This chapter beta-read by Undead Robot and RoJo over on SpaceBattles.

It's been too long, but I hope you enjoy nonetheless.

Imbalance 4.3

The journey to the battlefield didn't take long.

I'd barely run three minutes when the first signs of the disaster started showing themselves. The air thrummed with heat, rain steaming into a soupy, muggy fog. My vision quickly dropped to a few yards, and I was forced to slow down and channel the fog away as I ran or risk crashing into something. The fog made the distant sounds of the fight warp, giving rise to sounds that I knew would have haunted my dreams, if sleeping was something I could do. Moans and roars, distant, warped screams, and claps of thunder that sounded like the footfalls of an angry god, echoing off the walls and shaking the ground. The rain fell harder, flowing past my ruined armor plates, outlining the lines of the mask on my cheeks.

This was all so real, so visceral. The difference between this and my thoughts while managing an area were like the difference between a beautiful picture book and a well-crafted novel. They were both amazing, but one had more substance.

I made my way to a rooftop, blowing away the nearby fog with a gesture. To my left, a massive glowing area, flashing with the lights of fires, lightning, and various attacks. I headed that way, careful not to slip as I hopped from rooftop to rooftop.

I had suspected we were losing this fight. What I saw of the battlefield only confirmed it.

The scene unfolded as I got closer, heat searing the fog away, replacing it with brutal humidity. The fog on all sides gave the battlefield a feeling of entrapment. Forcefields formed a line along the side I was approaching from, a rainbow of colors and effects walling in the fight, interspersed with a few weapon emplacements and more mundane barriers. The heat in the area was like a sauna, and I started sweating within moments. I immediately started cooling myself with the rain, but others didn't have that luxury, and it showed. The meager resistance left standing were tired, the heat sapping the fight from them, many retreating or swapping out with teammates, few getting anywhere near the massive form of Behemoth. They were backed against a wall.

Was this my fault? What the hell had I done?

I shook aside the thought. I couldn't dwell on things now; I had to act.

What could I do, though? I couldn't hurt Behemoth. I couldn't even get close to him. I wasn't fit to be a fighter, and I wasn't going to try projecting a world again, not in this fight.

I had one option; damage control. Same as with Lung, just with bigger stakes.

I started channeling heat away from ground level, forming an upward funnel of heated, humid air. I sapped the heat from the water in the funnel, then used its rotation to fling the cooled mist outward. Hopefully, If I got the air moving, I could get cool air to start pulling itself in to push up the hot air. At least, I hoped that was how it worked; I was working with information off of half a Discovery Channel special, not experience.

Further in, entire buildings were being melted to slag from the sheer heat. I had to try harder.

I began hopping from rooftop to rooftop, dragging my mini-tornado along. I made the mist into sleet, pulling every bit of heat I could from it. It still wasn't enough; the icy raindrops sizzled and popped before they hit the ground.

Another thunderclap, and a distant cry of loss.

I gritted my teeth. I needed more. More power, more time, more experience, something.

That thought settled in my mind for a moment before I mentally smacked myself.

I needed more experience.

What do you do when you don't know what to do?

Ask someone older than you for help.

But who? And how? I couldn't exactly talk, and my sign language was both rough and likely to be useless. Plus, stuff like weather phenomena creation wasn't exactly common knowledge, even among adults, right? It wasn't like I could just walk up to Eidolon and ask him how to make a functional ice storm from scratch.

Actually, he probably did know stuff like that, but that wasn't the point. Eidolon would be in the middle of the fight, or near it. He'd be really busy with the whole 'fighting a demonic monster that kills with reckless abandon' thing. Yeah. Not a good idea to interrupt that, not when Behemoth was so close to breaching the last lines of defense.

I had to do something though. Armsmaster said he was going to help out some tinkers, and Clock had been helping out too. The other members of the Brockton Bay Protectorate would be around the battlefield, doing search and rescue like Shadow Stalker, or fighting like Battery. I just had to find them.

I took off towards the nearest group of capes, wincing at a thunderclap.

