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In the dream, Gwen’s electric, illuminated, a flash of light across the sky.

Her sneakers pound against the roof, scattering tiles covered in white dust. The sky ahead pulses darkness. From the tower at the top of the hill, clouds as black as the void of space spread greedy fingers out over the High City of New Luna. Streaks like oily meteors fall, drawing lines down across the grey horizon. Gwen’s running towards that horizon, faster, faster, toward the black of the storm.

Her shoes reach the edge of the rooftop, and she leaps.

Into the hundred-foot drop.

As she falls, Gwen makes the sign of the Maiden. The wind whips up her old green jacket, stirs what’s left of the hem of her long blue skirt, but she’s drawing lines in the air, slash, curve, curve, one last curve crossing the others.

The magic takes hold. Gwen’s glasses vanish. Her hair flows long and free. Golden armor crowns her shoulders, sweeps down across her stomach. A skirt of white feathers clothes her now, revealing long white stockings above golden boots. Feathers mark her wrists and heels. The white tiara spreads out across her forehead.

Gwen feels the Lunar Lady’s power in her, kicks her boots against the empty air, and takes off into the sky.

A golden spark, she weaves around droplets of black rain. They fall like boulders, big enough to drown her. She veers far from putrid titans that would snatch at her, threading through and under skyscrapers that lean half-ruin against each other.

There it is. The safehouse. She sees the others standing below. Already outside, just as promised.  Armor in bright colors like pale blue and ruddy bronze and violet, standing out against the grey and dark.

At attention. Ready to move. Their position was compromised hours ago.

Gwen touches down within their ranks.

Lana, cradling her crayfish helmet, looks up at her. Meets her eye over her round blue shield.

Gwen feels that look like a wound in her spine.

They’re the remnants. All that’s left of their cause. They who once swore to protect not just the High City but the entire Moon.

As one, they move out. Gwen knows their destination. They all do. There’s no question left now what they’re going to try to do.

Just as there’s no guarantee any of them will survive.

Gwen knows what’s on the path ahead. She’s already seen the rubble, the piled-up bodies of the dead. At the castle at the center of the High City there’s no chance of coming back alive, not for her. She’s finally grasped its macabre meaning, the fate she’s seen over and over in her dreams.

But it doesn’t matter. Gwen’s not doing this for herself, nor are any of the others. It might be too late to save the city. Or the people down below.

But it would still be worth it for her sake.

 That’s who they’re doing this for. Their leader, who once stood in front of them in dark blue armor and a red cape, carving through monsters with her sword. Their leader, who believed so much in doing better, in a goodness the world couldn’t understand, that it made them into what they are.

The girl Gwen can’t think about without her heart threatening to burst with love and guilt and yearning and grief, the girl who came into her life and broke it open and put it together again, the girl who, if Gwen makes every move perfectly, if she fights with every bit of viciousness and tenacity she’s got, if she’s willing to sacrifice everything she has left, she might, might, be able to rescue from the dark tomb that claims her.

Adrianna, their captain, who called them here.

We’re coming, Gwen whispers, in the recesses of her mind, though she fears it’s too late. We’re coming, Adrianna.

Through the broken windows of a blackened building, their enemies come into view. Dead things, taller than houses, made of black ooze and misassembled bone.

Gwen looks to the others, who give her their nod.

Weapons are drawn. Battle commands are shouted over the wind. Half their group take to the air above.

As one, they charge into the storm.