Victor clapped his hands together, the noise cracking like a gunshot. "Alright. Today we move south. Try to find a stronghold with more than two working doors. Finch, map it. Rose, take half the crew, clear the east block. Voss—"
"With you, Silver," Voss said, eyes never leaving Felicity. Victor's mouth tightened, but he nodded. Felicity kept her head down as they assembled.
Every time she glanced up, she caught someone watching her, sometimes with hunger, sometimes with envy or hope, but always watching. It felt like being a drop of water in a drought. Outside, her breath smoked in the frosty morning air. The city looked different in daylight.
Ruins softened by green, fire escapes swallowed by vines, shopfronts reduced to mossy glass teeth. Beautiful, in a dangerous way. Every shadow felt loaded.
Finch skidded to a halt at the mouth of an alley, nostrils flaring. "Six of them," he said. "Fresh turned." His eyes gleamed yellow in the half light.
The first zombie barely had time to snarl before Rose was already moving. Vines tore free from her forearms, snapping outward like living whips, pinning bodies and dragging them off balance. Her squad flowed in around her, efficient and ruthless, finishing what her magic started.
"Six my ass," Rose muttered. "They multiply when you're not looking."
Finch's howl split the air as he launched himself forward, movements faster than they should have been, claws striking with brutal precision. Giddy followed, a blur of motion and impact, every leap landing with bone shuddering force.
Then Victor felt it. The shift. He glanced back. Felicity stood just behind the line, hands clenched at her chest, eyes wide but focused. When she met his gaze, he nodded once.
That was all she needed. She lifted her hands and let her magic go.
The emerald glow spilled outward, thinner than before but wider, threading through Snow Team like a living current. It sank into muscle and bone, into breath and balance.
The effect was immediate.
Finch laughed, wild and breathless, as he moved even faster, strikes landing harder, cleaner.
One of the beastmen barreled through three zombies without slowing, shield ringing but not cracking. Giddy hit the ground and launched again in a single motion, momentum carrying him farther than physics should have allowed.
"Whoa," Finch shouted. "Everything feels light!" "Don't get cocky," Rose snapped, slamming her palm into the pavement. A fresh line of thorns erupted, skewering the last cluster. "That's a buff, not a blessing." She flicked a glance over her shoulder.
Caught Voss staring.
Not at the fight. At Felicity. Rose's mouth twisted. "Oh my god," she called without looking away from her targets. "Silver, your boyfriend is doing that thing again." Victor growled, low and warning. Voss didn't even pretend innocence.
"Watching the asset," he said calmly. Rose scoffed. "Sure. And I'm Mother Teresa."
She ripped her vines free and stalked forward, boots crunching over debris. "Try focusing on the zombies instead of the fox before I redirect my plants." Voss finally tore his eyes away, smirking. "Jealous?"
Rose didn't miss a beat. "No. Irritated. There's a difference." The last of the horde fell moments later. Silence rushed in, broken only by heavy breathing and the faint hum of Felicity's magic fading away.
Snow Team straightened, bodies still charged, senses buzzing with borrowed strength. Rose dismissed her vines and rolled her shoulders. "Alright. Cleanup done. And for the record," she added, pointing two fingers at Voss's eyes and then back at Felicity, "if you keep staring holes through her mid combat, I'm counting it as a distraction."
Voss's lips curved. "Worth it." Rose snorted. "Men are exhausting." Felicity swayed slightly as the last of her magic burned off. Victor was there instantly, steadying her, his hand firm at her back.
"You did good," he said quietly. She smiled, tired but proud. Behind them, Snow Team adjusted grips, posture subtly changed.
They hadn't just felt stronger.
They'd felt protected. And Rose, watching the way Voss looked at Felicity even now, shook her head. "Great," she muttered. "Now we're a combat unit with religious experiences and unresolved tension." She turned, already moving out. "Let's go before I start charging hazard pay." Rose caught up to Felicity once the adrenaline burned off.
