Ms. Marvel's phone buzzed. She snagged it from the floor, eyes flicking over the screen.

"What is it?" Ette asked, around bites of watermelon.

"We got one like on our video of fighting Ray Beam," she dropped her phone on the quilt.

Squirrel Girl patted her shoulder. "It's only been five minutes. People might still see it."

"Not likely," Ms. Marvel picked up her phone again, clearing her throat. "Ahem. Three minutes ago: 'Explosion rocks Brooklyn Bridge! The Avengers save hundreds of innocents'," she glanced up, wrinkling her nose. "We can't compete with that! Half of Herowatch is buzzing with it!" she pulled her knees in. "We'll never get a sponsor. We'll never even get any views."

"We have seven views at least," Ivy said, picking at her watermelon rind. A sack of black seeds sat before her. "Us six, and whoever liked it."

"Uh, that was me," Squirrel Girl said. "I liked it."

"Oh."

"We still have the video of Dante walking into the fire," Ette said.

"I was going to wait for the Avengers thing to blow over first," Ms. Marvel said, muffled through her knees.

"And then we can go after Lightning Storm," Ette continued, "and post a whole bunch of videos about that."

Victor glanced backward, toward the wall of crates against the ocean window. Somewhere among them, Ray Beam slept, tied against a box. They'd left him there after he revealed the location of Lightning Storm's base of operations, under threat of squirrels chewing his boots to pieces.

"Yeah..." Ms. Marvel sighed. "It's just a whole lot of work, you know? And what if we never get any sponsors?"

"Maybe Ette could grow a watermelon garden," Ivy motioned to the sack of watermelon seeds. "And we can sell them at a farmer's market."

Ette stuck her tongue out. "Where are we going to do that, the park? We don't own a patch of soil around here."

"What are we doing with Lightning Storm when we catch her?" Victor asked. He still held a full watermelon slice dripping in his hand.

"We drop her and Ray Beam off at the police," Squirrel Girl said. "We are not keeping them here."

Dante nudged Victor. "You going to eat that?"

Victor wordlessly handed him the watermelon. He had actually tried watermelon before, many weeks ago, and while it tasted fine, he ended up giving the rinds to kree soldiers as Earth trinkets. Now, their blue fingernails and dark pupils haunted him in the fruit seeds, making him shiver.

Did they blame him, before they died in the ocean? Did they even know it was him who brought the ship down?

Did they curse the random earth trinkets he gave them, call him a traitor, a liar?

Maybe he should've tried to convince them to rebel against Hala. Just soldiers, they probably weren't in it for the glory of galactic conquest. Not most of them. He could've promised hundreds of watermelon rinds and paper sacks to convince them to come peacefully live on earth.

"I can keep Ray Beam and Lightning Storm unconscious," Ette said, snapping Victor back to the conversation. "I've got nightcreep buds left from the ship."

"Yeah, how long do those last?" Ivy asked.

"Roughly eight hours."

"And you have how many nightcreep buds?"

"Some," Ette shrugged. "I can grow more."

Ivy quirked an eyebrow. "Where, in the park?"

Ette glared.

"I just worry the police might not be able to hold them," Ms. Marvel pursed her lips. "They don't have a cell designed to withstand energy beams or lightning, surely."

"And we don't have an under-the-sea base designed to withstand either of those things either," Squirrel Girl said. "So which is the better option here?"

"I guess the police," Ette reached for another watermelon slice in the sack in the center of the quilt.

"Why isn't there a prison designed for supervillains?" Ms. Marvel rubbed her temples.

"That would be too convenient," Squirrel Girl tossed a watermelon rind into the collective trash sack. "Obviously."

Ivy glanced at the ocean window. "Guys, this is only vaguely related, but I might know how to beat Lightning Storm really easily. We just need to buy a whole lot of water guns..."

***

Victor rose from a portal, dripping squirt gun in hand. He pulled the others up behind him, unfreezing them from the void. Water drips landed on the sidewalk beside the swirling shut portal.

Victor suspiciously eyed the gas station across the street. "How do we know Ray Beam was telling the truth?"

"I'll go check it out," Squirrel Girl said, a super soaker under one arm. "I can find some squirrels to sneak inside no problem," she jogged off, down the sidewalk toward a stand of trees.

