"Frost? Something wrong?" Her mentor's question knocked her out of her thoughts.

She glanced to her left and spotted the graceful figure. Beautiful golden hair, gigantic wings, still holding the cyan rose in hands. At times, she revered her mentor. At other times, she felt jealous of her. Once in a while, she hated her. But she always remembered to squash those thoughts. Something as petty as jealousy and the like would get someone killed if she let it run wild. The villains wouldn't wait for her to get over it.

"Wrong? Yeah, a lot was wrong with that girl." Frostfeather scoffed. Before yawning.

"Such as?" The other companion asked.

She looked beyond Valkyrie and spotted Prism. Clad in an obnoxiously shiny outfit, kneeling down on his platform made out of the same shiny stuff. How could his eyes survive such a fierce assault every time he used his powers, she could never understand. She thought he should just figure out how to go invisible instead of glittering like a disco ball.

"Like the black spots on her face. They were as cold as a dead body. While the rest of her face was at the normal body temperature. Uwah... And. And it wasn't even a smooth transition from hot to cold. It looked like face paint of pure cold."

"That's. Really odd." Valkyrie frowned.

"And that's not all. The inside of her body was a mess. Spots of sudden coldness wriggled inside her like some kind of creatures from nightmares. And even that didn't seem to absorb heat from her body. It was weird. Weird." She ended her rant.

Of course, the blue-haired heroine already met someone like that. Just yesterday at school, a guy who had the same temperature mess inside his stomach as this Ink girl. But that was a boy, and this was obviously a girl. Perhaps siblings, she thought. Relatives often got similar powers.

"Well, that's just whacky. So, you think her power is something like controlling her body temperature?" Prism quipped.

"There's probably more to it, but I guess that's what we will be going with." Valkyrie nodded.

"But anyway, that's not important right now. We need to back up Beastmaster's group. We don't know who they are engaging but must remain vigilant." The leader said in a serious tone.

"Eh, I'm sure my girl will kick asses of whatever villains there are." Prism shrugged.

As if to prove the arrogant hero wrong, the communicators in their ears made noise.

"This is Beastmaster! Four aggressive hybrids are attacking us! Bubbles is down! We need reinforcements asap!"

The three fliers looked at each other. Valkyrie's expression radiated 'see, I told you'.

"Fuck me and my dumb mouth! How did they beat Bubbles?! She's supposed to be invincible!" Prism shouted in horror.

"Calm down! We need to hurry!" The winged woman shouted at him.

"This is Rook and Bloom. We are en route, ETA five minutes." Their receivers informed them.

"We are still pretty far away, we might not make it in time. Let's speed up!." After getting nods from the other two in return, she put two fingers to her ear.

"This is Valkyrie. We are en route, ETA twelve minutes." She put her hand back down. "Let's go!" And then increased her flight speed.

Frostfeather and her junior teammate followed.

 

---

 

Arriving at the scene, only the aftermath of the carnage could be seen. Charred streets, walls with deep cuts in them, burning pieces of trash, puddles of blood and piles of ash here and there. She looked at the group of heroes who still remained. Rook, clad in his white and gold armor kept shouting into his phone while gripping his lance, stuck into the ground, with his other hand. Bloom, the green-haired woman with similarly green skin, kneeled by the downed heroes, trying to keep them alive. Her expression frantic.

Everyone else was seriously wounded. Beastmaster, the muscle-clad dark-skinned man in fur clothing laid next to a wall. His wolf skull-shaped headgear tainted with blood. His left arm missing from an elbow down. A large horizontal slash wound spread around his stomach. Bloom was doing her best to stop the bleeding by using her vines as bandages.

Bubbles lied unmoving, countless puncture wounds all over her arms and legs. Her round blue mask still covered her face. One of Bloom's vines was planted directly inside one of those holes in her skin. Presumably pumping something in or out.

Threadmaker at least remained conscious. She sat next to a wall, holding her right arm, breathing heavily. Her entire arm was already bandaged with her own hair.

On the side, there was another person. Frostfeather didn't recognize him. He wore a simple expressionless white mask and a red motorcycle suit. His hands were cuffed behind his back and his ankles were similarly restrained. He was probably one of the villains they managed to capture.

