Melody felt like she was struggling to keep her head above water on a daily basis. Both her friends and her coworkers did everything they could to reassure her that this was expected. The transition to life as a parahuman was typically violent and unpredictable. Her sister had told her so many times in the past that it wasn’t something she would have wanted for her.

  Of course, she thought that was nonsense at the time. If only she had known. Hindsight really was 20/20.

  Life had been hectic following the data dump and identity reveal of all the Empire 88 members. Morgan had been doing slightly better about not being quite as evasive as she’d been in recent weeks at that point, but Melody still had her suspicions that something was going on. Naturally, when Purity had started razing parts of the city in the area where her sister’s apartment was, she’d panicked. Calling yielded no results, so she’d grabbed what she’d thought of as basic rescue tools and driven over.

  She’d been able to break in easily enough and searched the place frantically, as there were buildings across the street that were on fire. Moments later, a beam of light swept past, and the building started collapsing around her. She’d taken refuge in the tiny half-bath under the staircase, and the roof caving in had blocked her in.

  She still woke up with nightmares of that foul-tasting and smelling acrid smoke in her mouth.

  Things could have gone worse. None of her immediate family had died in the attacks. She’d triggered and gained powers, and with that, her world had been turned upside-down. What mattered the most out of all of it was that she’d finally found out the full extent of what had been going on with her sister, and why she’d been acting so strangely. She’d felt bad, briefly, about yelling at Morgan about her decision to become distant and start associating with villains. But she wasn’t going to apologize for saying it, either. What her sister had done was both wrong and hurtful. Thankfully, things seemed to be on the mend now… in the brief moments they were able to spend together.

  Voices came through her headset as a status check was called.

  Her turn to report in came up, and she pressed a fingertip against her headset. “Delta Seven is clear, from what little I can see at the moment.”

  A moment passed, and the next voice spoke. “Delta Eight clear. Bringing you something to warm up with, Delta Seven.”

  Melody stuffed her hands back in the pockets of her long coat and shivered. Something warm sounded amazing right about now.

  Both she and Flechette were on rotation to watch over the dockyards overnight, along with nearly a dozen non-powered PRT officers. Doing an overnight shift was annoying on its own, but it also happened to be absolutely pissing rain off and on tonight, and the late spring night air and waterfall made for a miserable combination. Her outfit as Eclipse was still coming along, but the full-body coverage and long coat tended to help stave off the chill on most occasions.

  Melody pulled up her fancy binoculars and looked out into the darkness. It was currently in the middle of one of the downpour cycles, and the green-hued view through the device was a mix of foggy, blurry, and indistinct. She could make things out okay for about a hundred or so feet, but after that, things became too hard to distinguish between. The binoculars were just one of more than a dozen pieces of equipment she was carrying around regularly now, and she was having to learn the ins and outs of each of the devices. Just another element of why she was feeling overwhelmed at work.

  The truth of the matter was that she enjoyed doing it. The being a superhero part of the job, certainly. All the paperwork was slightly less fun, but she understood why it was important. It was just… there was so much of it to learn. It wasn’t like a normal job where you put on your uniform and went in and logged your hours. No, being a cape touched every single aspect of your life, and there were rules, regulations, and guidelines for everything. From how you needed to take all these precautions about web and internet security, about only using approved devices, suggestions on ways she could make a quick exit from someplace if she was called in suddenly.

  She brought her goggles back up and looked down another one of the streets she was tasked with keeping an eye on. She was currently perched on top of a third-story ‘wall’ made out of stacked shipping containers secured together. It was cold, wet, and there were no guardrails, and she only half-trusted the catwalk and stairs leading up to the corner she was on. It was also dark up here, with no amenities other than a five-gallon bucket with a lid and some rocks in the bottom for a chair. But that was so that she didn’t stand out while keeping watch. Supposedly.

  She heard quiet footsteps on the staircase leading up to her position and readied herself to use her power. It was probably Flechette, but better safe than sorry. A lesson she’d learned very early on in her ‘career’ as a cape. A few moments later, Flechette’s helmet rose over the edge of the container, and Melody breathed a sigh of relief. She could just barely make out the white of the girl’s smile through the gloom and the little bit of flood lighting from the yards below.

  “Expecting someone else?” Flechette asked in a light-hearted manner.

  Melody let out a little huff and shook her head. “No, sorry, just… on edge, with everything.” She gestured outwards with her free hand.

  Flechette nodded slowly and stepped in close to Melody, then extended a lidded foam cup towards her.

  Melody wrapped her hands around the cup and shivered, the sudden contrast of a hot cup of coffee in her palms reminding the rest of her body of the chill in the air. She followed up with a careful sip of the brew. It was too hot to properly drink at the moment, but the warmth alone was heavenly. The taste was nothing special. The typical kind of coffee you’d find brewed by the pot at any workspace or office.

  Lily–the girl under the half-helmet and armor–grinned at the way Melody immediately brought her cup in close and all but huddled around it.

  “Mind if I keep you company for a few? Or would you rather-”

  “No, please,” Melody cut her off. “The company would be welcome. I don’t honestly know what’s worse, the weather tonight, or being left alone with nothing but your thoughts.”

