A League of Their Own

## **Big Ben’s Big Chill Ice Cream, October 26th, 2020**

“Here you go.” Gwen said, putting down a large ice cream cone in a paper holder in front of Melody. “Don’t worry, I paid for it. Next time we can go for a round in the Danger Room first and have the loser pay.” She gave her old teammate a smirk, before getting into her own raspberry-vanilla-caramel ice cream.

“Thanks Gwen! That sounds good... thanks for agreeing to buy next time, too.” Melody gave a familiar grin back at her close friend before turning her focus to the massive cone of strawberry ice cream in front of her.

“Mmmm, that’s the good stuff. So, you were up for talking more about that idea from… last week? The bay-side museum?” Gwen went on, trying to recall the details of that day. After Aman had corralled the middle schoolers out of the major danger zone, she’d focused on keeping them safe, and the things before that moment hadn’t seemed important anymore. Yet one detail from her conversation with Melody evidently hadn’t escaped the Jackal’s attention, leaving her to hound Gwen later.

“Mmhm--” Melody nodded thoughtfully in Gwen’s direction. Her eyes, hidden by the large ice cream cone obscuring most of her face, sparked with even more excitement as she lowered the cone to address her former teammate. “Yeah, the uh… making a new League thing you mentioned. I know we were kinda like… ‘haha wouldn’t it be funny if we made a new league cause all the adults aren’t doing it anymore and they can’t stop us’. But the idea’s actually like, legit pretty fucking rad? For a lot of reasons.”

“I mean, I’d have to team up with *you* again...” Melody attempted to give a teasing smirk at the girl across the table, but just as quickly looked away when she couldn’t restrain an honest smile at the thought of teaming up with Gwen again. “And I *might* have talked to a few more of our friends that’d be like, super fucking down to join?”

“Ugh, I KNOW.” Gwen groaned melodramatically. “Teaming up with a badass like YOU? The worst.” She shook her head, but didn’t hide the big grin on her face as she used a tiny spoon to eat bits of the ice cream. The concept of taking her old teammates up in a new team was alluring. The idea of taking several of the other Flex Girls from a band to a new crew was exciting. The thought of yeeting Melody full-speed at some internationally threatening villain? Priceless.

“So, who else have you talked to? I need to know whose people’s houses I should sneak into to greet them when they come home in the middle of the night, so that I can offer them a position on our new Big League.” Gwen said. Her tone was joking, but her eyes looked almost completely serious about the idea.

“Psssh,” Melody snickered as she imagined Gwen trying to hide behind the couch in the Ostenberg-Welles home, her cat ears poking up over the back of it. “I guess with that name, we wouldn’t have to worry about copyright infringement or whatever. But I might have ruined your surprise with a few people already, ya.”

Turning her cone over in her hand thoughtfully, Melody continued. “I talked to Ernest first? About like… well, a lot of stuff. Like, college, and life goals, that sorta thing. And one thing we agreed on is like… having a difficult goal we can work towards? And wanting to keep doing hero stuff with our best buddies. And getting better at helping even more people. Especially for me, like…”

Melody nibbled at her ice cream for a bit, trying to think of how best to phrase her insecurities to one of the most badass people she knew. After a few moments, she gave Gwen a small smile and shrugged.

“I just kinda… want to do stuff with you guys forever, y’know? If it wasn’t for Big Team, I would have never met you, or Ernest, or Ellen or Atlanta or Boon or T--” Melody cut herself off with an awkward smile.”Like, a shitload of people that I love and wanna do shit with forever, is what I’m getting at. People that I’ve been to hell and back with, and trust with my life and stuff. And even if I’m in college, and take over for The Jackal someday… I still want to be doing that with my best friends. And I think Ernest probably feels the same way.”

Gwen listened intently and nodded at Melody’s wishes. “I get you, yeah. After you have gotten your non-superhero life together as an adult, there will still be supervillains and other threats out there. And what better team to take them on than the Biggest one of all? We’ve already trained for years and I’m not even twenty yet! For me, I already decided long ago that there basically is no non-superhero life anyway. My forging job is basically one hundred percent superhero focused too. My family is almost entirely superheroes, with my father, my dad, my cousin, my girlfriend, and probably my little siblings in the future too! I was born to do this, and I couldn’t imagine any better team to be on that ride with me.”