The trio of newcomers landed nearby. Prism immediately rushed to Threadmaker and drowned her in questions about what happened. Valkyrie walked up to Bloom and began asking about everyone's condition.

Frostfeather stood there, staring at the captured villain in shock. She couldn't take her eyes off of him. This has never happened before. Sure, there were the weird ones, like the girl yesterday who could make invisible heat barriers around her attacks. Or the boy and the Ink girl who made temperature erratic inside them. But this was something new. This was the first time someone completely blocked out her heat vision. There was neither hot nor cold in the space the villain's body occupied. There was nothing. A hole in reality.

She shook her head. No, it was probably his power. She didn't know what kind of power could hide his internal temperature from her eyes, but she didn't want to think about it. She was seriously tired. She didn't get much sleep last night, with so much going on because of the late-warning starstorm. And even before that, she had to subdue the stage four Tara hybrid at school, then spend hours interrogating all the new hybrids, then more time and energy spent on subduing all the other threats in the city. And when she finally thought she would get some sleep, there was an emergency she needed to attend to in the middle of the night. And to top it all off, Black Rose just had to leave behind a rose with a sleeping curse on it. She couldn't help but yawn again. She fought hard to open her eyes again after she finished.

Her teammates right in front of her were heavily injured, but all she wanted was sleep. Just how selfish was she? She hated herself for not caring. Hated herself just for wanting to sleep while her teammates were dying. She clenched her fists, nails digging into her palms.

As she stood there, eyes threatening to close and not reopen for a while, two vans arrived, both bearing the Neo Warden logo on the side. Several people jumped out of them, including a woman with a blond ponytail dressed in a white nurse outfit. She rushed to the three wounded heroes and the captured villain and touched each of them on their forehead. As she did that, those who were still conscious fell asleep, except for the villain. The other people who strolled out of the vans then brought stretchers and placed the three heroes on them. Frostfeather watched as Beastmaster's arm slowly began growing back, his chest injury closed and Bubbles' puncture wounds faded as her skin became spotless once again.

Of course. Lullaby. Frostfeather reasoned that if Lullaby was here, she had no reason to worry about her teammates' well-being. The healer just needed to touch them and they would be as good as new when they woke up. No need to hate herself for not caring. Everything would be fine. But then again. What if Lullaby arrived too late? What if someone died before she could use her power on them? There would be no saving them. They would be gone forever.

Frostfeather tightened her fists. Another wave of self-hatred washed over her. Her tired mind too exhausted to fight it off.

"Frost, the patrols are canceled for now. We're returning to the base." Valkyrie's voice startled her.

The young heroine let out a sigh of relief.

"You must be tired." The woman gave her a warm smile.

"A little." A lot, she sighed in her mind.

When she looked around, she found that everyone else has already gone ahead. The wounded and the prisoner were in the vans, Prism probably by Threadmaker's side, making sure his girlfriend is alright. Rook and Bloom in a van each to guard them.

"Are you able to fly back?"

"Yeah."

Valkyrie nodded. Their wings expanded and they both took flight. Frostfeather noticed her mentor dropped off the cursed rose somewhere. Possibly near the captured villain, just to make him too tired to stage an escape attempt.

With another yawn, she let her body slump, only flapping her wings and keeping her eyes open enough to see in front of her. She let her mental autopilot carry her ragdoll of a body forward. Valkyrie didn't try talking to her during their trip. Which was good. She wasn't sure if she had enough mental energy left to respond anyway. A few incoherent pseudo-words would be the limit.

Before her mind even had the time to process it, they have already landed on the roof of the northern base. She marched towards the stairwell like a zombie. But a hand on her shoulder stopped her. She felt like biting it off, but held herself and instead looked at the offender.

"Get some sleep for now. We'll have a meeting about today's events in the afternoon. And we both need to attend."

Fuck.

"Okay."
She passed the two guards near the roof entrance, who gave the two winged heroes a nod, and entered the building. She found the elevator and stared into the retinal scan right next to it. The device beeped cheerfully, contrasting her own mood, and in a few seconds, the elevator door opened. They both boarded it, still not a word passing between them. When it eventually stopped, Frostfeather mumbled something like "Good night." before stumbling into the junior hero living quarters. Her autopilot successfully guided her to her own room. She didn't even bother showering or changing clothes and dropped dead on her own bed.

