I'm moving before I can think about it. I hit him in the back and grab, and we both go hurtling forward, the envelope of air cushioning us enough that it doesn't hurt so bad when I go through one of the interior walls. And then another one. And then another one. Each one hits my ears with a pop, a pop, a pop, the envelope snapping like a stressed out bubble.

  He's not having a good time. He's twisting around in my grip, and we both hit the ground of a break room, and then he grabs me in the stomach and pushes.

  He's right. I go soaring, and I hit the ceiling, knocking a tile loose, causing the fluorescent to flicker. It's almost like a kung fu movie, where I feel like I'm floating for a split second before gravity reasserts itself. The warm wind whips around me, and I try to orient myself for the drubbing I'm about to get when I hit the ground.

  His upper foot makes contact with my stomach in a clean roundhouse. Then, his foot hits every part of my stomach at once, and hurtles me into a desk, snapping it in half. "Man, that was awesome," he breathes, running a hand through his hair, shaking his foot out like he's shaking shells out of a spent shotgun.

  I pull myself up out from broken plywood and plastic. I'm not thinking about the walls we're breaking. I'm not thinking about the ceiling tiles raining down. I'm not thinking about anything except him, this guy, this asshole who thinks he can lecture me about justice while he burns down buildings. I downshift. I can't maintain Gear Four for more than a couple of seconds at a time, or I'll burn out. Keep it easy, Jazz. Gear Two.

  I charge. Gear Two is enough that I can still walk like a normal human being. I've been taking Karate classes. I don't like it when grateful civilians give me money, but I won't say no.

  I bounce like a rabbit, and my fist scrapes his ear. He aims for my face, and misses, but I feel the punch of air like he almost hit me anyway, a breathy kiss on my nose. I swing my forearm, aiming for a clothesline. He ducks under me, shifts his feet into a good stance, and crams his hand into my gut. Fifteen more hands lash into me, and blood chokes its way up my mouth. I spit, spraying it into the air, and it splatters on his welder's mask.

  I clench my body up and go down. I grab his wrist on the way down, twist, and hurl him over my shoulder, into the wall. He hits it, sending a cascade of dust down onto me, while I'm busy trying not to retch.

  "You're good." He's breathing hard now. Sweating. His voice is ragged. "Better than I expected."

  He's right. This is awesome.

  The thought comes unbidden and I shove it away because what the hell, I shouldn't love this, this is a fight, people could get hurt, I'm getting hurt--

  "Surrender," I say.

  "Why?" He laughs, bitter and sharp, wiping blood from his lip. "So you can turn me over to the cops? The same cops who've been ignoring Delmarva for thirty years? The same cops who let those evictions happen in the first place?"

  "The law is the law."

  "The law is what rich people use to protect themselves from consequences." He shakes out his hands, and gets back into a stance I recognize as boxing-adjacent. "You're so close to getting it. You're right there. Why won't you see?"

  "Because burning it down isn't the answer!"

  "Then what is?" He's yelling now, really yelling, voice cracking with something that sounds almost like grief. "Tell me, little hero! What's your answer? What do you do when the system won't fix itself? When voting doesn't work? When protesting doesn't work? When nothing works?"

  I don't have an answer.

  "You're sixteen. I won't condescend to you and tell you that you'll never get it. But you don't get it now. You should learn fast, because this city can't live long with people like us in it," he says, bending down and sitting on the floor. "Walk me out here and I won't burn this place down. I'm tired."

  "What?" is what comes out before I can think through my response.

  "We'll call this a stalemate. You throwing me through, like, five walls already caused more damage than I was planning. I was going to burn some important papers, break their computers, smash their breaker. But damn, you really took the wind out of me. That tackle was something else," he wheezes, pulling his welding mask up again to wipe the sweat off his forehead. "But look at you. You just threw up and it was 90% fresh blood. You can't survive another full force kick, and I don't want a murder charge. Let's call it even, and you'll get your next shot later. Right, cape?"

  I stare at him like he has three heads. My entire body aches, and even those five, ten seconds of Gear Four have burnt so much out of me. The most I'm thinking about is that I need a better grip on my stickshift so I can fight him down and then get him good, even, clean.

  I just can't make myself hate him, and that's pissing me off the most.

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  "I don't believe your motivations," I say, trying not to sound hollow, clutching my aching gut. "Do you hate these guys because they're raising rent prices on your neighbors, or because they're raising rent prices on you? You sound to me like someone who's just lashing out and trying to find a way to make it sound noble."

  I expect this to hit him right in the self-pity. But instead, he laughs. "Maybe. Does it matter?"

  I sit down, wanting to rip my hair out, panting for breath. He stands back up. Slowly, and carefully.

  "Next time, I'm not holding back," he promises.

  "Fuck you," I spit back at him. He laughs again, pulling his mask back down. "Who do you think you are?"

  "Coilgun. I burn down the oil rigs, you rescue people from the wreckage, and everyone wins. You're what this city needs. And I'm what you need. Every legendary hero started with their Green Goblin, right? I'll give you something to fight that matters."

  I stare at him like he has ten heads, trying to stand back to my feet. He tsks quietly. "I tried not to break anything important but there's only so much I can restrain myself. Revised offer. You just stay down. I don't have a second Zippo," he says, lobbing his lighter at me underhand. It lands on my stomach and I can't restrain the grunt of pain that comes out of me.

