The clouds shifted above our position on the rooftops of downtown Nubrick. The pale moonlight briefly revealed myself, Rook, and Callie perched over the side as we watched the Crooked Man’s latest following start up their rioting. They marched in like a flood and started lighting fires. No more than a hundred, probably. Moments like that, the tension usually gets thick enough to choke on. Then the fighting starts. 

“I hate Mondays,” I said out loud. 

Rook shot me a glare from under his cowl. Wordlessly, he tapped the communicator on his ear. “Delta, take Orion and Fortune and start crowd control,” he ordered. 

“What about Mansion?” Delta questioned. 

“Good people of Nubrick!” Hollered a voice from inside an unfinished railway up the street. A speaker system had been rigged up from within a worn down subway car. Inside was the man of the hour. “It’s ten o’clock on  Saturday! Do you know where your criminally insane constituents are? Here’s a hint; not in a hospital or jail cell, oh no, far from it! They’re down the street! Come out and say hello!” 

“We’ll take care of him,” Rook replied. He turned to me, “I’ll play bait. Can our newest member muzzle his loud speaker while you get in his face?”

“Consider it done,” Callie assured him. 

“What she said,” I echoed. 

Rook departed the rooftop without another word. The moment he leapt into the air and into the spotlights, Edward Mansion pivoted his monologue towards the caped vigilante. The other half of Chroma was overqualified for their job so far; property damage was nearly non-existent with those three ladies handling things. Two meta-humans and whatever Naoto had going on were more than enough for disgruntled street thugs. 

Callie and I kept to the shadows and hopped across the rooftops between us and Mansion. Our newest member cleared the buildings without a sweat and never broke her stride. When we made it to one side of the broken railway, I offered my hand. She took it without question, allowing me to pass on my intangibility as I led up and over the worn down tracks. I launched her forward atop the train car where she quickly cut off his speakers. 

Trusting that Mansion would be thoroughly disappointed, I made my entrance by falling through the roof of the train car. 

“Eddy, long time no see,” I remarked. 

“Casper!” Mansion hollered excitedly. “What’s the friendliest ghost in Nubrick doing here? Don’t you have a haunted house to be at? Who else will frighten all those poor high schoolers?”

“Now Eddy,” I began. “Let’s not pretend you and your new friends have anything higher than a GED. We both know uneducated masses  ask less questions.” 

Mansion stomped his feet, the metal clang ringing with fury throughout the train car. “What else am I supposed to do?! Ever since Rook joined up with Spectrum, all the smart goons went straight! No one appreciates a dishonest day’s work anymore. People think crime just happens?! You have to work for it!” 

I leaned onto a rusted pole. “Good help is so hard to find.” 

“No, no, no!” Mansion yelled as he brandished a gun. “You’re supposed to be the straight man and I do the funnies! You’re the building and I’m the bulldozer! You’re the man on the edge and I’m gravity!” 

Honestly, Edward Mansion was usually more composed than this. He didn’t look well either. His normally tidy and stiff appearance was ragged. He must’ve gone days without clean clothes. Unhinged would’ve been putting it lightly. 

“I’m not Rook, Eddy,” I reminded him. “But I am a decent distraction.”

On cue, Rook came crashing through the side door. The force of his kick as he glided in sent Mansion flying out of the train car. Rook fired a grapple hook in time to catch the Crooked Man just before he hit the ground below. Giving me a quick nod, Rook leapt down to wrap up our target with a clean bow. 

As I went to phase down to join him, an electric current traveled through me and dropped me onto the abandoned floor of the train car. I couldn’t move, I could barely breathe. I was stuck seizing as my eyes noticed a ticking clock counting down. It was up on the ceiling with five seconds left. 

Just as my eyes widened, Callie swung down from an open latch. She rolled towards me and grappled me in one motion. The two of us fell from the train car just as the explosion went off above. Callie kept herself locked below me as we fell. Before I could even register how close we were to the street, I felt a crack below me as our momentum halted. I looked around to see the rest of Chroma racing towards us. Looking down, Callie was cradling my face. 

“Are you alright?” She asked me. Her face looked broken but not hurt. The small movements she made seemed careful and deliberate rather than pained. “Say something please.” 

I held her face in return, moving my body to free hers from being pinned under me. For the first time in a long time, I didn’t have some witty line up my sleeve. I just needed her to be okay. I didn’t leave her side as we rushed her back to Spectrum HQ. I didn’t say much of anything the whole way. I just held her hand and held her stare for as long as she let me. 

As we entered the facility, I finally managed to tell her, “You’re going to be okay. I promise.”