  Lily took a sip of her coffee and nodded again. Clearing her throat, she said: “Your sister had actually asked me to keep an eye out for you, but I would have done the same regardless.”

  Melody took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I know she means well, it’s just… I don’t want to feel like I’m being babied or hand-held through this. I want to do it, and I need to feel like it’s something I’ve accomplished on my own, you know?”

  Lily took a moment to think about that before she responded. “I can understand that, but if I had to guess, I don’t think that’s where the concern was coming from?”

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  Melody tilted her head, and a number of beaded rain droplets ran off the side of her helmet.

  Lily continued: “It’s just that… you triggered, an Endbringer attacked, and then you’re pressed into duty basically immediately before you could get a ton of training time in, you know? I imagine it has been…” She paused a moment to think, then concluded: “Ungodly stressful?”

  Melody couldn’t help but nod in agreement. “Yeah. Everyone has told me that it gets easier with time, but that doesn’t really help me here and now. I’d probably have a better handle on things if I could get some normal sleep.”

  “Nightmares?” Lily asked, taking a sip of her coffee.

  “Mhm. If they’re not about the fire, then they’re about that… thing.” Melody shivered at her recollection of the battle against Leviathan, and all the people she’d seen die. She stared off into the darkness.

  Lily reached out and placed a hand on Eclipse’s shoulder, over her coat. She could feel impact-absorbing inserts under the surface of the coat, but she squeezed the material, and it gave under her fingers. Melody brought a thumb up under her mirrored visor and wiped at her eyes. With a sniff, she looked over at Flechette and smiled a little. “Thanks, Flechette. Anyway- as I was saying, yeah. Only been able to sleep when the exhaustion hits critical mass. Too tired to dream, you know?”

  “Well, I don’t know any good tricks for handling things like that, but if you need help with any of the more run-of-the-mill work stuff, let me know, okay?”

  Melody nodded a bit absently and brought her binoculars back up to look for any trouble.

  “Have you seen anything tonight?” Flechette asked her from her side.

  “Mm, not really. I think the weather is keeping most people in shelter, but there have been a few stragglers here and there slinking around. Nobody has come close, though.”

  “Well, that’s good. Have to take what we can get. Did you hear about what happened last night?”

  Melody shook her head.

  “Twenty or so people showed up and tried to flex on the crew during work hours. Supposedly, they were with the Merchants, but it’s hard to say if that was true or not. Nobody with any apparent powers. Still, it was enough people roughly organized to cause a stir with security. The current hypothesis is that they’re probing to see what kind of defenses we have, and what we might be hiding.”

  Melody took a long sip of her coffee, then shook her head. “I’m not too worried about them. You and I should be able to handle anything like that pretty easily, not to mention the officers being more than equipped to handle a bunch of strung-out losers.”

  Lily grinned over at Melody and teased, “Well, not all of us have the ability to deal with crowds easily like you or Vista.”

  Melody cracked a grin herself and shrugged in false modesty. “I won’t lie, my power is pretty awesome like that. Yours isn’t so shabby either! Anyone tries the two of us, they’re in for a bad time.”

  Flechette snickered and nodded along. “If, or when, we get past this disaster, I want to test out how our powers interact. In a controlled setting, I mean.”

  “Yeah, I get you. It could be fun. I still need to take some time and really test my power out on my own as well. See if I can make it do anything else, besides just… stopping things, you know?”

  Flechette shifted on her feet and shook some accumulated water off herself. “Is that the only ability you gained? Your slowing field?”

  Melody let out a quiet sigh and nodded. “Yeah, that’s it, at least, as far as I know. Being able to fly or something would be awesome, but no. Armsmaster and Kid Win have been working on a few things to help me out and give me a bit more mobility to take advantage of my power. So I’m slowly building a utility belt of tools. He, Armsmaster, I mean, built me this grappling gun… thing?”

  Melody reached under her coat to her waist and unclipped a larger device from her belt. It was clearly tinker-tech from appearance alone, because it looked like a cross between a kid’s toy and some kind of industrial tool. It had a spade-style handle on one end with a trigger and a few buttons. That connected to a thin, cylindrical body, with the top and bottom of the cylinder facing sideways, so it would lay flush against the body when clipped or worn. The opposite end terminated in a stubby barrel with what looked like a black plastic capsule sticking out of it.

  “Oh, hey. Me too,” Lily started to say, when she was interrupted by another round of status checks. Each sounded off, then she unshouldered her large crossbow and pointed out how her bow incorporated a similar feature with a more traditional-looking collapsible grappling hook and chain.

  Melody peered at the crossbow and nodded slowly. After a moment, she asked: “And you use that? Like… often?”

  Flechette let out a quiet laugh and nodded in agreement. “Yeah, it was a little scary at first, and I wasn’t sure I could trust it, but now it’s like second nature to me. I use it to get around quickly whenever I’m on a patrol or we’re deployed as a team. Otherwise, there’s no way I’d be able to keep up with some of the other heroes I’ve worked with!”