"And the rest of us just wait here?" Ette glanced nervously to the silent intersection and the apartment complex behind them.

"Until we know this is the right place, yes," Victor nodded. No point in portaling inside a convenience store unless they actually knew it was the place taken over by a brainwashed inhuman and her human servants.

Ms. Marvel pulled out her phone. She didn't carry any water guns, her job was to record the whole fight.

"Any views?" Ivy leaned over her shoulder. "Or likes?"

"Or reports of Ray Beam escaping from prison?" Dante leaned over her other shoulder.

Ms. Marvel grew slightly taller, blocking both of them. "Nope, nope and nope. And quit spying on my phone."

"I wasn't spying," Ivy said.

"But our picture of Ray Beam tied up outside the police station got two new dislikes," Ms. Marvel said.

"Ouch," Dante winced. "Who would dislike that?"

"Ray Beam?" Ette shrugged.

"Ray Beam's mother?" Ivy said.

"I don't think it was them," Ms. Marvel gave the two of them withering stares.

"I doubt it was them either," Dante agreed. Victor nodded, as if he knew what they were talking about.

Squirrel Girl jogged back up the sidewalk, shadow long and bobbing on the apartment building. "I sent a pair of squirrels over," two squirrels were already darting from the trees and speeding across the empty road. "They'll report back. Maybe we should find some cover, in case Lightning Storm spots us?"

"Where?" Ette asked.

She shrugged. "At least behind those trees."

Following Squirrel Girl, they jogged down the sidewalk, huddling behind the trees lining the curb. Victor's water gun, as long as his forearm, trickled cold water down his knuckles. "Are you sure this is going to work?" he asked.

Ivy lifted her matching blue water gun. "It'll work better than trying to punch someone who generates an electrical field around her body."

"But, water? Really?"

Ette hefted her super soaker, same yellow and green as Squirrel Girl's. "If Ivy says it'll work, I trust it."

Ivy bit her lip. "I did take an electricity and magnetism focused physics class in high school, but I'm not a genius. As far as I know, we can use these to soak Lightning Storm, and it should mess with her powers. Water has lots of salts dissolved in it, which makes it a good conductor of electricity. Spread out the water, you spread out the lightning."

Dante raised a hand.

"We're not in class," Ms. Marvel rolled her eyes.

"Yes, Dante?" Ivy asked.

"If water conducts electricity, won't water from my squirt gun hitting Lightning Storm create a channel for the lightning to come and zap me?"

Ivy tapped his pair of pistols with her water gun. "That's why these are made of plastic. It'll insulate you in case that does happen."

"But then, won't the lightning melt my water gun instead?"

Ivy shrugged. "Who knows?"

"Maybe we should've brought water balloons instead," Dante muttered.

"Just try not to shoot a continuous stream of water," Ette suggested. "So the lightning never has a chance to reach you."

"Shhh," Squirrel Girl interrupted, pointing toward the street. A pair of squirrels darted across the asphalt, hopping to the curb beneath the pair of yellowing trees. They chirped and chattered at Squirrel Girl, who nodded slowly.

"What'd they say?" Ms. Marvel asked.

"The people inside have roasted all of the pistachios in a back room and left them for the cockroaches."

"What else?" Ms. Marvel asked.

Squirrel Girl squeaked to the squirrels, who replied back with twirling tails and loud chatters.

"Nutty and Tiny are willing to distract the humans in the front so we can go after the pistachio-roaster in the back office. Aka, Lightning Storm."

"Great," Ms. Marvel pulled out her phone. "Everyone ready?"

"Keep her surrounded," Victor said. "Use the water guns, and use your powers to trap her when she's weak. We don't want any explosions."

"Right," Squirrel Girl nodded. "And don't let her get outside near the gas pumps."

"I'll keep my powers at a minimum," Dante hefted both his water guns. "Don't worry."

"Kree Annihilators," Ms. Marvel stuck her hand out. Squirrel Girl, Ivy and Ette placed their hands atop hers. Victor put his hand down, and Dante topped it with a cold water gun.

"Let's go!" Dante whispered, punching his fist in the air.

The two squirrels squeaked, and darted off into the road.

