Sarai was eager to get some results tonight.

Her costume was already on, and she was taking the staff elevator down to the side exit from headquarters, to get outside unimpeded.

Beside her stood Damsel, expression veiled under that veiled helmet but otherwise looking calm. The girl had joined for an extra patrol tonight after spending the afternoon shadowing Omnibus. A fine little apprenticeship her subordinate had secured, Sarai would admit. Not that it grated on her yet, but she knew it soon would, if she didn't get something done.

"Commendable that you decided to join me," she praised out loud. "I don't see this kind of work ethic from the rest of the team. Two shifts in one day isn't nothing."

"Thank you, Lahar," Damsel said, but otherwise remained quiet. Not in a talkative mood, then, unlike the previous couple of weeks. Did it have to do with her civilian life? Well, whatever the case, it was fine. So long as they got the job done.

"My route today is a straight line south, by flight," Sarai explained. "We're surveying an area near the Blues Plating Maze. You've been there before?"

Damsel shook her head. "I've only heard of it."

"Good enough." Sarai gave a nod.

They filed out of the elevator and hallway together, walking through the automatic sliding door that blinked green at their passage.

Outside, she preempted any potential sightings and autograph signings by manifesting a stone platform with her sphere positioned to cover the ground under their feet.

Some of her peers and even adult heroes got a bit nervous or rattled when rising into the air like this, to a height where a fall would mean certain death for any civilian, but Damsel didn't even twitch.

For two reasons, Sarai figured. One being that they had done this quite a few times already, in addition to Damsel having mentored under the late Mistral prior to her arrival in Central. Another was her warrior-type body, which Sarai definitely envied. It wasn't fair how some heroes and villains just got to have a better body, while she'd had to train years to get to a point where she could even reliably create distance from close range opponents.

Still, she shouldn't be too broken up about Damsel's power in particular. It was strong, but was limited to what the knight girl was touching. And she was ground-bound, like a large percentage of superhumans were. Here in Central, less than a third of the DHD's heroes were capable of flight.

Sarai kept her gaze trained ahead, putting thoughts of Matilda's private life and composure out of her mind. Her limbs felt wired, ready to spring into action. She always felt this during night patrols where everything became clearer, less distractions to divert her attention for many small things that didn't really matter. The coast was clear for now, though she knew that would soon change. The only question was the threat level of what they were dealing with. They hadn't received any tips, and their communicators were on standby at the moment, so there would be no interruptions unless she called for them. That last part was a privilege afforded to her as a result of a long track record of reliable and excellent service.

Among the juniors, she liked to think of herself as the strongest. In terms of raw destructive potential, Bartosz had her beat, but that giant oaf of a boy was so gentle and kind that you would never see him cutting loose in a fight. She had plenty of versatility, experience against Unbound in group fights, and a wide array of techniques devised during her long hours of practice.

For the past three days, she'd been going extra hard at it in the wake of seeing Finneas again. If that fucking bastard wanted to show his face here again in her district after walking out, fine. She was over it. When she capped off her list of achievements with a big name villain capture, she would forget all about him.

With a flex of her will, they rose higher into the air, winds picking up as they shot forward at a brisk pace. She wanted to make good time, yet still was more than cognizant of any passengers she carried. It would be the height of amateurism to not adjust her speed to the other people on the platform. Besides, Damsel could handle her maximum speed just fine regardless.

At length, they made it to the aforementioned monument. The Maze shone bright, translucent navy plates criss-crossed in all three dimensions and served as a sort of obstacle course for visitors. Originally the result of an inexplicable power interaction during a fight in the era before Apexia's formation, it was now a simple tourist attraction.

She lowered the platform until the little black dots crawling around it became people again. Contrary to what others might expect, it took some time before anyone noticed her. Their costumes weren't the brightest in color, and her stone platform didn't pop in the night or anything. Most likely, the gleam of Damsel's armor reflected the light from below and that caught the attention of the normals down below. There weren't many, considering what time it was, but it was rare for nobody to be visiting this place. Everything was within expectations.

