I blink.

It seems to take more effort than usual. It's loud, too, but at the same time kind of distant. I'm also hurting, small points of pain prickling a little bit more than the dull, omnipresent ache. Full awareness comes slowly, black splotches swimming across my vision. I'm looking at... The side of a van? The door is open, the sides mangled, and I can see the sky. That doesn't make sense.

Then the memories come rushing back, and suddenly a thrill of panic shoots through me as I recall exactly where I am and what happened. The sharp cracks must be gunshots- I had been riding with Miss Militia! There was no way she'd lose, right?! I just had to make my way out of the van, and then-

The glass I'm laying on creaks dangerously as I attempt to push myself up. I freeze, holding my breath, every muscle locked in place. A couple of seconds later I allow myself to start breathing again, nearly whimpering as the reality of the situation hits me.

I'm mostly naked, inside a PRT van that is on it's side. I was cut up in more than a few places, and likely had a head injury. We'd been attacked by Hookwolf. The Empire villain. I had been left alone in the car, with no-one trying to wake me up or keep me safe. Even the driver was gone. I was completely defenseless, and judging from the gunshots and sirens outside, help wasn't coming anytime soon.

I took several deep breaths, pushing back the terror that was starting to creep in. My shaking hands clenched into fists, squeezing until all of the blood had been pushed out and all that was left was pale white skin stretched over bone.

Fine. If they wanted to leave me, I'd just save myself.

That, of course, was the moment someone chose to bang on the side- roof, of the car. I nearly jump out of skin, a muffled shriek escaping as a quiet squeak.

"Hey! You alright in there?" The voice sounds young, female, and slightly winded. I take a steadying breath, trying to force my heart back under control.

"Y-yeah." I manage to force out, voice breaking before I can even finish the first syllable. My cheeks flush, and I take another breath, struggling for control over my traitorous voice. "I mean, I'm fine! A couple of scratches, but nothing bad!"

"Whew. That's good to hear. You hang on a moment, alright? Seriously, find something to grip. I'm going to get you to safety!" Before I can even start to question how she'll do that, the entire car starts tilting! It groans as it's pushed upwards, rising inches every second as it slowly rights itself. I scramble off of the glass, desperate to keep it from breaking under my weight and spilling me out of the car. I hold on to one of the seats; now that I'm focusing, my head's slowly getting clearer and clearer, and memories are coming back. Most importantly, the feeling of being around Miss Militia. The cloud of heaviness, the feeling of concepts- it's right outside the van. But it isn't Miss Militia's. Hers... Felt more set, more entrenched, for lack of a better term. The one outside was barely a fraction of that mental weight, closer to a puffy mass of white on a sunny day than a raincloud.

There weren't really any good terms for it. But, at this point, connecting the dots wasn't hard; the clouds were heroes. I had some kind of power sense- more than that, I could almost reach out andtouch the clouds, not with my arms or hands but with my mind. Something tickled in the back of my brain; it wouldn't even be the first time I'd done it.

Before I can attempt to trace that thought back to the source, though, the van finishes righting itself with one last unhappy groan. I'm partially lying on the floor, arms clutched around the base of a seat. Slightly embarrassed by the position, I start to scramble to my knees, even as the driver's side door opens. I push myself around, twisting to look at my savior while trying to keep my bare butt pointed downwards. I'm halfway through a 'Thank-you' when I finally register exactly what I'm looking at.

The girl climbing into the seat huffs slightly as she pulls her robes in after her. She mutters as she rearranges them before she pulls the door shut with a loud shriek of distorted metal, prompting a wince. Then she turns toward me, strands of blonde hair floating through the air. She smiles, one hand coming up to tuck the hair back into place behind her head, even as the van itself starts to lift off the ground.

"Well, that was- why are you naked?" Rune asks.

-

I dodge, moving backwards while shifting to my shadow state, covering two times the ground I would have if I'd been flat-out sprinting. A giant wolf made of metal slams into my former position, it's snarl the sound of thousands of shifting blades grinding together. It flinches back, the head melting into the shoulders and the eyes winking shut as sparks appear where Miss Militia's shots bounce off of it's head. I curse under my breath, wondering when she'll move up to actually using the damn armor-piercing rounds or just skip straight to the explosions. Low caliber bullets are nothing but annoyances to Hookwolf, and it's my life she's putting on the line, here!

The fact that I only have a shitty PRT foam gun isn't helping matters. Projectiles are easy for me to shift into shadow state. Arrows? Barely harder than bringing my clothes along with me. Foam, on the other hand, shifts and expands and doesn't play nice with my powers. Hookwolf doesn't sit still long enough for the foam to have any real effect, cutting off whatever bits I do manage to get on him. This would all be easier if I had my goddamn crossbow; see how much the fucker wants to pounce on me when I can shoot straight through his fucking armor!

I pull back on the anger leaking from the source in the back of my head, pushing away the clouding effects of the invading thoughts. I also immediately drop out of shadow state, nearly fumbling my landing and falling. The cool, collected Sophia doesn't give a single damn about Hookwolf's metallic laughter. She falls back and plans, watching for the next attack as she leads him away from Miss Militia. He bursts into action, going from the still gaze of a predator to a full-on attack in one motion, and suddenly she has to pull on the anger and the itch to attack to phase through a wall, entering an office building. People scream from the back corner as Hookwolf goes through the wall in response, and I have to bite back the instinctive response to yell at them to shut the fuck up and stop drawing attention to themselves. Hookwolf glances at them, and before he can get any funny ideas I grab a- stapler? Really?- and phase it through his head. He flinches back, but less than a second later the wolf head smirks as it spits out a shredded piece of metal.