***

Victor peeped up from the portal. "You disappoint me!" a voice screeched. A desk shattered, and a purple blur crashed to the floor. Victor heaved the others up from the void and swirled it closed, leaping back and sucking in his stomach to dodge a shard of wood.

"You're going down, Lightning Storm!" Squirrel Girl exclaimed. "Just like a hurricane dying over land! Except opposite! Get her!" Squirrel Girl shot a burst of water, splatting into Lightning Storm's face.

A collective gasp chorused from the people lining the office walls. Each wore a black polo emblazoned with a glittery pink lightning bolt, and they stared at Lightning Storm and her smashed desk--and the purple-haired man lying on the ground in its splinters.

Squirrel Girl lowered her super-soaker. "Did we just interrupt something?" she hissed to Ms. Marvel, who swept her phone around the room.

Lightning Storm spluttered.

Ice crackled, and Ivy threw a thin spike for Lightning Storm's white-and-red costume. Just before striking her knees, the ice spike slowed and angled slightly off course, rolling into the carpet. "Worth a shot," Ivy shrugged.

"Get them!" Lightning Storm shouted, pointing at Victor and the other Kree Annihilators.

"Uh oh," Squirrel Girl muttered. The black polo people rushed from the walls, running heedlessly into the Kree Annihilators.

"I thought Nutty and Tiny were supposed to distract all the humans!" Ette cried, a vine sprouting from her side and shoving back several black polo people trying to claw her.

"They were!" Dante shouted, squirting people in the face.

Victor opened a wide portal in the floor, dropping himself and half the polo-shirt people into the void. In the silence, he flowed out to the street corner and re-emerged, pulling the eight people onto the sidewalk and quickly retreating again.

The office inside had gone berserk, bookcases knocked to the ground and papers fluttering in the air, impaling themselves on overgrown icicles and thorns sprouting from splintered desk wood.

"The rival inhumans want to make you their slaves!" Lightning Storm yelled, a buzz of static ricocheting into the lights. They sprayed sparks, flickering madly.

"We're just trying to bring Lightning Storm down!" Ette cried. "Nobody should be a slave!"

The humans fought on, pink lightning bolts on their black polos flashing with tiny lightbulbs.

Victor dropped more of them into a portal. Gritting his teeth with the effort, he lugged all ten frozen forms through the void to the end of the street, then heaved them onto the sidewalk beneath some trees. He sunk back into the void, flowing back up into the convenience store.

"You killed them!" Lightning Storm wailed. "You killed my children!"

Squirrel Girl's super soaker blast took her in the face again. Victor closed his portal, emerging beside Ms. Marvel, who stared wide-eyed at her phone, slowly zooming in on Lightning Storm.

"Here," Dante handed Victor one of his water guns. Victor frowned, totally unaware of when he'd lost his own.

"We didn't kill anyone," Ivy said to Lightning Storm, spraying water at her white boots. "Half of them ran out the door! And the others got teleported somewhere safe. As in, not here."

Lightning Storm glared, water dripping from her chin into the ruins of the desk. She raised her fists and electricity crackled from them, zapping towards Ivy.

Half the electricity shot into the wet carpet. The other half struck the flickering lights, making them go dark.

"Ha," Ivy snorted.

"You--" Lightning Storm growled, and a giant pink ball of lightning fizzled in her hands, lighting up the room. She hurled the energy bolt, pink electricity scattering wildly. Some ricocheted to the floor and ceiling--and some blasted straight at Ivy. In slow motion, Ivy's eyes went round and she raised her water gun.

From the side, a stream of water struck the lightning. It deflected away from Ivy, fractaling inside a beam of water. Ette's water gun exploded.

"Ette!" Ivy screamed.

Victor shot water at Lightning Storm's boots, soggying the carpet. A pulse of lightning from her fingers cut down into the floor.

"Ivy, hit her!" Squirrel Girl exclaimed.

"Ivy's taking Ette," Dante said, remarkably calm. The lights flickered back on, spraying sparks, and Lightning Storm spun to shoot at Squirrel Girl, who ducked. The lightning took out chunks of the wall, spurting frothy red liquid from the back of the store's soda machines.

"I've got them," Victor darted past Dante, opening a portal beneath an unconscious Ette and Ivy frantically squeezing Ette's bleeding wrists.

