I kind of fell into a rosebush."

"That's exactly what I'll tell Adam, then," I say, with a nervous laugh. "Rosebush. Anime opening. He'll tell me that I'm so stuck in my head that it's dangerous to myself and everyone around me. Try to keep me away from roads on the next walk to school we have together." My laugh rises again, almost equally involuntary. My eyes are wet. "I'm not a bad person, right? For not telling him? He's probably not even worried about me, right? I'm not cutting myself off. I don't want to be alone. I can't be alone like that, and he said-- and he sounded so sad-- and he--"

Amanda puts a hand on my shoulder, then leans in and just hugs me as tight as she can.

"Oh god," I say. "Oh my god."

Shiloh's empty eyes squint in an approximation of sympathy.

"Oh my god, I'm so scared."

---

Adam is at home. My parents are also at home. We sit in the family room and watch a movie together. It's been months since the last one, but I'm barely paying attention to it. I keep rubbing my left arm, which is hidden under a pajama sleeve. My mother probably notices, but she has nothing helpful to say about it, at least with her mouth. Her eyes say everything. When the movie ends, and my father goes back to his study (he's always in his study, his job is getting hard, I guess) she rolls up my sleeve and finds the arm.

"It was a tree," I say. "Okay, not a tree... a rosebush?"

My mother's lips are pursed, like Karen's. Her eyes are almost the same stern hazel as mine. My brother's are lighter. It's what makes them look so scary when he gets angry, the way the light threads through them. My mother's look like foliage in the summertime. Mine look like dirty water. "Will, are you being honest with me?"

"Yeah, what else would have happened? There's no one else I would have gotten in a fight with. I would have had to talk to someone first," I say.

The movie credits roll on behind us. I don't want to know what she thinks I am capable of doing to myself.

"It's okay," I say. "It's a little scratch, and I treated it and everything."

My mother turns the television off. Her legs barely seem like they can take her up the stairs. I dawdle by grabbing water. Anything to get away from her face. Adam's also grabbing water, but he's staring out the window, looking at our driveway. Past that is the neighbor's yard, and then the yard past that, and then another yard, ad infinitum, far as the suburbs can take us. He seems to be looking through all of it, but there's nothing past there, and it's so dark that there's barely anything to see.

"I'm going to bed," I say.

"I wanted to talk to you, actually," Adam says.

"Really." Barely my voice, again. I need to sleep this off. "To what could I possibly owe the pleasure?" Too cocky. Way too cocky. I can tell from the way he's looking at me that he's not amused. I want to apologize but I don't. I just stand there and fold my arms to complete the look of indignance I'm throwing him.

Adam sighs. "Just wanted to say I won't be here for Halloween." Believe it or not, my brother and I have never been big into Halloween. We stopped trick-or-treating earlier than most kids. Usually we'd watch scary movies as a family, and then we started watching actually scary movies, as brothers, usually on Adam's laptop. He skipped last year for a thing with friends. It was the last time I went to a party with his friends.

"I've got a party that night. I'm heading out," he says.

"With the boys?"

There's a momentary spark of shock in Adam's eyes, but it dulls over. "Y-yeah."

I pause. "Me too."

"Oh, you're not coming," Adam says, in characteristic smug condescension.

"No, I've got a thing with the Naval Brigade."

Adam's eyes roll slightly, but there's relief there. I don't know why I'm even frustrated. I don't know what I'm supposed to expect. "Of course. Try not to walk into any more trees, bud. You're going to give mom a heart attack. She probably thinks you're mental or something, and that you're..." he makes a slitting noise and drags a finger across his arm.

He's just being insensitive because he doesn't know better, I think. He's just trying to lighten the moment, I think. I want to punch him, I think. He's hiding something from me, I think. "Will do, chief."

He flinches.