 

---

 

The next thing she knew, someone was rudely trying to wake her up by a hand shaking her shoulder. She groaned and blinked away the fog before looking at the villain. Short blue hair and a criminally cute face. Bubbles.

"Come on, wake up Natalie. We have a meeting in a few." The soft voice informed her.

"Right. Give me a second." Natalie dragged herself off of the bed as the visitor left her room. She walked to the mirror and stared at the living failure in front of her. Only a fool would call something like that a hero.

She shook her head with a frown and sniffed her armpit. Disgusted, she grabbed a change of clothes and headed for the shower. She got out of her smelly outfit and tossed it on the floor. She didn't have time to shower in the morning, so she had to do it now.

Despite what other people thought, her powerset didn't include resistance to heat or cold. Most people with fire or ice powers had it, sure, but her power worked a bit differently. Nonetheless, despite lacking cold resistance, she turned on the shower and put the water temperature all the way down to freezing. She stared at the stream of liquid icicles coming down from the showerhead for a second. Then, she took a deep breath, stepped into the stream, and let out the breath, shuddering. It was one of her techniques to keep calm and survive through the day to day life. Cold showers were like training for her. Building her tenacity and courage without any actual danger involved.

She stood in the stream for a few seconds, eyes closed, taking deep breaths. Her hands then automatically reached for the soap and shampoo to clean herself as her mind kept focusing on the feeling of ice-cold water hitting her skin.

By the time she stepped out of the shower, her mind was focused again. No sign of fatigue. She was ready to survive through the rest of the day.

She put the clothes on and donned her Frostfeather mask. She headed straight for the elevator next, letting the retinal scanner do its job and boarding after it opened its doors. She waited patiently, arms crossed, staring at the closed elevator doors, not really thinking about anything. When the door opened, she made her way to the conference room.

Rook and Valkyrie were already present, discussing something while standing next to the whiteboard. Bubbles, Bloom, and Crust were also already in the room, seated at the chairs around the big conference table. Frostfeather sat down as well and waited for the rest to arrive. In a few minutes Prism with a Threadmaker glued to his arm arrived and found themselves a seat next to each other.

"Alright. That's everyone. Unfortunately, Beastmaster is still asleep. His injuries were quite severe." Rook nodded to everyone gathered.

"We are here to discuss a new villain group that formed in the aftermath of yesterday's starstorm." Valkyrie scoffed. "They call themselves The liberators."

"First, I would like to commend all of you for your quick reactions to the starstorm despite the late warning. You have all done well." Rook smiled.

"Speaking of which. Why was it late, captain?" Prism asked.

The armored man frowned and let out a sigh through his nose. He stared at the table in front of him for a few seconds before responding.

"I don't know the details, but there was an attack on Sece's main branch hero HQ right before the starstorm." His frown deepened.

"Oh shit." Prism whispered.

An attack right before the starstorm? Was it planned? A coincidence? It seemed suspicious all around. Moreover, how? She heard Sece's central HQ was the most protected and secure buildings in existence.

"Luckily, there were no casualties and only a handful of wounded. But due to the attack, Orel was too late in warning about the starstorm. I was informed they will be making further upgrades to their security to make sure this doesn't happen again." He frowned. "But there is some good news too. We got informed that the heroes in New Madison got a new recruit who could potentially help predict the starstorms with their powers." Rook gave an approving nod.

A wave of murmurs ran through the junior Neo Wardens. Frostfeather didn't join them, staying quiet. Rook then cleared his throat to gather the attention again.

"Now, onto the issue we are facing. The Liberators." He frowned, anger apparent on his face even through his helmet.

Valkyrie grabbed a marker and wrote 'Liberators' on top of the whiteboard. She then separated the whiteboard into four columns.

"A new villain team who were responsible for robbing several jewelry stores and two banks, finally attacking Beastmaster's group earlier today. From what we have seen, they have four members, one of which, we managed to capture last night." He glanced at the whiteboard.

"Now, let's gather information. What do we know about them?" He looked around the room, his gaze stopping at Threadmaker and Bubbles in particular.

"They mute sound. You go deaf and can't hear a thing." Threadmaker said.

Rook nodded and Valkyrie wrote it down into one of the columns.

"Good. Any idea about their names?"