"Flames incoming!" Dante exclaimed. "Ms. Marvel, you--"

Victor sped through the void. He surfaced beyond the gas station, in a crammed school bus parking lot, the pavement cracked with yellow flower buds.

"Is she okay?" Ivy whispered, clutching Ette's wrists.

Victor crouched beside her. "She's breathing. She'll be fine."

Ivy nodded, eyes darting wildly. "Yeah, yeah, of course," she gulped, fingers shaking.

"I'm going back," Victor opened a narrow portal.

"Yeah, yeah. I got this under control, don't worry--"

Victor slipped away before she could finish.

He emerged inside the office, water gun at the ready, but the room had gone silent. Lightning Storm sprawled on her back amidst the ruined desk, the sleeve of her left shoulder charred. Victor turned in a slow circle, examining the ruined office. "Dante? Squirrel Girl?"

"Don't do it!" Squirrel Girl shouted from within the store. Victor darted through the door into a dim hall, droplets of red soda flinging from his boots. "Whatever you do, don't do that!" Squirrel Girl shouted again.

Victor shoved open a door into the main convenience store and froze. Squirrel Girl, Dante and Ms. Marvel crowded in the glass doors, shouting at a pair of black polo people visible through the windows, running around the gasoline pumps, yanking hoses and spewing liquid across the bare parking lot.

"We won't be someone else's slaves!" the purple-haired man shouted. The other, a teenager in an ill-fitting shirt, squeezed down on a green hose and doused a vending machine.

"We're trying to free you!" Ms. Marvel shouted, phone balanced on Squirrel Girl's shoulder, still videoing the whole thing. "We took out Lightning Storm, you can go back home!"

"We won't be slaves anymore!" the girl cried, yanking something from her pocket. The purple-haired man sprayed gasoline toward the doors and the three of them leapt back, Dante slamming the doors shut. Liquid seeped over the tile. The girl continued yelling, muffled.

"What are they doing?" Victor jogged up to Dante.

Dante jumped, then sighed. "Can you portal us out?"

"Where'd she get a match from?" Squirrel Girl cried, holding the doors shut against spewing liquid. The reek of gasoline wafted through the air.

"What about Lightning Storm?" Victor asked.

"I've got her," Ms. Marvel darted to the back of the store.

"How do we get that match away from her?" Squirrel Girl shouted. "Dante she lit it do something--"

"I can't stop a gasoline explosion--"

Squirrel Girl retreated from the doors, letting Victor see the teenager holding a small stick curling with an orange flame. She grinned at the purple-haired main.

"Victor get us out of here!" Dante yelled, hands beginning to glow.

Victor spun open a portal. A flash of light consumed the parking lot and he sunk through the void, shards of glass pelting the side of his face.

"Ms. Ma--" Squirrel Girl cut off.

Victor hovered in the deep violet of the void. He shook his head. Blood spewed from his cheek and instantly froze in the void, floating, an elongated drip of red. He prodded it, and at his contact the blood continued trying to fall, freezing again the moment it lost touch with his finger.

"What just happened?" he tried to whisper, voice too shocked to make noise.

He flowed to the school bus parking lot and emerged beside Ivy and Ette, shivering, his thoughts scrambled.

"--arvel!" Squirrel Girl shouted, voice echoing.

"I'm going," Dante surged with red flames and streamed into the air.

"What happened?" Ivy panted. "Where's Ms. Marvel? Why did it explode? What--"

"Ms. Marvel!" Squirrel Girl yelled.

Victor rubbed blood from his cheek, color staining his fingers. "She was in the back of the building, maybe they're okay."

"Do you see a building still standing!" Squirrel Girl shouted. "I don't! The whole building went ka-boom! MS. MARVEL!!!"

The streaking red of Dante plummeted into where the gas station had stood moments before, now a smoking, rubble-dotted blankness.

"MS. MARVEL!!" Squirrel Girl shouted.

Victor set a hand on her shoulder. "Dante will find her," he said. "Shouting isn't helping."

"MS. MA--"

"Shut up!" Ivy roared. "Ms. Marvel has healing powers, remember? She's FINE. Ette doesn't have healing powers!" she shook Ette's bleeding wrists, and Victor crouched to stop her.