That doesn't stop me from smirking back as I notice the surface infused with the distinctive gleam of his own metal. Phase-fragging was a bitch when I gave Manton Limit the middle finger. This would all be so much more convenient if I had my goddamn crossbow, of course.

Failing that, I'd settle for less anger, more control over my powers.

I don't know how Hebert did it, but she linked the fucking aggression to my power usage. Either I got angry- and Jesus fuck no wonder I messed up so bad if I felt that angry all the fucking time- or I got turned into mincemeat. I was working fairly well, switching between moments of cold planning and intense aggression, but having even a small break from the anger made it hit like a freight train each time I called it back up. Going from zero to a hundred emotionally is goddamn exhausting, especially when I'm doing it every five seconds. It worked, and there were benefits. I didn't feel the need to go on the attack so goddamn much, and not being angry or afraid or any emotion, really, did fucking wonders for planning.

Hookwolf starts prowling forward, sliding over and through desks with the same ease I'd phase through them. Fucking cheater. I try to kite him towards the entrance- aka the giant fucking hole he made in the front of the office, goddamn- to get some support from Miss Militia, but every time I make a step towards it he takes a step closer to the terrified idiots huddling in the back corner.

Damnit.

"You gonna kill some weak office drones? Is that how you get your kicks these days?" I call out casually, falling back two steps for every one he takes towards me. He snorts.

"Maybe. It sounds like a lot more fun than going back out there and seeing if good old American Gal has a rocket launcher pulled out already." Despite the various other sounds coming from him all being metallic, his voice is rough and decidedly human. I frown as a quick glance over my shoulder shows the approaching wall. I can go through into the next room over.

Or I could take the stairs. I take a breath and drop my powers, and cold Sophia agrees. Hookwolf won't back down from the challenge, and if the drones have even an ounce of brainpower they'll run as soon as they go up a level. She makes a break for the door to the stairwell, and Hookwolf is charging after, not even bothering to flow around the desks, just smashing straight through them. Sophia pulls on a tiny flicker of power and goes through the door without bothering to open it. Less than a second later Hookwolf comes through, also not bothering to open the door. Sophia tenses her legs halfway up the first flight of stairs, and then I'm dropping out of shadow state and another flight upwards as metal spikes pierce the stairs where I was just seconds ago. I back step quickly, barely avoiding the poles that lance through the floor like a hot knife through butter, moving into the main room with another phased lunge even as Hookwolf makes another fucking hole in the floor to pull himself through.

Goddamn. I don't even want to imagine the property damage cost.

Then we're dancing through the desks and occasional pillar, scythes of metal flashing out to try and slice me to ribbons while I try to hem him in with the foam gun. It's not working. The foam gun has a really fucking impressive tank for the mobile version, but it's not going to last me much longer. The piles of foam lingering everywhere are good for me, as they're the only material Hookwolf can't just cut his way through in less than a second, but touching them only makes him leave the top coat of metal behind. There's no way he's stupid enough to be caught between one of the piles and me.

I need a plan. So I switch back to cold Sophia, ducking into a side office and foaming the doorway to make an impromptu barrier. She has less than a second to think before Hookwolf bursts through the goddamn wall fucking again, spears of shiny death rocketing towards her form. She shifts, grabbing ahold of exactly the right amount of power to make my power work optimally, and I dodge to the side, going into the office a room over, already giving up the power and anger for a moment of cold clarity, eyes fixed on the wall waiting for Hookwolf to-

There's a single lance, this time. It's thin, barely wider than a sewing needle, and it glints in the light coming from the glass window as it pierces the wall and flows into my gut. I don't even feel the pain right away, it's so sharp. Just a small pinch, and then I'm desperately trying to grab for enough power to go fully shadow state rather than the pathetic flicking I have now, and I overshoot it. I grab more than I need to.

Adrenaline floods into me like a lightning bolt from God. I go straight through ravening angry and arrive on the other side, a cold kind of hatred and desire to see Hookwolf torn to bloody pieces, even if I have to rip him apart with my bare hands. I phase, and instantly notice how much easier it is. There's no inertia from my dodge forcing me to go in a predictable direction. I simply step to the side, gliding through the air like a wraith. Hookwolf comes through the wall, playing catch-up with his needle lance. He sprints after me, but he's so slow. I step back through the wall, almost thoughtlessly dragging my fingers across it as I float through it. A few more steps and I'm in the middle of the office again, slowly, regretfully letting go of the shadow world. Hookwolf is still charging forward, and I imagine I can see something like surprise as he passes through a wall that was solid only seconds ago before it became a shifting, roiling mass of inky darkness. He stumbles, exiting, (the shadows blink back to normal exactly when I knew they would) barely catching himself before he falls onto his face. Behind him, the wall now looks like a regular wall, for all intents and purposes.

Except for the spot at the base where a splotch is gleaming silver. On the other side, I have no doubt there's the melting remains of a limb.

Hookwolf pauses, regarding me carefully. He doesn't charge forward recklessly, instead taking the moment to begin circling me.

I giggle, a wide, savage grin pulling at my cheeks. I imagine doing that to the rest of him, separating him piece by piece until there's nothing but a mess of limbs and blood-stained metal left.

I giggle louder.