As we made our way down the steel-clad corridor, idle thoughts of our destination turned my mind to the sensations I was receiving from my borrowed wings and tail. Their passive emotion grazing allowed me to experience an interesting mix of flavors, though since I lacked the knowledge to match flavors to emotions that was all they remained. Sweet and savory, sour and bitter; some pleasant to taste, others less so.

I had considered asking Melody to teach me to read emotions from the flavors, back when I had started borrowing from her, but the thought had slipped my mind. The current situation was swift to remind me. Admittedly, it was close to impossible to tell who was contributing what to the muddle I was sampling, but even without that a general emotion sensing capacity would likely prove useful. And in the meantime, I could probably work something out with Melody to interpret the emotions for me.

My musings were interrupted by the sound of Aegis' voice, followed by what seemed to be a response from Vista, but I missed what they said. "Sorry, what was that?" I asked.

"I asked if you had already filled out all the paperwork to join us in the Wards," Aegis replied, "but Vista told me you hadn't."

"Oh," I said. "Yeah, I haven't decided whether I want to join or not."

"Really?" Kid Win said as we paused in front of the tinker-made elevator. The doors slid open almost immediately, and we all boarded. "I suppose they're hoping that we'll charm you into signing up."

"If that's the case, it's probably a good thing that Shadow Stalker is out for the moment," said Clockblocker.

"Why's that?" I asked.

"Well," Clockblocker replied, "she's kind of a huge b-," Aegis gave him a look. Clockblocker cut himself off with a cough. "Ah. Um, she's rather abrasive."

I mentally frowned at that. That doesn't sound good. Hopefully she isn't another Sophia. Aloud, I said, "Vista said something earlier about Shadow Stalker not counting as a girl."

"Ah, that," said Aegis. "Vista's been hoping for more girls to join the Wards ever since Ermine was transferred away and the gender ratio got the way it is. Shadow Stalker apparently doesn't work, right?" He inclined his head at Vista, who nodded.

"Yeah," she said. "She's not exactly the kind of person I can talk about girl stuff with."

The name Ermine felt somewhat familiar, but I couldn't remember anything about a cape by that name. I made a mental note to look her up later, if only to satisfy my curiosity.

My thoughts were interrupted by the opening of the elevator's doors. I'd barely felt it begin moving, much less coming to a stop. We exited, and I followed them to our destination.

.o.o.o.

It was long enough before noon that there was hardly anyone in the cafeteria when we entered. Of the handful of people scattered about the tables, most began staring in our direction. I felt like all the stares were focused on me; logic agreed that as I was a new, erm, face, as it were, in a familiar group, the majority of their attention was likely on me. The resulting discomfort made me shift my borrowed wings from their folded position on my back to hugging my shoulders, and I was silently grateful that we'd come before the lunch break.

I suppose that's another point against joining. The staring crowds.

.o.o.o.

Somehow the Wards managed first to convince me to let them pay for my meal, then to get more than just what was cheapest. I ended up getting a slice of pizza, a brownie, and a soda. Then the transactions were completed and off we went to the Wards' private table, which was in an out-of-the-way corner, mostly out of sight.

Before we could begin, Gallant and Clockblocker had to rearrange their full-face masks so they could eat. Gallant slid the lower portion of his helmet's face forward, then upward to rest atop his head. Clockblocker just removed the lower part of his mask and set it aside. The clock that occupied the face of his mask was split in two by this, both halves continuing to tick.

I was just about to inform Aria of the meal when I noticed that no one else had started eating. Curiosity led me to look up, where I found them looking at me. What I could see of their faces seemed to bear varying levels of curiosity.

"Um, why are you all looking at me like that?" I asked.

Most of them broke off their stares at that with a faint air of embarrassment. Aegis coughed slightly and replied, "Well, we were waiting for you to move your mask so you could eat before we began."

"I was wondering how you keep it on in the first place," said Clockblocker, the only one who didn't avert his gaze. "I don't see any straps on it or anything."

"Ah, that," I said. "I can eat without having to move it." Out of the corner of... whatever I was using to see, I saw Vista's expression shift from confusion to realization to bemusement. "Besides," I continued, "moving it would be a bit difficult, since it's not really a mask."

While they mulled over that for a few moments, I took the chance to quietly inform Aria of the immanent meal. "Alright!" she chirped in reply.

"So wait," said Clockblocker. "How is that not a mask? Or am I just missing something and Jesus Christ what is that?"

"That is how I'm going to be eating," I said, referring to the pseudopod Aria had provided. I moved it to the general area of where my real mouth would sit, and then began to shape and move teeth within it to form what I remembered of human dental anatomy. A more human mouth would probably go over better than a more alien mouth in this situation. "And while this," I continued, gesturing to my face, "does serve the same identity preservation purpose that masks do, among others, in other respects it is pretty much the opposite of a mask."