"Ette's alright," Victor said quietly. "A squirt gun blew up in her hands. Maybe she hit her head when she fell. That's it. It wasn't a sword wound, she isn't bleeding fatally--"

"You don't know that!"

"Ivy--"

"Why isn't Dante coming back yet?" Squirrel Girl bounced on her toes. "TINY! NUTTY! Did you both make it out okay!?"

"Squirrel Girl," Victor glanced up and glared at her. "Shouting isn't helping."

"I just watched two people blow themselves up and try to blow us up too!" Squirrel Girl threw her hands in the air. "Shouting is a perfectly rational thing to be doing right now!"

"No it's not," Ivy said sharply. "My ears are ringing and I can't think straight because you're yelling. And your yelling isn't helping anyone. Shut up already."

"I WILL YELL ALL I WANT! I am running over there," Squirrel Girl pointed past the gas station, to the trees beside the road. Black polo people had dispersed from where Victor had deposited them, taking over half the street intersection. "I am running over there and I am checking on the squirrels because Dante has the gas station under control and I'm not getting in his way. I WILL YELL ALL I WANT! AAAAAAAAH!" She sprinted away, hopping onto the roof of a bus and vaulting over the barbed wire fence. "MS. MARVEL!!!!"

"Shut your stupid mouth, Doreen," Ivy hissed, squeezing Ette's wrists. Blood trickled down her thumbs and dripped onto Ette's beige costume. "So you've never seen people die before, get over it!"

Victor opened his mouth.

"I don't want to hear whatever's about to come out of your face," Ivy growled, rocking Ette in her lap. "It's not fine, okay? She could've died."

"You've seen people die before?" Victor asked.

Ivy shot him a glare. "What did I just say?"

"You didn't want to hear whatever was about to come out of my face."

"Exactly," Ivy glared, rocking Ette side to side, squeezing her wrists and palms like that might stop the bleeding sooner.

Victor wordlessly rose to his feet and paced toward the fence. Ivy muttered softly, "Ette" and "okay," over and over again.

"Alright then," Victor crossed his arms, kicking pebbles at the tires of a faded yellow bus. "We did so well."

Squirrel Girl's voice echoed, and the black polo people in the intersection drifted away from the sidewalk trees. "Go back home!" Squirrel Girl shouted, clearly audible this time.

Victor stepped up to the fence, staring through the chain links. Across a scrubby patch of green wildflowers, narrow threads of smoke floated from the gas station remains. Victor squinted for a flicker of red amidst the collapsed pillars and canopy, searching for Dante.

There. A flash of movement among the gray rubble. Victor hesitated, glancing toward Ivy and Ette, then back toward Dante, who glowed a soft yellow. Squirrel Girl screamed incoherently again, despite the empty intersection.

Victor exhaled slowly. Then he called back to Ivy, "I'm going to help Dante!"

She didn't look up.

He plummeted into a portal, head pulsing with the effort, muscles shivering in the suddenly cold void.

He rose back up at the edge of the wildflowers, senses disconcertingly off. Within the void, the gas station was still present, like that alternate dimension hadn't caught up yet to match this one--the rooftop, the store's office, and gas station pumps all remained intact. But in reality, those had collapsed into heaps of dangerous rubble. Hesitantly, Victor stepped down the curb to the gas station pavement, covering his nose at the scent of smoke and stinging gasoline. Glowing-yellow-Dante had his back turned, and Victor made his way closer, creeping over shattered concrete pillars and exposed metal poles.

The interior of the convenience store had fared poorly. The gasoline explosion had shattered the front doors and collapsed the entire storefront. Chunks of the roof and walls had collapsed after that. Unlike the bare parking lot outside the store, orange flames sputtered in isolated patches, consuming foods and paper cups and cardboard boxes.

Victor climbed around ceiling panels and aluminum vents, panting slightly. "Dante!"

Dante didn't turn. Victor hopped to a bare patch of white tile, cautiously approaching. From Dante's hands, a narrow stream of yellow heat cut through a wooden ceiling panel.

"Where's Ms. Marvel?" Victor folded his arms, studying the rubble.

The ceiling panel snapped, burned clean through, and a mountain of rubble shifted. Victor and Dante hopped backward to avoid getting squished by the mini avalanche.

