You land on the cracked concrete with a soft thud, dust blooming around your boots like a held breath finally released. The city block is half-evacuated, sirens echoing somewhere distant, neon signs flickering as if undecided about staying alive. Above you, two shapes arc through the air, one a translucent blue mass reshaping itself mid-flight, the other a streak of green agility that lands with feline grace.

“Form of—” Zan calls, already grinning.

“—something useful this time,” Jayna cuts in, hands on her hips, dark eyes sharp and focused.

You blink. Right. Your first real field mission with the Wonder Twins. No Justice League babysitting, no off-screen mentors. Just you, them, and a metahuman threat tearing through a downtown energy substation a block away.

Zan lands beside you, currently half-water, half-humanoid, sloshing slightly as he gestures toward the smoking street. “Okay, hear me out. I turn into a hydraulic ram, smash through the barricade, flush the bad guy out. Boom. Done.”

Jayna scoffs. “Or you rush in, destabilize the structure, and bring the whole block down. Again.” She turns to you. “We should contain first. I can become a swarm of birds, maybe insects, to track the target’s movement. Precision.”

You feel it then, that tightness in your chest that always comes when you’re expected to choose. The threat’s energy signature rumbles through the pavement, vibrating up your legs. Every instinct you have says time matters. People matter.

“We don’t know how unstable he is,” you say, surprising yourself with how steady your voice sounds. “If he’s feeding on the grid, smashing in could make it worse. But if we wait too long—”

“—more damage,” Zan finishes, nodding. “Exactly. Which is why: ram.”

Jayna rolls her eyes so hard you think you hear it. “That is not how cause and effect works.”

The argument overlaps. Zan animated and impulsive, Jayna sharp and methodical, and you stand between them, feeling oddly like the fulcrum of a scale. They’re legendary, sure, but up close it’s human. Sibling energy crackling like static.

Then the ground shudders.

A roar tears through the street, metal screaming as a transformer explodes in a shower of sparks. Heat washes over you. Somewhere, someone screams.