Good thing they weren't the reason she had come here. No, it was the area around the labyrinth that was of interest. The shops and corporate buildings surrounding the area were frequent targets of robberies, vandalism, and other crimes she didn't care to name.

Despite anticipating a fight, part of her expected to fly around and find nothing. That was what happened most of the time on her patrols. Being under eighteen, they weren't allowed near known Homeland-affiliated "territory" alone, same for a couple of other gangs, and she had to make do with the best areas that didn't have known Unbound associated with them.

Even then, there remained a slight chance that she would encounter one. And that thought sent fire coursing through her veins. The last time she had cut loose was after convincing Nar to spar with her one time shortly following his transfer here. Humiliating defeat aside, before defeating her, he had allowed her to go all-out and vent everything she kept a lid on normally. Fighting the stronger villains in Central happened under supervised conditions with an older hero, usually Cerese or Noor, holding her hand. It was never just free.

More than a year has passed since then, so suffice to say, she was anticipating something to happen.

Eight minutes passed in silence.

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Then, lo and behold, a distant explosion rang out.

"Console?" she said into her comms, activating them.

Two seconds later, a voice answered from the other side. "Black Dirge spotted at Waltray International Banking. Civilians are clearing out, villains as well. Their op is already done. Best course of action is damage control. Assess the state of the…"

She stopped listening and muted the communication device, going full speed ahead. Sarai knew the routine here, and she did glance inside when she passed the building, Damsel jumping off to head over.

Scouting ahead for any stragglers, the young heroine soared into the side streets to look for possible escape routes. They must've been nearby; to her knowledge, the only flier in that gang was their leader, who would be preoccupied with getting the rest out since their illusionist didn't work as well when in motion.

"Where are you, bitch," she muttered, eyes roving over the land, trying to look for anyone who might resemble one of the members of that gang. Was she ever going to get a better opportunity than this? It was practically a godsend. There wouldn't be any punishment if she brought back—

Fingers brushed her throat.

"Looking for me?" an oscillating voice said.

Without hesitation, Sarai dove off the hovering circle while annihilating it beneath her and sending a metal spike out behind her. Then she materialized a smaller block of iron to stand on and reoriented herself to face her new opponent.

Just in time to see the spike phase through them.

"Prickly," commented the villainess, suspended in midair. Her red and white bird mask hid her entire face except for a pair of dark eyes which regarded Sarai with amusement. Otherwise, the costume this woman wore was fairly nondescript. Sheathed sword, a dark bodysuit with some light armoring, and reinforced boots. "Lahar Sioc, was it?"

"Calliope," Sarai spoke, keeping her voice even as though she hadn't just been at the mercy of this violent criminal. "Surrender now before this gets any worse for you, or I'll have no choice but to apprehend you by force."

Although there was no way to tell, she got the feeling Calliope was smiling. "You say that as if you don't want to burn me to a crisp either way. You have a choice now. Don't you feel trapped by all those rules and regulations? Constrained? I can hear the anticipation you're repressing. Your heart is telling me all about it."

"Last chance," she said tersely, hands raised in threat. Calliope was right though, she definitely DID want this to result in a fight.

Calliope blurred, and that was all Sarai saw before the world became an indistinct mess too fast to perceive as she felt something grab her arm. When she came to a halt again, they were standing over a different rooftop instead of the open street. Standing, not flying. Where was her…?

"Think faster," said the enemy, then she followed that up by pulling the sword and swinging it. Sarai leaned back just in time to see her wide-eyed, masked reflection stare back at her on the blade. She turned the dodge into a handstand and sprang back up onto a floating rock as she prepared a hail of lava. Molten metal and stone combined to form a combination in the other sphere of her power, glowing bright orange when she hurled it at Calliope in a spinning wave.