As she talked, Gwen noticed that she began to smile uncontrollably, a big victorious smirk plastered across her face. “And yeah, if it wasn’t for Big Team, you’d still be stuck with just Aman, and you two would still be doing a will-they-won’t-they for at least another year.”

“Wh-” Color rushed to Melody’s cheeks as she made an embarrassed half-frown at Gwen. “You don’t know that! I mean, we still patrolled together even before Big Team. We *totally* could have got possessed by an ancient evil shadow lady and almost died and told each other how we felt at any time.”

She looked down at the table, reminiscing for a moment before chuckling to herself. “Actually, funny story about that? I kinda always thought Aman and I would have never like… y’know, ended up dating without Big Team. But last weekend… well, long story short, time bullshit. But Aman and I went to a timeline… universe, whatever… where pretty much everyone had powers? Including my parents! It was fucking wild.” Melody inadvertently smiled at the memory of a world where her dad turned water to ice, and her mom was able to teleport, before continuing.

“I guess in that world, so many adults have powers and like, have their shit together, so heroes our age are a lot less common? Like, the Melody there still has powers, but doesn’t do hero stuff. But like, even *without* the team, me and Aman are still dating there? And I guess they’re a lot more…” Esam’s description of ‘all over each other’ echoed in Melody’s head as her cheeks flushed and she abashedly sunk into her chair.

Gwen just watched Melody turn herself into an embarrassed, flustered wreck, smiling the whole time at her friend.

“Anywayyyy…” Melody cleared her throat and smiled apologetically at Gwen. “It was really cool that the adults there were like, really badass and down to help us, y’know? Hasn’t really felt like that in a while, I guess. Since the League here fell apart.”

“Yeah!” Gwen responded. “It sounds like you went to a great place. I remember when we still worked together with the League of Heroes last year. Some of them could be a pain, but I thought I showed up Galahad, Silencer and Flexor a lot. We were on the same side. Now, they’re on no side. Well, I guess Galahad is on Avalon’s side, since he went back home. The rest is all just… quiet. At least Sledge is still out there and momming it up with Shade. And you have your grandma too. Just… not a cohesive sense to it all, y’know? No adults working together. Just kinda separate. Changing that would be a big ask, but a good one.”

Melody chomped into her ice cream cone and nodded as Gwen spoke. “Mmm-- yeah. Jeez, the only League member I really got to work with in the field before they broke up was like… Sledge? I’m really glad she’s still out there kicking ass and being Shade’s mom too. OH!” She sat up in her seat with excitement. “And Saggitarius! Sagittarius was rad. And uh… yeah, my ‘grandma’ is still out there kicking ass,” she rolled her eyes sarcastically, though her face grew more pensive and she leaned closer before continuing. “But… I dunno how long that’s gonna last? I’ve bumped into her on a few missions lately and she’s looked like… way more gassed than normal. Maybe she’s just having a bad few months or whatever. Hopefully.”

“But… yeah.” Melody continued. “I know Crescent and Saboteur and Silencer are still doing their thing. But haven’t seen many other former League of Heroes people out in Halcyon lately. For other adults, it’s like… I appreciate when Savior shows up to help once in a while? And Boon’s mom, and Atlanta’s mom. And that Flashing Fist guy is around, I guess. And Cyclone’s got his powers back, but being mayor is a full-time job. Like... badass adults are out there! But they aren’t working together. And we’ve been lucky there hasn’t been another big-ass organized baddie group like GREY, or Gambite, or like a dozen bad guy groups we have to read about in history class. Cause… I mean, you’d know better than me cause you were on the team earlier? But I figure Big Team wasn’t meant to be the group that’s supposed to handle all this crap.”

Gwen nodded along as Melody talked. She looked a little worried when Melody brought up how Old Jackal seemed to be doing. Any deterioration in physical health could bring huge consequences as an active superhero. She’d seen it herself after her father had been broken out of Ferinon, looking like they hadn’t eaten in weeks.

“Yeah. From what it was like before, we were just… we started out as just a bunch of teens who needed help figuring out our powers, while also trying to use them to do good.” Gwen recalled. “I remember trying to punch Cyclone during my first week as a superhero, that probably wouldn’t go over as well if I did that now.” She laughed, but it was a melancholy laugh that faded out. “Y’all have been lucky to not have had such threats to deal with. My first day on the job was never meant to be that. It was the Autumn Homecoming Dance at Big High. And it turned into T-Day. Honestly, that was crap nobody should’ve needed to deal with, but we did. Honestly, if they’d let me, the one time I went into space with Elle and Parrot, I wouldn’t have returned. I would probably just have kept chasing after bigger and bigger crap to handle, until I burnt out. Maybe that’s what I’m thinking of doing now. Handle the Big Crap, but smarter, more responsibly.” She looked back at Melody. “Not alone.”