"Shoot," Dante muttered, flames going out. "I could see her. I was trying to cut that away so I could reach her."

Victor's eyes widened and he crouched by the rubble, digging out chunks of wood. "Did that just squish her?"

Dante shook his head. "She's beneath a pyramid of vents. They must have snapped when they fell and ended up making a sturdy shelter. Which is good, because she isn't squished, but bad, because that pyramid might be supporting this whole thing," he waved to the tower of rubble.

Victor sighed in relief, rising and dusting off his hands. "Where's Lightning Storm?"

Dante shrugged. "I haven't seen her," he glanced back toward the school bus lot. "Where's the others? Maybe we can--"

"Didn't you hear Squirrel Girl? She ran back over there," he motioned vaguely to the sidewalk and the pair of trees, "and has been shouting at Lightning Storm's minions. And possibly checking on the squirrels."

Dante frowned. "That was Squirrel Girl?"

"And Ivy is still with Ette," Victor rubbed his temples.

Dante nibbled his lip. "Is Ette okay?"

"Eventually she will be," he hesitated. "Have you...ever seen people die before?"

Dante stared off into the sky. "Other than the kree we probably killed by crashing their spaceship? Or Hala probably falling to her death while we parachuted to the ground?"

"I mean, those two that started the fire. Just--"

"I'm not going to think about that at all right now," Dante slowly sat on an exposed corner of a black counter. "Can you portal under this stuff and get Ms. Marvel?"

Victor shook his head. "The void's iffy right now. This was too recent and the void hasn't caught up--like how I can rarely sense where people are because they move too much. I have no idea if I'll portal into a chunk of the ceiling or right on top of Ms. Marvel."

"How about you just drop this whole section into a portal and drop it somewhere else?"

Victor grimaced. "What if Lightning Storm's in there too and I squish her? And I don't think I can carry that much stuff with me through the void right now."

Dante sighed, hiding his face in his hands. "Maybe Ms. Marvel will wake up soon. She can slither her way through all this, right?"

Victor crossed his arms. "I wouldn't count on it.

"Can you float me to the top of the rubble hill? I can start portaling a few things clear, then maybe we can dig her out."

***

Victor had a pounding headache by the time they uncovered the tip of an aluminum vent, which may have been the pyramid shape holding up the entire rubble heap, or may have been some other aluminum vent.

He sunk into the void with an armload of ceiling tile and wood and wires, emerged at the edge of the wildflowers, and dropped his armload in a growing snake of rubble beside the curb. He waited for Dante, wreathed in pink flames, to drop another armful, then they flew back to the top of the rubble. Where the two of them collected more armloads of debris and Victor sunk into the void and popped out again, growing the mishmash snake.

Squirrel Girl returned. All squirrels accounted for. She went off to the bus lot to help Ivy and Ette over the fence. And, Victor silently hoped, so she and Ivy could apologize for shouting and insulting each other.

Stars danced in Victor's vision by the time they cleared enough rubble to determine the exposed vent was indeed a pyramid, a cross-shape of airways fallen from the ceiling and bent out of shape to form a load-bearing structure. Victor dropped another load for the snake's head, wobbled on his feet, and Dante eyed him with concern. But he didn't mention anything. Just as Victor didn't say anything a few minutes later when Dante's flames sparked red and nearly burned Victor's fingers, and Dante over-corrected and sputtered out completely, dropping half a body length to the concrete.

"Sorry," Dante muttered, and they resumed.

They tried to clear ceiling panels jammed between the support vents, the debris shifting under their weight. Victor stepped cautiously, lifting a long orange wire from the rubble.

"What if stuff falls on Ms. Marvel?" Dante asked.

"We try not to let that happen," Victor muttered, prodding ceiling tiles and yellow insulation with his foot, testing what came loose and what didn't.

"I feel like I'm playing Jenga," Dante tugged a wooden beam. "Life and Death edition, with a side of 'anything here might still be flammable'."

"No clue what that is," Victor grunted, yanking on a chunk of plaster. It popped free, leaving a fist-sized gap clouding with dust. He peered inside, to utter darkness. "But I think everything that could've burned already went..."

"Jenga is a game," Dante said. "With a tower of blocks that you keep stacking higher, trying to keep from falling over," he yanked out a ceiling panel and it squealed--he froze, but the rubble tower didn't fall over. "I never liked Jenga."