Once I deemed my mouth to be close enough to what I wanted I lifted my slice of pizza to my lips and took a modest bite. It was delicious, and from the sounds Aria was making I felt it safe to assume that she agreed with me.

"That didn't exactly answer his first question," said Vista. I looked up to find them still looking at me. They had yet to touch their food.

"In fact, it raised even more questions," Clockblocker added.

I sighed. "Look, I'll give you all some actual answers after we finish lunch, okay?"

Across from me, Aegis nodded and said, "That works for me." He picked up his fork. "Besides, we wouldn't want our food to get cold." The rest of the Wards began to work on their meals as well.

Conversation for the rest of the meal was mostly small talk. A couple times they recounted a few of their past adventures to me, which I found rather entertaining. I found myself smiling internally quite a lot. I tried smiling with my borrowed mouth at one point, but a few hastily hidden flinches caused me to stop. I made a note to not try that again until I could practice it in a mirror.

Talking with them was fun, but I found that just sitting and watching them interact with one another was fairly nice as well. Far more than mere teammates, it was clear that they were very close friends. In fact, it might not be inaccurate to say that the Brockton Bay Wards were something of a family. They reminded me of the relationship I'd had with Emma, before, well...

"Starfield?"

The sound of Vista's voice broke through my musings. I turned my gaze to her and replied, "Yes, Vista?"

"Well, since we've all finished with our lunches we thought we'd return to our base and continue to hang out there, if you want."

"That sounds fine," I said. I saw the others gathering their plates and such on their trays and moved to do the same. As we walked to the tray return area I noted that we seemed to be leaving at a good time, since what seemed to be the beginnings of the lunch crowd were just entering the cafeteria.

.o.o.o.

"So what is it that's up with your mask? Or opposite of a mask. I still don't get that," said Clockblocker as he leaned back into the couch.

We were all sitting in the common room of the Wards HQ. They had taken seats on the couches and armchairs. I was sitting backwards in a regular chair with my arms leaning on the backrest, since sitting in one of the couches would require that I retract my borrowed wings and tail. Melody had told me a while back that having her wings and tail out like this made it easier for her to observe my surroundings. I had no idea how an apparently eyeless being saw things; I wouldn't be too surprised if she did something through the aforementioned appendages. I didn't see any real reason to deprive her of whatever she was observing, so I'd taken the chair over the couch.

In any case, the question. I suppose I did promise some answers, I thought, and sighed silently. Out loud, I said, "Alright. So you guys know how you conceal your faces by putting on your masks, right?"

Everyone before me nodded.

"I conceal my face by taking it off."

Silence filled the room for a few moments until it was broken by Kid Win. With a rather strained tone in his voice he asked, "I don't suppose it just pops off, does it?"

"Nope," I replied. "I need to cut it off every time. And before you ask, my face is currently in one of my pouches."

Another silence followed my words.

"Not gonna lie," said Kid Win, "I'm kinda glad we put this conversation off until after lunch." The others gave murmurs of assent.

"I thought you guys would ask a bunch of questions about my powers and such and we wouldn't get started on lunch for a while, so I delayed," I said. "Also, I was afraid you guys would find the whole mask thing to be kinda weird. Which apparently you do."

"'Weird'?" said Clockblocker, a mite hysterically. "Christ, girl. You said that instead of putting on a mask you cut off your face and stuff it in your pocket, and you're worried that–"

"Clockblocker." Aegis's voice headed off what might have grown into a rant. "Don't be a dick, man." He turned back to me. "But yeah, it is a bit more than just 'weird'."

"How did you find out you could cut off your face?" asked Vista, her expression a mix of concern and horror. "Because seriously, that's all kinds of disturbing, and I feel like I might give myself nightmares imagining it." A moment passed before realization spread across her face, followed by... shame? She stuttered, "O-oh! But if you d-don't want to talk about it, that's fine to..."

I cocked my head. "What were you imagining?"

"I thought it might have had something to do with your trigger event, or that you'd been attacked or something. Something you might not want to talk about and would be rude to ask about."

"Oh. Well, I didn't learn I could do it from anything like that. I did while I was doing a little experimenting with my powers."

"Oh, good. That's good to hear," she said, relief crossing her features. It was swiftly replaced by concern once more. "But what made you do it, then?"

I shrugged. "It seemed like a good idea at the time?"

"What." The single, flat word was uttered nearly simultaneously by Vista, Clockblocker, and Kid Win.

I sighed, briefly noting the flinches that followed the sound. "Look, I know it sounds like a crazy thing to do; in fact, I realized that right after the first time I cut it off. But nothing bad that could have happened actually did happen. I can somehow see and speak without eyes or a mouth, and it's useful for concealing my identity and to access my tendrils. Besides, it doesn't really hurt when I cut it – or anywhere else on me, for that matter – and it's pretty easy to replace my face and heal it back on, so it's not like I'm doing any permanent damage to myself."