This was, of course, phased through again, but Sarai wasn't done. She channeled the energy in her second sphere which she was keeping on the supposed sound manipulator, and inverted her power. Icy mist and frozen crystals appeared all over the villain's body, her walk visibly slowing.

Though Sarai might not have been able to freeze someone's brain directly—the anchor other beings had in reality was just too great—she was able to induce intense cold in the air directly around them. Out of all her past battles, this was one of her most effective moves.

And for a moment, she breathed out, not letting up the pressure and prioritizing that the limbs at least stayed frozen. When that was done, she went further. Gathering frozen moisture in the air, she used some sand to direct it to the building ice block she was creating, intending to trap the villainess in cryostasis. This was a fight for her life now, non-lethal force went out the window.

As a matter of fact, forget trapping her, she would smash the ice block with a metal wrecking ball for good measure. Lifting her other sphere into the air, the material accumulated above the crystalline prison gleaming like an altar holding an offering for some angry god whose wrath was about to descend.

The ice cracked.

Wide-eyed, Sarai sent the ball crashing down, creating more distance again. All ice suddenly shattered and a steaming Calliope swung her sword upward with a casual swipe.

Both halves of her metallic orb crashed heavily into the rooftop, making spiderweb cracks.

"Not bad," Calliope said. "Your targeting areas have no signature atmospheric changes I can detect until they're right on top of me. It was a good use of your power. A lot of people would have died there."

Pushing harder, Sarai split her spheres in two, and then those as well. When she had eight of them, she split a single one into eight more tiny ones and concentrated her maximum heat in them, low density trails of metal dust turning them into plasma lines she set to chase Calliope while she flew around.

"But," the taller woman went on, running and sound-hopping out of the way of each one. "I do stimulate vibrating particles, as well as sense them. I hold a specialized dominion over sound. Temperature is something I'm capable of, I'll just never be great at it."

Calliope was in front of her, fist reared back. Her hastily created shield crumpled like paper under the force of Calliope's blow, forcing her back in to the open air where she generated another foothold. She didn't even get into a proper position, only using it to jump away more and send spikes, plasma, ice, and cannon balls.

This monster hit like a truck, it was so bad Sarai was sure she had broken something. Unfortunately she had no more time to think about it because Calliope was on her again in a second, this time phasing a fist through her shield and punching her hard. With so much adrenaline coursing through her system, she heard rather than felt her ribs snap.

It was a dance of white and gray as she tried to hit Calliope in the air and kept failing. She extended her…

A stump pointed forward from her left shoulder. The arm attached to it was gone.

High-pitched discordant notes shrieked through the air, so bad she couldn't focus anymore. Calliope ripped the shield from her hands and struck her in the chest with a flat palm, ringing her entire body like a gong, it felt like. Every organ vibrated with the shockwave. The taste of copper flooded her mouth quickly.

She stumbled on the haphazard steps she could make in her dazed state as Calliope began to carve her up. Cut across the shoulders, stomach, forehead, le- a foot was gone. She screamed in pain, then realized the whole area had gone silent, including herself. She couldn't hear anything.

With one final jump, Calliope kneed her in the face and sent her hurtling to flat ground. No focus, she couldn't even muster her power to act in accordance with her desires. No footing. No release. No emptiness. Just a descent she could do nothing to stop.

Her mind was shutting down. Why was she even here? For a fight, she thought. Where were the others? She didn't know. Probably abandoned wherever she was supposed to be. Eyelids were growing heavier. This was goodnight.

She wouldn't be… proving…

Then, something caught her, gently lowering her to the ground. A pair of strong arms, clad in bright white leather lined with blue. Someone had come to rescue her…?

She couldn't think so clearly anymore, thoughts growing clouded. Fatigue began to set in. Darkness crept into the edges of her vision as she felt consciousness slip away.

The last thing Sarai saw were her savior's iridescent eyes.

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