A siren wailed. Victor jumped and the wood beneath his foot shifted dangerously.

"Oh no," Dante whispered, hovering closer.

Victor closed his eyes and sighed. The siren wailed again. "What are you boys doing up there?" a megaphone-amplified voice growled.

Victor peered over his shoulder. A lone police car had pulled against the street curb, red lights flashing.

"We're digging out survivors," Dante called.

"Get down from there before I call some back-up," the sunglasses man said into his megaphone. "And for goodness sake tamp down that fire! Don't you know what gasoline is?"

"Yeah we know what gasoline is," Dante said. "We were--"

"I'm not in the mood for your attitude," the megaphone squealed. "I've dealt with too many of you teenage extra-humans to have any patience left. Get down from there or I'll call back-up."

"We're inhumans," Victor said. "Not extra humans."

"There's someone trapped under this rubble," Dante said. "So unless you'd like to dig them out for us, we're staying here," Dante yanked at a strip of yellow insulation.

"I don't really care if you're telling the truth or not," the sunglasses man swung the driver's door open. "Get down from there."

"Of course you don't," Dante muttered, rolling his eyes. He turned his back to the police car.

"I made a hole," Victor tapped a boot over the fist-sized gap. "If we make it bigger I can drop inside and grab her."

"Okay," Dante tossed his armload of debris down the heap of rubble. "Grab stuff and chuck it."

"Hey!" megaphone guy screeched. His sirens wailed again.

Victor threw wires and plaster down the side of the rubble heap. He kicked at wood beams, dislodging them so Dante could yank them free. The ground shifted and Victor slipped, but he crouched and wriggled his legs into the gap.

"He quit shouting at us," Dante yanked a ceiling panel free and Victor slid through. "That means he's probably calling back-up."

Victor landed unevenly in the darkness, stumbling to the side and kicking an aluminum sheet across the tile.

"Victor?"

"I'm alright," Victor called up, squinting through the shadows.

"Okay."

Victor ducked, crawling into the shadows. He spotted a patch of blue, reaching out and finding Ms. Marvel's arm. "Ms. Marvel?" he whispered. A pulse thrummed from her wrist, but she didn't reply. "I found her," he called up.

"I'm heading over to the bus lot then," Dante's voice echoed eerily in the small space. "Meet you there?"

"Yeah," Victor crouched and felt around the floor. Ms. Marvel had been videoing the whole thing, she might have dropped her phone during the explosion--his hand found something warm and rectangular.

It buzzed. A white glow reflected against the tile, so Victor flipped Ms. Marvel's phone over, sucking air through his teeth at the shattered screen. A message popped up, readable between the cracks.

Please make it home for dinner. Victor picked up the phone from the tile. Aamir is bringing home a friend and he wants the whole family there.

Victor winced, glancing at Ms. Marvel's unconscious form. Ms. Marvel might not be awake by dinner, much less uninjured.

Sweeping the sheltered space with the phone light, Victor found no sign of Lightning Storm. Of course, they'd left Lightning Storm in the office, amidst a shattered desk and a carpeted floor. Victor only saw plain tile.

Loud sirens wailed outside, and Victor crawled back to Ms. Marvel. Dust poured through the gap overhead and the debris mountain shifted, voices muttering. Victor shook his head, dropping into a portal.

***

Squirrel Girl and Ivy weren't speaking. Neither, technically, were Ette and Ms. Marvel, but Victor didn't mention that.

By wordless agreement, Dante led them across the bus lot, darting between vehicles and around the garage building, staying hidden from the swarms of police cars like a cloud of blue and red wasps around the exploded gas station. Victor's head drummed with thick exhaustion; he didn't trust himself to portal all six of them back to the underwater base.

"This seems safe," Dante said, and Victor stopped walking. He blinked, taking in the grooves in the concrete beneath his dirty boots for the first time.

Ivy lowered to the ground against the garage building, holding Ette. The bleeding had stopped, but now Ivy and Ette had hands and wrists so bloodstained they could've been dyed in paint.

"Safe for how long?" Squirrel Girl asked, Ms. Marvel in her arms. Victor stared at his hands, still clutching her phone. Somehow, they had lost every squirt gun they bought.