  "You're fucking insane," I gasp out. "Next time, I'm getting you in cuffs."

  He half-turns away from me. "Insane, huh? You'd have to be in a world like this. Sure."

  They revoke my LUMA on a Tuesday.

  That's the thing about it - it's not dramatic. No confrontation, no standoff, no climactic moment where I get to defend myself. Just a letter in the mail and a phone call from a tired-sounding bureaucrat explaining that my "operational profile demonstrates a pattern of disproportionate collateral damage inconsistent with continued provisional licensing."

  Fifteen years of pulling people out of fires. Fifteen years of stopping muggers and carjackers and whatever else Camden threw at me. I got Coilgun in cuffs before my 18th birthday. They called on me, specifically, to stop Tornado Allie in Hoboken. And it ends with a fucking letter?

  I'm sitting on my parents' porch, reading the letter for the third time when Mami comes out with two cups of coffee.

  "That bad?" she asks, sitting down next to me.

  "They're shutting me down."

  She doesn't say anything for a moment. Just sips her coffee and looks out at the street, at the neighbors walking by, at the same view we've had since I was born.

  "I remember when you were little," she says finally. "Before the mountain. You couldn't sit still for anything. Always running, always climbing, always into something. I used to pray for you to slow down."

  I don't know where she's going with this.

  "Then you came back from that trip, and you were different. Faster. Hotter." She smiles, but it's sad. "And I realized you were never going to slow down. Not ever. It wasn't in you. So I prayed for something else instead."

  "What?"

  "That you'd find something worth running toward." She puts her hand on my knee. "You found it. For fifteen years, you found it. If they want to take the license, let them. They can't take what you are."

  I want to believe her. I want to believe that the piece of paper doesn't matter, that I can keep doing what I've been doing, that nothing has to change.

  But I know better.

  Without the LUMA, I'm not a hero. I'm not even a vigilante. I'm just some interloper doing shit illegally. I can't afford that.

  I'm still sitting there, letter in my lap, when my phone rings. 215 area code. What does some prick from Philly want from me?

  "Mrs. Perez?" the voice on the other end asks.

  "Speaking," I reply.

  "Hi!" she starts, obnoxiously bubbly and young. White. I can tell. "My name is Sarah, I'm with the office of Councilwoman Maya Richardson. We've heard about your recent court cases and troubles with your insurance company--"

  "Yeah? You've heard?" I can't help myself from snapping. "Glad it's front page news."

  I hear her take a breath. "--and Councilwoman Richardson asked me to reach out and get in touch with you. She's been in contact with ZenithGuard and she thinks she might have a way to make this a win-win situation for everyone. Do you have time for a meeting sometime next week?"

  The meeting is in Philadelphia, some federal building I've never been to. Maya Richardson is shorter than I expected - most politicians look bigger on TV - but there's something about her presence that fills the room. Calm. Controlled. The kind of person who's never had to yell to be heard.

  "I've been following your career," she says, sliding a folder across the table. "Camden's unofficial protector. Impressive work."

  "Not impressive enough, apparently." I don't touch the folder. "They pulled my license."

  "So I've heard." She waves a hand dismissively. "Bureaucratic myopia. I'm more interested in results."

  "And what results are you interested in?"

  She smiles. It's a politician's smile - warm on the surface, calculated underneath. I don't trust it. But I'm listening.

  "I'm putting together a team," she says. "Registered metahumans operating under federal authority. Proactive enforcement against high-level threats. Better resources, better support, better outcomes than any solo operator could manage."

  "A government superhero team."

  "If you want to call it that." She leans forward slightly. "I want to call it a second chance. For people like you - talented, dedicated, held back by a system that doesn't know how to measure what you actually contribute."

  "What's the catch?"

  "Chain of command. You follow orders, you work with a team, you operate within parameters we establish." She spreads her hands. "It's less freedom than you're used to. But it's more support. And it's legal, which counts for something these days."

  I think about my Mom. Maya slides a small manilla folder towards me.

  "You don't need to agree to anything now. Here's the proposal. I'm reaching out to four or five other metahumans. There will be another meeting in about three weeks to finalize things. Just call the number back sometime between then and now if you're interested," she croons.

  "And what if I say no?" I ask.

  Her face goes polite and stiff like a porcelain doll. Still smiling. "Then you remain a vigilante in Camden and the Earth spins on."

  I stare at her. She stares at me. I inhale. She inhales.

  Then, she pulls her phone out, and starts scrolling through the gallery. "Here, let me just-- look. Here's a news report. From when they made me using my powers federally illegal," she starts, passing her phone to me. I see her instantly on the screen. A younger, more idealistic looking Maya, without any steel in her eyes. And slightly worse hair.

  Interviewed on a news panel, domino mask and all. And the snarky caption on the bottom; "Environmental Stewartship" - The Ban on Weather Manipulation. Tonight's Guests: Stormr--

  I stop reading. I just watch, and feel my blood begin to boil.

  Somewhere weakness is our strength

  And I'll die searching for it

  I can't let myself regret such selfishness

  My pain and oh the trouble caused

  No matter how long

  I believe that there's hope

  Buried beneath it all and

  Hiding beneath it all, and

  Growing beneath it all

  This is how we'll dance when

  When they try to take us down

  This is how we'll sing (oh)

  This is how we'll stand when

  When they burn our houses down

  This is what we'll be, oh, glory