Faces and postures began to relax. I noticed Aegis nodding to himself a bit.

"Also," I added, "as far as I know there aren't any other capes who take off their face instead of putting on a mask, so I'd be unique."

That got a few laughs out of them, and the tension in the room dropped a little further.

"So wait," said Aegis. "If I'm understanding what you said right, you can do what you did to your face anywhere on your body, correct?"

I paused for a moment before answering. "Um, I don't think I actually said that, but yeah, that's right."

"So basically you've got a pocket universe in you that you can only access by breaking your skin," he concluded. "That... actually, wouldn't that mean that any attack that breaks your skin would go into the pocket and leave you with minimal damage? Because if so that's a great defensive power."

Huh. He's rather quick. "Yeah, as far as I can tell it's pretty much impossible to hurt anything beneath my skin, assuming I've still got that stuff."

"Oh, so that's why you wanted privacy when you were getting out your wings!" Vista exclaimed. "They're normally in that pocket universe thing, and you didn't want to start cutting yourself in front of us to get at them."

I nodded to her and, in a wry voice, said, "It wouldn't exactly have made the best first impression." She giggled at that.

"So what's up with those things, anyway?" she asked. "Why do you get big wings and a tail when you cut your back and tentacles with mouths and eyes when you cut off your face?"

Ah. This question. I had anticipated them asking about Aria and Melody. Since Vista, Kid Win, the Protectorate capes and the various PRT personnel at the other day's incident had gotten a pretty good look at me, questions about my borrowed parts were pretty much inevitable. By the same token, there was little point in trying to keep my friends completely out of sight. However, I did want to keep the fact that they were separate beings from me a secret for as long as possible. Even though I found the girls to be beautiful and friendly, I wasn't blind to the fact that most people would look at them and just see a couple of monsters, like something a cape like Nilbog or Bonesaw could make. I would much rather be seen as a slightly creepy cape than have my friends reviled.

But yes, Vista had a question.

"I don't know why my powers work the way they do, but I'm certainly not complaining about being able to fly," I said. "Besides, having wings and a tail come out of my back makes more sense than having them come out elsewhere."

Vista made a face and said, "I know that about the wing placement. It's pretty much the only part of the power that makes sense. I just..." She sighed and rubbed her forehead. "Why am I trying to work out why a parahuman power works the way it does? No one knows that."

"I guess mine is just one of the weird powers," I said

"All parahuman powers are weird," Clockblocker interjected, affecting an air of wisdom. "They just fall somewhere on the weirdness scale depending on whether they're less weird or more weird." Vista snorted.

"Speaking of weird..."

Everyone looked with surprise at the speaker, Gallant. He'd barely said a word the whole time I'd been hanging out with the Wards. I shook off my surprise, curious about what had caused him to break his silence.

"You guys know how my power lets me sense other people's emotions, right?" he said. The other Wards nodded, but this was news to me. If it turns out this was listed on his wiki page and I missed it, I'm going to feel rather silly.

"Anyway," he continued, "when I feel Starfield's emotions I find something that's rather strange, and I've been trying to make sense of it."

Oh dear. This might be bad. Out loud, I said, "That ability seems rather invasive," and wrapped my borrowed wings around me in a sort-of hug.

"Sorry," he said sincerely. "I can't exactly turn it off. I'd have to leave the Wards HQ to stop sensing what everyone here is feeling."

"Will you just spit it out already?" said Clockblocker.

"Alright, alright. Sheesh." Gallant seemed poised to speak, then stopped. He looked at me and said, "This is about your emotions, so if you don't want me to I won't say anything."

I sighed. "Just say it already. You've gotten us all curious."

"Alright," he said. "So when I sense Your emotions it feels like there's more than one person in you, but none of them seems to be in the right location in you to be your emotions. And something is muddling up everything I'm getting from you, so it's pretty hard to determine what any one emotion is without focusing on it. Stronger emotions are easier to read, though. So yeah, it's pretty weird."

"Huh," I said. "Maybe our powers are reacting poorly with one another, like mine have been with Vista's powers."

"That might be it," he agreed.

Silence fell over the Wards HQ.

After a couple minutes Aegis broke the silence, saying, "So Starfield, have you been in many fights using your powers?"

"What?" I said, a little startled. "Oh. No, not really. The thing on Thursday is pretty much the only one, and it wasn't even a real fight. Why?"

"I was wondering if you wanted to have a spar with me," he said as he rose from his seat. "Experience is always good, and we might be able to give you a few pointers."

I considered his offer for a moment before saying, "Sure, why not," and getting up off my chair to follow him.