Dante shrugged. "Until Victor's strong enough to portal us back home."

Victor nodded, sinking to his knees.

"Great," Squirrel Girl said. "Utterly fabulous. Meanwhile we'll just sit here on the hot pavement doing nothing? I'm starving. And thirsty."

"Oh no," Ivy scoffed.

"Someone texted Ms. Marvel," Victor said. "Asking if she'd be home for dinner."

Squirrel Girl darted to his side, Ms. Marvel ending up in Dante's arms. "What? Her mom? What'd she say?"

Victor offered her the phone, arms noodley. "The screen shattered."

Squirrel Girl swiped the phone from him, scanning the message. Her eyes widened. "She can't show up in front of her parents like this!"

"She's unconscious," Victor mumbled.

"Bruises on her face, scrapes up her arms...her mom's going to ask how her phone got broken--"

"Maybe we can talk about this later?" Dante carefully set Ms. Marvel on the ground, leaning her against the tires of a bus.

"And what do you suggest we talk about instead?" Ivy asked. "How terribly that just went?"

"I just meant that maybe we should talk about Ms. Marvel's text from her mom when Ms. Marvel's actually awake?"

"I know what we could talk about," Ivy glared at Dante. "We could talk about how you just blew up a gas station and killed two people. Or how we came to stop Lightning Storm, and yet no one's mentioned what happened to her in the past twenty minutes. I sure don't see her around here, anyway, so unless she has invisibility powers and had a change of heart it sure seems like she got away and therefore this whole thing is moot. And Ette and Ms. Marvel actually got hurt for nothing. Go us," she snorted.

"WE didn't blow up a gas station," Squirrel Girl snapped. "We tried to stop two of Lightning Storm's goons--"

"And failed, clearly," Ivy shook her head. "Mr. Inferno over there couldn't stop it?"

Victor winced. A scab split open on his face and blood dribbled down his cheek.

"No, I couldn't stop it," Dante crossed his arms. "Could you stop a giant explosion of ice in half a second?"

"I've never had the chance to try."

"Could you quit fighting?" Victor muttered. He wiped at his cheek.

"I'm not fighting," Dante protested.

"I'm venting my frustrations," Ivy said.

"You're definitely fighting," Squirrel Girl pointed at Ivy. "You're angry and getting pushy with everyone--"

"At least I don't scream at the top of my lungs when something goes wrong!" Ivy shouted.

"You're doing it right now!" Squirrel Girl shouted back.

A piercing siren wail interrupted them, and Squirrel Girl stepped back from Ivy. "Oops," she whispered. Ivy glared at the ground.

"If you get us caught..." Dante ran his fingers through his hair. "I'm so done with this," flames puffed from his fingers and he stalked around the edge of the gray building.

Victor shut his eyes, rubbing his temples.

"How are you so calm, Victor?" Ivy asked. "It's stupidly unfair."

"You think this is the worst I've been through?"

Ivy snorted. "Possibly the most anyone has gotten on your nerves, maybe."

"I've been trained as a warrior since I was barely a teenager. I know what I do when things go badly."

"Which is what?" Squirrel Girl sat beside him.

He shrugged, staring at his boots. "Push myself until I nearly collapse to try and fix it. Crash somewhere. Cry about it later. Obviously."

"So..." Squirrel Girl trailed off. "I'm not sure what to ask here."

"Try nothing," Victor muttered.

"You know what I want right now?" Ivy said. "A nice bed. And a shower because I've smelled like smoke since last night."

"I want a peanut butter sandwich," Squirrel Girl smiled weakly.

"I just want to sleep," Victor rubbed his head.

"Yeah," Squirrel Girl sighed, hugging her knees. "Sorry guys, I guess when I get really upset I shout a lot."

"No duh," Ivy muttered.

"And you turn as prickly as a cactus," Squirrel Girl said.

Ivy glared. "I'm always prickly."

"I have a question," Dante asked, leaning against the bus. Victor spun to face him, startled.

"When did you come back?"

"Not that long ago? Long enough to hear what you were talking about? I don't know.

"Victor, how long are you going to crash for? We kinda need a portal home."

***

Author note: Vote for the kree annihilators to come out of this one okay :')