It was always the same window. Ten minutes after a fight. Long enough for everyone else to be loud and triumphant. Short enough that Felicity hadn't fully stopped shaking yet.
She was sitting on a chunk of fallen concrete, sipping water Victor had pressed into her hands, shoulders slumped with exhaustion. Her ears drooped slightly, tail curled tight around her leg like she was holding herself together by habit. Rose stopped in front of her. Looked her over. Then sighed. "Alright," she said. "Before you apologize, don't."
Felicity blinked. "I wasn't going to—" "Yes you were."Rose crouched anyway, elbows on her knees, voice dropping. "You did exactly what you were supposed to do. You didn't freeze. You didn't overextend. You didn't collapse mid fight." She paused, then added, dryly, "And you didn't accidentally turn us into gods, which I appreciate."
Felicity smiled weakly. "I felt like I was going to throw up." "Normal," Rose said. "Means you care." She flicked Felicity's ear lightly. Not hard. Just enough to get her attention. "And for the record," Rose continued, eyes narrowing, "if anyone made you uncomfortable back there, you tell me. I don't care who it is." Felicity hesitated. "Voss was just… staring."
Rose snorted. "Yeah. He does that." A beat. "Still," Rose added, sharper now, "that doesn't mean you owe him anything. Or anyone." Felicity nodded, then frowned. "You were kind of mean this morning." Rose winced. Just a little. "Yeah," she admitted. "I was." She looked away, jaw tight. "Not because of you. Because suddenly everyone forgot I exist."
Felicity's eyes widened. "That's not true." Rose glanced back at her. "Fox. I have been the most dangerous woman in the room for years. Then you show up and everyone starts acting like they've discovered religion." She sighed, rubbing her face. "Petty? Yes. My proudest moment? No." Felicity chewed her lip, then leaned forward and gently bumped her forehead against Rose's shoulder.
A quiet, wordless apology.
Rose stiffened. Then relaxed. "Don't do that," she muttered. "It works."
Felicity smiled. "I like you." Rose huffed. "You're lucky I like you too."
She stood, offering a hand up. "Come on. Victor's hovering again and it's making people nervous."
As Felicity took her hand, Rose squeezed once, firm and grounding. "You did good today," she said again, quieter. "You're not just surviving anymore."
Felicity straightened a little at that.
She flicked two fingers at her crew, sharp and familiar. "Come on. I'm not done working off my irritation." They moved with her without question. The moment they hit the next block, it turned into controlled chaos.
Rose surged ahead, thorned roots and thick briars erupting from the spider webbed pavement at her command. Living plants burst upward in violent blooms, snapping around putrid legs and bloated torsos with the sound of fibrous stems tearing free of stone. The growth yanked the dead off balance in brutal, efficient sweeps that wrenched limbs from sockets.
Zombies shrieked as they were pinned, flung twenty feet into brick walls, or crushed beneath knotting roots that tightened until rotten skulls burst like overripe fruit.
Her squad flowed around her like an extension of her will, a deadly dance choreographed in blood and bone. Finch tore through the openings she created, wild laughter ripping from his chest as he moved faster than seemed possible, clawed hands blurring as they slashed through necks and eye sockets.
His strength, fueled by primal instinct and chemical adrenaline, let him punch straight through ribcages to tear free blackened hearts.
Every strike landed clean, decisive, final, leaving nothing but twitching meat behind him. Giddy followed like a wrecking ball, massive hooved legs driving him forward in relentless arcs. Each impact shattered femurs and spinal columns with sickening cracks. Bodies flew ten feet into the air from his charges, clearing space with every thunderous blow that left spidered craters in the asphalt.
Rose stalked through it all, plants responding instantly to every flick of her wrist and shift of her weight. Thorns retracted and regrew. Roots split concrete. Briars wrapped, crushed, and tore until the street was nothing but ruin and stillness.
Only then did she let the growth sink back into the earth.
Her irritation, at least, was gone.