“Not alone.” Melody supportively nudged Gwen. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned from being on Big Team? Nobody should do this shit alone. And hey, no burning yourself out either. If we’re really doing this, I need someone around to kick ass, buy me ice cream, and jam with me on the same afternoon sometimes.”

She grinned at Gwen before looking out the window again to reminisce. “That’s rough, though. My first few missions were… jeez. Gambite was the *normal* part. Spent a lot of time in the Spirit World too? The Jackals and I have this bond or whatever, but they were *not* happy the first time I showed up in Shadow Halcyon. I almost died like, *three times* on the same mission there. I’m 100% sure I’d have died in my first couple months with Big Team if not for Seth and Seb. And all the training I got from The Jackal.”

“I guess that’s been on my mind lately too,” Melody sighed. “I mean, I’m not sure I would have ever got into this hero stuff without The Jackal, y’know, training me and teaching me how to fight and think like a hero and all that stuff? Other-me didn’t become a hero cause The Jackal was just… Coach Jones in that timeline. Other-me still kicks ass at volleyball, of course,” she laughed, “but I trained with The Jackal for a couple *years* before joining Big Team. You did the same with your family, right? But there are so many people on the team that join with no hero experience, and no idea how to fight.”

“And that’s fucking rad!” Melody exclaimed too loudly. She gave an apologetic smile to a scowling mother nearby before continuing in a quieter voice. “That’s *way* braver than I was! I think that’s so fucking cool. And it’s made me really happy to get to teach some people how to fight better. Like Ernest, and Mel, and Jenny a bit now. But also like… that training we have makes such a big difference. And I wanna keep helping people on Big Team, but I also want to like, make Halcyon safer for them, y’know? So the newer kids can learn and grow at their own pace, and not have to go risk their lives every week when they’re still learning how to protect themselves. And like, us working together and getting adults to help us make things better in Halcyon would help Big Team a lot too, right?”

Gwen smiled at the burst of enthusiasm from her teammate. “Yeah, I… I didn’t have any family training the last few years before Big Team,” she swallowed, pushing down some old hurts with it, “but that training and having Nimue was a huge help. A lot of our teammates don’t have that. That’s brave, for sure! Though I now also realize that in some ways, Cyclone and Godspeed were right. It can be stupid too. It’s brave to want to fight evil and do good and make the world a better place. It’s stupid to not train to get better at doing that. While I still had Nimue, I relied on her too much. I was all force, no finesse.”

She gestured at the Zodiac tree in the distance, her expression growing more grim and serious. “Those old buildings there that they made out of scrap from a police helicarrier is proof of that. I don’t regret that one. I don’t regret Whitestar Station either, but there are other times that I do wish I had been more careful. Better trained.”

Gwen put down a notepad and pen and jammed her finger onto the paper. “There should be some ground rules for a… a Big League if we’re going to do that. Big Team is cool! But it’s got no solid purpose beyond being a place for super-teens to get together, get better at handling their powers, and fight evil along the way. Big Team has a reputation for being destructive, which… fair. In Halcyon City that’s not as big of a problem as elsewhere. We have a lot of people and companies focused on fixing things up! The whole economy and society is kind of built around it and has come to have certain expectations of life around here. As adult heroes venturing out of Halcyon City, we won’t have that luxury. We gotta be better than Big Team, otherwise we will not have grown as heroes. And we gotta make sure we can help others on Big Team and elsewhere grow in the same way as we have.”

After a pause to let her words sink in, her smile returned as a smirk. “But we can still go out for ice cream after missions and jam on afternoons.”

“Oh God,” Melody put her head into her hands as Gwen talked. “‘Adult hero’ sounds so weird! I’m still in high school for a few more months. I can’t even vote yet. What am I getting into,” she laughed as she craned her neck to look at Gwen’s notebook. “Ground rules… hmm. ‘Better’ isn’t the word I’d use. I mean, Big Team has stopped Halcyon from getting exploded like, multiple times since I got here. It was doing it before me too, and I’m sure it’ll be doing it after. And there’s a shitload of super badass people on there even if some of the veterans bounce.”