This tornado thing wasn't working. I didn't know what I was getting wrong, but it was taking a lot of effort to keep it going, and while it was cooling an area, I could probably get it colder by just freezing the fog and rain as I went. I did just that as I traveled. As an afterthought, I tore off the flickering armor on my forearms, and coated my arms in a thick sheath of cooled, purified rainwater. Burns needed cold, clean water to treat, and if I was on search and rescue, I'd probably see a few.

The first group didn't have any familiar faces. As I got closer, I realized they weren't really a group, either. In fact, they were facing off, and voices were raised. An argument?

I landed nearby, bringing the argument to a halt. I imagined I might have looked strange. A kid with water tentacles for arms and flashing, damaged armor, who brought a wave of cooled air with him? I'd pause for something like that.

"What is it?" A man in a bright khaki costume asked, his voice curt.

I thought a moment, then formed my watery limbs into a crude cross, for first aid.

"You should go, keend," a woman from the other group said. "This doesn't concern you."

So it was an argument, then. Wasn't there a truce? If they had disagreements, they should wait until the fight was over, because the giant demon behind us was going to kill us all if we didn't work together.

I pointed towards the fight, confusion and frustration on my face.

"Fok the First, and fok you, keend," another man yelled from the woman's group. His dark skin glistened with sweat in the flickering light, his brow furrowing in anger. "You khakis are all da same!"

"Hey, you watch your mouths, boewe," a woman from the khaki man's group yelled, "He's just a kid!"

The two groups started yelling, insults and harsh tones on both sides, as I stared, dumbfounded. They really were fighting. Right here, less than two blocks from the real battle, these stupid people were fighting! And for what? As far as I saw, the only real difference was… skin color.

Oh. Crap.

I thought back to the city I'd seen on the way to the fight. Separated, unequal.

I couldn't believe it took me this long to put it together. The whole city was segregated.

…Racism. It was petty, and cruel, and had no right to exist in any sane society.

In front of me, the two groups bickered.

No more.

I stomped my foot, sending a massive crack through the pavement between the two groups, splitting the intersection down the middle. A matching crack drowned out all noise nearby for a deafening moment.

Then, there was silence. The arguments had stopped, and they'd all turned my way.

I carefully, carefully gestured, not wanting my anger to affect my movements. Started selectively freezing raindrops in front of myself, then floating up some dust into them to make it muddy and readable.

STOP, I spelled.

With a scuff of one foot away from the group, I made a spear of concrete as large as a car come up from the ground on the far side of them, pointing it towards the fight. Then, as an afterthought, I lifted a wall between the two groups, dropping the water word to do so.

One of them protested, but I'd already turned and jumped away.

Let them fight if they would, but I was done. My immediate anger was settling into a cold simmer of frustration, and I was tired of playing at peacemaker between a group of racists and a group of assholes. I wanted to help people, and they'd made me waste valuable time keeping them on task, and I was just… done.

I returned to the rooftops, redoubling my search for injured, my efforts to cool the area, and my general haste.

This led me to be a bit too focused when a familiar voice called out from behind me, taking me by surprise. I slipped on the slick rooftop, only saving myself from a faceplant with a blast of wind that sent me flying back the other way. I managed to stumble into a crouch as I felt the strange mass of air come closer. Shadow Stalker! Finally, someone I could work with, or at least work alongside.

"Mandala," she called out again as she landed on the far side of the roof. I silently thanked my luck that she hadn't pointed out my stumbling, and turned to wave.

She skidded to a stop on the graveled rooftop, then made a point to look me up and down. She was in pretty good condition, considering the situation; some burnt cloth on her cowl and costume, a small bandage on her forearm, and she was missing a crossbow, but she looked a fair bit better than I did.

"You look like crap," she said with a nod. "Which figures, since the armband's called your death a few times. What the hell did you do to piss off the big guy that much?"

I went to sign a brief summary, but realized she wouldn't know any ASL. I shrugged, unable to convey anything meaningful. The conversation stalled, leaving behind only the haunting sounds of battle and the patter of rain.