  Melody nibbled her lower lip and looked down at the device in her hands. “I’ve used it a little, but not for like… scaling tall buildings, or moving between buildings or anything. I thought I was being silly, but I really am scared that it will come loose and I’ll fall or something.”

  Lily pulled the strap for her large crossbow over her head and let the weapon hang from her back. “Hm- oh! I have an idea for you.”

  “Mmh?”

  “So when I first started using my arbalest and the grappling hook, I was scared of falling as well, so I had it modified so that it’s actually strapped to me when I’m using it. See-” She pulled at a few straps on her sleek costume that barely stood out from the rest of the outfit. “It clips onto this, so I can’t drop or lose it, but also, I can’t lose my grip on it and fall, you know?”

  Melody brought a gloved hand up to her lower face and let out a muffled groan. “Ugh. I’m so dumb.”

  “Huh?” Lily asked.

  “Nothing. Just… another thing I was probably told and forgot, then didn’t realize what something was used for. So much to keep track of.” She fished under her coat and produced a length of thin cable with a locking carabiner on one end. Looking at the device, she found the attachment point on the backside of the cylindrical body and clipped it on. Giving it a test, she was able to hold the grappling gun nearly fully overhead before hitting the end of the cable attached to her belt.

  “Right. So that’s what that is for.”

  Lily cracked a small grin and patted Eclipse on the back. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You’re still learning, and it isn’t like we have had the time to sit down and actually go through these things in depth. Just uh- double-checking, is that belt designed to hold your weight in a fall?”

  Melody nodded several times. “Yeah, it is. Miss Militia had to show me the proper way to wear it, because I was confused about what the extra straps were for and wasn’t wearing it properly at first. At least I wasn’t jumping out of a helicopter or scaling buildings or something, heh heh…”

  “Can I see your belt? If that’s okay?”

  Melody held up one finger, taking a moment to take several deep gulps of her coffee before setting it down on a bucket and releasing the clasps on her coat and pulling it behind herself so Lily had a clearer view.

  Flechette took several minutes to give her help and answer any questions she had, giving Melody the space to ask on her own terms.

  “The thing I don’t understand is why there are two of them?” Melody asked as they were wrapping up.

  “Oh, you’ll laugh because it’s so simple, but I didn’t figure that out myself until someone showed me. So in your case, you will probably want to keep one of those attachments hooked to your gun, right?”

  Melody nodded along.

  “Right, so the second one is for safety. So let’s say you go up someplace high up, and you’re scared of falling, right? You use the second one to secure yourself to the building, or whatever. That way if you do slip or lose your balance, you’re not going very far. And if you’re climbing or going somewhere, like scary high up? You use both of them. You will see these cables or anchor points on taller buildings for work crews to attach to, but the cables will be secured every couple of feet. You clip one on the close cable. Walk to the end of it, clip the second one on the next cable, then undo the first. That way, you are never at any risk of falling.”

  Melody let out a soft groan at that. “You’re right. It is so common sense that you’d think it would be obvious, but it isn’t. Thanks, Flechette. That makes me a bit less nervous about using this thing.” She gave the gun in her hands a quick shake.

  “I uh, have a question about your gun. What’s with the hook end? I haven’t seen anything like that before. You can see mine collapses down, but it’s just what you’d expect when it’s unfolded. A big metal claw that snags on things and digs in, you know?”

  “Oh! Well. Armsmaster told me it was something he made for his halberd that he never got around to using, so he re-purposed it and made this. It looks like hard plastic, but when you shoot it, it becomes something like toy putty. It sticks to basically anything it touches, even uh… people. Anyways, I can use it to get around, or I can shoot it at someone and then pull them into my field.”

  “Oh, that is a mean trick to pull on someone. They’re doing their best to stay away from you, and you just grab them and reel them in.”

  Melody grinned at that. “Yeah. Playing nice is for chumps. I’m going to cheat every way I can to make the most of my ability. Because once I’ve got them in arm’s length, they’re not going anywhere.”

  Flechette pulled out her phone and checked the time. “We still have two hours left. Want to come on patrol with me? Get some blood flowing and warm up some?”

  Melody drained the last of her coffee and stretched her arms over her head. “Ugh, yeah, sounds good. I’m going to get sore if I don’t move around a bit. What did you have in mind?”

  “Well, we need to go around the perimeter. Why don’t we get a little practice time in while we do it?” She elbowed Eclipse in the side with a grin.

  Eclipse, for her part, did her best not to let her face fall too much. “You’re talking about using the grapples right now, aren’t you?”

  “Yep! Why not use the time to get ahead of the curve a little bit while we’re looking for trouble?”

  Melody scrunched up her nose for a long moment, then sighed. “Alright, alright. We might as well. And who knows, maybe I’ll get more used to dangling from dangerous heights.”

  “Well, let’s start off slow, yeah? We’ll do stuff that’s like one and two stories, then work our way up. Who knows, if you’re feeling confident, maybe we can go further!” Lily extended a finger and pointed towards the blinking emergency lighting on the crane that had been set up. It had to be at least two hundred feet up to the boom.

  “Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” Melody said with a growing sense of dread creeping into her voice.

  With an evil grin plastered on her face, Flechette said: “I don’t know, am I?”