“But…” Melody continued, looking much more thoughtfully at the paper. “Yeah, it seems real different if like, Big Team blows up a building or whatever, compared to a group of veteran adult heroes, y’know? So new League would need to be a lot more… measured, I guess. More careful. More precise about what we’re doing. Looking for opportunities to help around the city, doing research, stakeouts, that sorta stuff.” She leaned back in her seat and nodded. “Stuff that The Jackal trained me to do. Stuff that the old League did. Actively looking for things we can do to help around the city-- even outside of it-- instead of kinda waiting for the hero stuff to come to us.”

“Oh!” Melody’s eyes darted to Gwen with excitement again. “Speaking of like, other Big Team people getting to grow how we did! Boon made a super good point about that. I talked to Boon about this too. And Atlanta! And Aman. Atlanta and Aman seemed like they were still thinking about it, but Boon was super fucking down to join. And said this thing about like, us older team members stepping down so the less experienced members can step up as leaders. And that made a ton of sense to me.”

As much as Gwen had already been wanting to do this, Melody’s excitement was infectious. She snickered. “Well, I’m very glad some of our friends want to join us in that venture! I think I know a bunch of people outside of Halcyon City too. Got some organizations we can link up with, maybe. But yes. Not ‘better’, per se. Big Team is effective. We just need to be… cleaner. Big Team only needs to stand up to scrutiny from Halcyon City. We might need to stand up to scrutiny from the entire planet.”

A sudden realization hit Gwen and she sat back and cast her eyes skywards. “God, the entire planet. I didn’t even think about the possible scale of it. Like, even starting small like this, there is so much room to grow. So much ground we could possibly cover. It’s an ambitious project.” The girl was shaking with anticipation. The expression on her face wasn’t one of worry. It was the kind of face Gwen had often made when facing off against a powerful villain. It was a challenge. She loved a challenge. The bigger the better.

“Okay! Yes, and that lets people on Big Team grow too, as we make way for them to learn to take charge too. Not everyone needs to want to take charge, but everyone who can take charge of themselves should learn how to. A network of heroes. The old League of Heroes was funded by governments, we probably won’t have that luxury. And… and you’re right! ‘Adult heroes’ does sound weird!” Gwen calms down a little from her ambitious high and turns to Melody. “Do you… do you want to wait? Like, until you’re eighteen, or until you’ve graduated from highschool?”

Melody wore a broad smile as Gwen talked. She’d seen the same excitement on her face before-- it was the same look she got when they’d faced off together against Yamato, or took things too far while sparring. The possibility of danger, a huge challenge, and the unknown-- Gwen had always been excited to rise to the occasion. *THIS is probably why we get along so well,* Melody thought as she inadvertently rapped her own fingers on the table with excitement. *We’re both dumb enough to jump into something scary headfirst and make it work somehow.*

“I mean… I wanna start now. Or soon.” Melody nodded as if reassuring herself. “I mean, I could put it off till after high school. That might be easier. But like… senior year is pretty chill so far? I think I can handle it now. Or at least after November, cause I do wanna focus on studying for the SAT and college apps and stuff, and that’s *real* soon.  But I mean… I really believe in what we’re doing. Or want to do. So why put it off, y’know? We can start getting stuff in place now, and it’s gonna take a hot minute to do all the uh… what do you call it. Logical stuff? L--”

Melody reached into a pocket and pulled out a list of vocabulary words, scanning it briefly before sighing. “Shit. ‘Logistical’. Yeah. That. Figuring out what shit we have together, what we can get… I guess we can ask Cyclone if the city can hook us up with anything? We helped him get elected, he owes us, right?” she laughed. “And yeah… network of heroes sounds like a great idea. That’s been the big fuckin’ problem to begin with, right? All the adults aren’t working together. And if they aren’t gonna get their shit together, we need to get them to start talking and helping us and each other.”

“Exactly!” Gwen exclaimed. Behind her, a dog getting walked started barking at her from the sudden noise. “The logistical stuff should be easy enough if we can find the right people. Legal stuff I can ask Olivia and the family lawyers for. Resources will be important, too. Maybe figure out some membership requirements, so that we don’t endanger people who are too inexperienced, or too young, or too villainous. I don’t want to get Flick or my sister Fleur or Kieran Khan in on this.”