I gestured at her, urging her to lead onward. I also used the motion to dry her costume a bit, quietly seeping the water out of her boots and clothing so she'd be more comfortable.

"You want to join me on S and R?" she asked. I nodded, and she nodded back. "Follow me, and keep doing whatever you did to make this area so cool."

She jumped off the rooftops, and I followed on a cushion of wind. Once I hit the street, she took off down an alley, heading closer into the fight. Her armband chirped, and I just barely heard it chirp a series of letters and numbers. She glanced at the screen. "This way!" she yelled back, switching back to her shadowy form a moment later. I sped up by funneling air behind me, keeping pace. We turned a right, then a left, then a right again, ran for another minute, and came to the location indicated by Stalker's armband.

We were obviously near the path of destruction left by Behemoth, probably just minutes before. Everything was on fire; trees, asphalt, brick and mortar, a steel lump that used to be a car. The buildings were sagging, listing alarmingly thanks to the heat. A street or two down, the road simply ceased to exist, replaced by a rugged scar of torn up and melted civilization that would stretch north and south from there.

I immediately started carving out a path of freshly re-hardened asphalt, a glassy black in the sea of red light and smoke. With that done, I went to work clearing the fires, bending the elements to my will with all my skill. In moments, it was clear enough to see the finer details; a pair of capes, smoking and charred. Only one was moving.

Stalker walked over, checked the still figure's pulse, and stood without comment. I moved to the other, reaching out with my watery arms to cool her burns. She screamed at the contact, and I fought to keep my control at the sudden outburst. Her screams died to a whimper, unintelligible and foreign in cadence. I steeled myself and drew closer, transferring the water from my arms to envelop her torso like a cocoon, willing her to get better.

The water started glowing, singing loudly with power.

I jumped back, and the water splashed down to form a puddle beneath the woman.

What the heck did I just do?

She moaned in pain, then pleaded for me to continue in broken English. "Again," she said, opening her eyes behind the silver mask. I nodded, and tentatively tried again. More water, cooled and purified, was gathered around my arms. Stalker walked over just in time to see my second try.

Nothing happened.

I mean, the woman sighed in relief, but there was no glow, just cool water that I kept having to separate blood from. What had happened, then? Did I imagine the glow? Did the woman do something, and the rush of energy I 'felt' was just some weird power interaction?

God, I'd give an arm to be able to talk again. So many questions burned at my brain, and I couldn't ask anyone for answers.

At Stalker's direction, I lifted the woman in a sleeve of cooled water, careful to keep her body in the same position as she had been. Stalker tied bandages over the worst wounds, and I put her down while she put in a call for a flier or teleporter for hospital transport. I made a bench of stone next to the woman, and we waited.

A distant roar rang out, loud enough to rattle pebbles on the ground around us. Shadow Stalker spoke after it faded, irritation clear in her voice.

"We should be over there," she fumed, "not out here. Search and Rescue sucks."

I nodded. She was right, in a way. I could be doing more, saving more, if I was in the fight. She could help more people if she was closer. Maybe a phased crossbow bolt could hit something important, if she had a chance.

"I've probably done this twenty times today, and it always feels like a chore. Half of them were racist, and the other half were weak and broken. What good is saving one person, or even two, right? They probably wouldn't make it anyway."

I didn't respond. Couldn't, anyway. She was wrong about the value of helping these people, but she wasn't wrong. The hospital was overcrowded, the capes capable of healing few and far between. The screams still lingered in my thoughts. I could be preventing those screams, if I just got over my- was it fear? Fear. Not for my life, but of the consequences if I messed up again. I still had only the vaguest idea of what happened earlier, but that idea wasn't good.

"We should be there, in the fight," she reiterated. "We can't do shit from here." She fell silent after that.

A cape flew in, and I let the water flow away from the barely conscious woman. She whimpered as the air brushed against her blistered skin, then cried out as we helped her into the flier's arms.

There were no screams. She didn't have the energy left for screams.

We left the charred body of the other cape behind, and by some unspoken agreement, headed straight for the fight.