"I think the mute guy was just called Mute. And I think the one with the axe called himself Minotaur?" Threadmaker continued.

Valkyrie wrote down 'Mute' just above the description of his powers, and 'Minotaur' on top of another column.

"Bystander." Gazes shifted to Bubbles as she spoke up. "They called him that. He. He broke my bubble." The timid girl grabbed her arm, shifting her gaze.

"He broke your bubble?" The armored man said in surprise.

He wasn't the only one. Pretty much everyone in the room, including Frostfeather, wore a shocked expression. The young heroine's bubbles were supposed to be indestructible. Testing showed, that in theory, even a nuclear warhead wouldn't pop them.

"With a flick of his finger. I created a new one, but he popped it too. I was too shocked to notice he was a distraction. All these black snakes swarmed me then and..." She shivered.

"That's okay. You've done well all things considered. And I think I know why he got through your bubble so easily."

"Uhh. Why?"

"He's the one who we managed to capture. And his power seems to be immunity to other powers. Lullaby couldn't put him to sleep, and I remember trying to use my power on him without success." Rook explained.

Now it made sense. That's why his body appeared to be devoid of temperature. His power immunity blocked even her heat sight.

"Luckily, he wasn't immune to regular physical attacks. One smack over the head was all it took." Rook nodded, somewhat amused.

"Next up, those snakes?" The winged vice-captain spoke up.

"The woman summons them. They float through the air and try to bite. But if you cut them or tear them apart, they just turn into dust." Threadmaker supplied.

"Yes, I remember those. They really were a pain to deal with. Does the summoner have a name?"

"No idea, they never said it." The redheaded hero narrowed her eyes.

"Hmm. I guess we'll just call her Snake for now." Rook nodded and Valkyrie filled in the name.

"Alright, what about the last one?"

"The axe guy, Minotaur, he called himself. He just swung his axe around like a madman, even cut off Beastmaster's arm."

"Right. And if we go by the process of elimination, he was also the bomber?"

"I don't know about that." Threadmaker frowned. "He seemed pretty focused on splitting Beastmaster in half while the bomb near my arm went off." She rubbed her arm with a grimace.

"Hmm. So either he has very impressive multitasking abilities or-"

"Or we have a fifth member to worry about." Prism finished Rook's thought, his eyes frowning.

"That's. Worrying." The armored man frowned as well and exchanged a glance with Valkyrie.

"Fucking coward! Won't even show his face!" Threadmaker hissed, rubbing her arm again.

"Calm down." Her captain warned. She simply clicked her tongue.

Rook sighed through his nose again as Valkyrie split Minotaur's column horizontally and wrote 'Bomber' at the top of the bottom half.

"Anyone saw what caused these explosions?" Rook asked.

Bubbles and Threadmaker exchanged glances before the former sighed and the latter growled to herself.

"No."

Valkyrie frowned. "That's even more worrying. If this Bomber can cause explosions anywhere at will without even being nearby, that would make him a serious threat even on his own."

A minute of silence passed as the heroes glanced at the whiteboard and each other.

"Alright, for now, I'm going to push to classify the Liberators as an A-class threat." The captain announced.

A-class threat. Meaning, immediately call for backup if you spot them and under no circumstances try to engage until backup arrives.

"We're going to have our strategists brainstorm ways to counter their powers, I recommend you try doing the same. Now then, does anyone have anything else to report?" Rook asked.

Only silence answered him back.

"In that case," Rook looked over to Bubbles and Threadmaker "Although we need as many personnel as we can get now more than ever, I think Bubbles and Threadmaker, in particular, should take the rest of the day and Saturday off and calm down. Unless it's an emergency, we won't be calling you." He gave them a warm smile.

Meaning those who remain needed to cover for their absence and work even harder, Frostfeather noted to herself.

"And, if I'm not mistaken, Prism wanted a day off for tomorrow as well?" He glanced at the boy.

"Yeah, we wanted to go on a date." He turned to Threadmaker and smiled at her.

"We don't need to know your plans Prism." Rook sighed. "Now, what about the other juniors?" He looked at Frostfeather and Crust.

"I'm staying, don't really need a day off. And I'm a bit annoyed I missed the fight." Crust said.

The captain nodded and looked to Frostfeather. She bit her lip.

"I. I'm also-" She got cut off.