She patted her bag in search of a pen to start writing some things down. “I have some contacts at the Small Town Heroes Union of America, the Indigenous Heroes Union and the League of Mediterranean Heroes. There might be people there who can help us get hooked up for some necessities, perhaps even have a few people who want to join this initiative.”

“Dangggg. Look at you with all the contacts.” Melody laughed as she watched Gwen write down an expansive list of people and organizations to get in touch with. “You’ve been keeping busy! Cool, yeah. Some basic membership requirements and like… logistical and legal stuff. Good ideas. There’s also like, the Halcyon Knights chapter and the Asgardian office? I mean, I know they do their own thing,” she shrugged, “but they have some real badasses. And I mean, *sometimes* we’re gonna have interests that align, right? So making friends with them and having like… a contact point with them would be good. Li- liaison? Yeah.”

“Also…” Melody mused, “I could see if The Jackal has any advice too? I mean… she helped set up one of these before? The Society of Heroes, anyway. Like, the OG League. But that *was* older-than-my-grandparents-ago. So maybe not the most up-to-date advice? But wouldn’t hurt to ask.”

Gwen scrunched up her face at the mention of the Asgardian office. “I’ll contact the Asgardians after I have concluded some personal business with one individual. But checking if all these different organizations could have a designated liaison for use to contact would be good, yeah! On our end, I could take that up. At least until we find someone better.”

She wrote down a few more names, then ‘Old Jackal’, then crossed out ‘Old’ just in case she’d ever see the list, then re-thought it and assured herself she never would, and replaced it with ‘The Jackal (Old)’. “That’s also a really good idea, Melody. If she still knows, that could be invaluable. Wait--” Gwen gave Melody a puzzled look. “The Society of Heroes? I didn’t consider this when we talked at the museum, but wouldn’t that make her like a hundred years old?”

“I mean, kinda? She’s 100-something in the same way our Ellen is like, *technically* 40-something.” Melody laughed. “I haven’t like… actually asked for her age still. Kinda scared to? But I know she was in her twenties when I met her in ‘55, then… That Thing happened,” Melody grimaced, “then she showed up in the ‘80s and started doing hero stuff again? Which makes her...”

Counting on her fingers for a moment, Melody eventually shrugged at Gwen. “I think early sixties? Somewhere around there. Point is: time travel’s confusing, man. I mean, Aman and I spent a month in the future and I’m just like… pretending that doesn’t count towards my birthday or whatever. Too much math.”

“Oh yeah, that makes sense.” Gwen nodded. “Thinking about time travel is a headache, so I don’t do it. I think I haven’t time travelled? But there was that one time that Aman and I spent like a year in a Roman legion. I thought that was just some dreamscape stuff, but I’ve seen statues and murals in a museum once that were a little too familiar.”

“Huh.” Melody tilted her head. “He did mention something about being in a Roman legion with you when you were on a mission or something. But not for a year…? That’s a long-ass time! Honestly… glad I haven’t had to go to the dream world yet. It sounds like a *nightmare*.”

Pulling Ellen’s old sunglasses out of her purse, Melody pushed them up on her nose and grinned at Gwen.

“Totally 100% absolutely unrelated to that pun, but I think I’ve been hanging out with Shade too much.”

Gwen snickered. “You can’t hang out with Shade too much if you wear two of her on your face that easily. But yeah, it was a long quest across the sea and the desert, must’ve taken at least a few months. We fought some monsters that I’d previously only seen in Greek and Egyptian art. We destroyed a giant stone sphinx.”

She smiled at the recollection. Now that the time was so long removed, she felt nostalgic about it. Past adventures with close friends were one way to make Gwendolyn du Lac a little emotional.

“Psssh,” Melody interjected with a smirk, “I fought *two* giant stone sphinxes once. At the *same time*! Seth *threw* one of them. It was fucking wild!”

“Anyway, I think we have a good set of things on our to do list for… the Big League? I’m gonna call it the Big League as a placeholder, at least for now. I’ll do the logistical stuff to set up the thing, talk to lawyers, organizations, yadda yadda. You talk to the teammates who are interested in this, gauge like, level of commitment and such. Sound good?”

“Sweet. Sounds good.” Melody nodded contemplatively. “‘Big League’ sounds pretty good. Or ‘New League’? Should we vote or something? I’ll definitely hit up everyone for suggestions and just make sure they’re still down for joining. Think we definitely have Ernest, Boon, and Atlanta. But now that we’re like, *actually doing this*,” she exhaled with excitement and nervousness, ”I’ll make sure they’re still down. I’ll keep bugging Aman too. He has to give up and join eventually, right?”

“Oh!” Melody clapped her hands together in sudden realization. “Right right, hitting up Mayor Cyclone too. Not sure if he can *actually* give us anything, but worth a shot. My mom and dad do a lot of non-profit stuff too, they might have some tips... I’ll ask them too. And The Jackal. Until then…”

Melody stuffed the remainder of her ice cream cone into her mouth and grinned at Gwen.

“So long and thanks for all the ice cream?”

## **An Office Building In Downtown Halcyon, December 14th**

“Tadaa!”

The building was a squat five-story office building squeezed into the block with small alleys on either side and a pair of skyscrapers across the street. Behind the building was perhaps Halcyon City’s smallest park, with an old swing from the playground that used to be there. One window was cracked on the fourth floor. It belonged to a small office. A central room on the corner of the building that had enough space for four desks, two smaller offices that connected to it, a small kitchen and a toilet. The hardwood floor in the central room had scorchmarks on it, though they were mostly hidden underneath a sun-bleached rug that covered half of it. On top of the rug stood Gwen, arms spread out in presentation after she’d thrown open the door and entered it before Melody.

“What do you think?”

“This might be the first time I’ve parked in front of a building and felt like *my* van was too fancy for the place,” Melody’s head swept around the central room to a wall with faded, peeling floral wallpaper. “Totally honest? This place looks like *shit*.”

“...and I love it.” Melody beamed at Gwen and cackled. “Oh my *God* we have so much work to do. I’m fuckin’ pumped. How’d you find this place? This is actually *way* bigger than I thought we could get. When Mayor Cyclone told us what the stipend or whatever from the city would be, I was thinking we could afford like… a supply closet somewhere. At best.”

“Wait, I figured it out,” she nodded solemnly at Gwen. “It’s haunted, right? Ghosts and monsters and stuff? That’s why we can afford it. Only explanation.”

Gwen laughed. “Fuck, if it’s haunted, I should’ve paid extra. Makes it feel more like home. Did I ever tell you about how castle Joyous Gard has at least a dozen ghosts of old du Lac family members? A few fairies or gramlins living in the liminal spaces of this place would do it some good.” She grinned, then her expression faded to thoughtfulness, as if she seriously considered the matter. Maybe they could invite some of those creatures in here if there weren’t some already…

“Anyway, yeah, it needs some touching up. A thorough cleaning and a paint job or two, but for now…” Gwen walked over to the cracked window and reached inside the satchel she wore over her shoulder. She took out a roll of duct tape, unrolled a piece, and slapped it over the crack. The howling of the wind outside suddenly sounded a little more distant. “There we go.”

“Good enough.” Melody laughed at the slightly-less-drafty window. “We’ll get that fixed. Until then, we can put Ernest’s desk here? He can just push the wind away if it gets too cold. Free training!”

“And no, you didn’t tell me about the ghosts at your old place,” she chuckled before grinning at Gwen. “But considering the *last* time I saw a fairy was when we were getting them to not... freeze you in ice for a year? Maybe we’ll keep the hauntings and spirits and stuff to a minimum at first, work our way up.”

“Ha! That’s fair.” Gwen looked slightly embarrassed at the memory. “Can’t have greatauntie Maebh turning all the squires into an acapella choir again.”

She took another look around and let out a sigh of relief. A lot of hard work had gotten them this far. There was a lot left to do, but this was a major milestone they had reached already.

She looked back at Melody.

“Captain.”

Melody nodded back solemnly.

“Capitan.”

A few moments passed as the girls regarded each other. The barren office around them was silent, save for the distant whistling of wind against the hastily repaired window. The silence of those few seconds made the noise that followed sound even louder, as the two girls burst into laughter.

“Come on,” Gwen said, “let’s go meet up with the others and tell them the good news.”

As they left the office, Gwen reached for something near the top of the window in the door. It was covered by a sticker. She took a corner of it and pulled it off, leaving only a name behind.

**𝓞𝓕𝓕𝓘𝓒𝓔**

**𝓸𝓯**

**𝓣𝓗𝓔 𝓥𝓐𝓝𝓖𝓤𝓐𝓡𝓓**