"Also taking a day off. We all understand." Valkyrie smiled.

Frostfeather looked at her, bewildered. Part of her wanted to complain, say she wanted to stay. But another part of her forced her to shut her mouth and nod while staring at the table.

"Alright then. All junior wardens minus Crust, make sure to rest up well." He finished the meeting.

 

---

 

The winged girl sat in the cafeteria, trying to glare a hole through the sandwich in front of her. Without using her powers though, the glare did nothing to her dinner.

She was secretly happy about the day off she got. But at the same time, she felt that she could have been doing something instead of lazing around. Unfortunately, junior members had to take at least one day off every week. Even though she already saw herself as an adult and was so close to eighteen already, she still counted as a junior.

At least if Valkyrie let her operate the computer at the HQ or something. But no, completely banned from any hero activity in order to rest up. She never knew what to do with all the free time. She usually ended up doing some villain research, working out, or otherwise preparing for when she was on duty again.

"Hey, Natalie." A familiar voice broke the train of her thoughts.

She looked up and spotted the resident cute girl which conspicuously blue hair, carrying a plate with sandwiches similar to hers.

"Hey, Linda." She sighed.

"Still tired? Sorry, I woke you up." The fellow blue-haired girl said apologetically.

"It's fine. I had to go to the meeting anyway." Despite not contributing anything.

The girl sat down at the table facing Natalie and began digging into her sandwiches. Seeing her energy, the winged junior hero sighed and took her own sandwich to munch on it. They both silently worked on defeating their breakfast until Linda spoke.

"That was my first starstorm since I joined." She looked wryly at the sandwich in her hands. Natalie looked at her with a blank expression, waiting for her to continue.

"I knew it would be scary. I knew it. But I thought I would be fine as long as I could just shield myself with a bubble." The bubble girl sighed. "And then there comes someone who can pop it like a regular soap bubble."

Her winged companion grunted in agreement, prompting her to go on.

"I guess I've gotten too arrogant." She grimaced.

"Not really. Your bubbles are unbreakable. That guy was probably the only person who can break them." Natalie shrugged.

"I. Well, maybe. You know, I've been thinking about it. Whether I'm even fit to be a hero." She shot her teammate a sour smile, to which she frowned.

"When I got struck the previous starstorm, two and a half months back, I thought being a hero was a given. If I have such a useful power, of course, I had to use it to help others, right? And then, as soon as I joined, the internet exploded with support for me. I couldn't back out anymore. It would feel like I was betraying everyone's expectations." She sighed. "But yesterday, when I lied in that bed and thought about it, I realized that was wrong. I realized there are other ways to help people than to fight the baddies. And, well. After all, being a hero is like any other job, right? Sometimes, it's just not for you, and you should try something else. A different line of work." Another sigh. "I'm thinking of quitting the Neo Wardens and hoping my, um fans, won't be too disappointed."

Natalie stared at her as if she came from another planet. Quitting? Even though she had such an amazing power and was already a symbolic hero?

Well, heroes quitting wasn't anything unusual. Especially the juniors. Kids and teenagers would often have big dreams of grandeur when they'd get powers and would want to become one of the heroes they admired so much. And then, reality would hit them. They would find out that it's actually really tiring and dangerous to be one. And so, they would quit.

"Anyways, I'm still thinking about it." Linda raised her hands defensively. "I wanna be open about it. Maybe I can be useful elsewhere. Not just as a hero."

"Right." Her friend nodded while staring at the sandwich in her hand, frowning.

If Bubbles, with her amazing ability for combat, was quitting, what would that make Frosfeather and her almost-completely-useless-in-combat heat sight and manipulation? She was also sort of signature hero at this point, but was she even needed? Would she do more good in a different line of work, as Bubbles put it?

They sat there in silence for several minutes, only the sounds of Linda eating her food breaking it.

"Anyway. Um. I wanted to say that I admire you, Natalie. You have been doing this for so long, you are basically a senior member, even though you aren't eighteen yet." The girl with short blue hair smiled and got up from her seat. "Thanks for listening to my rambling. I'll see you around." She left with an empty plate in her hands.

Natalie sat there in silence, still staring at the sandwich. No longer angry and venomous. Now, more conflicted if anything.

"Quitting the heroes..." She whispered to herself with a sigh.