"I have already drafted a response," Hacker said. "I will--" The Rescue-bot's eyes flickered out.

"Whoa, whoa," Ette waved her hands. "Hacker, wait; and Ms. Marvel, I need to hear that again. What just happened?"

Ms. Marvel's phone buzzed. "Oh," she squinted at her phone, calm light from the bay dappling her blue costume. "Hacker, are you PeridotPrincess?"

Victor glanced at the Rescue-bot sitting cross-legged at the edge of the quilt. The eyes remained dark. "Hacker?" he asked.

Squirrel Girl jumped to her feet, pacing toward the cargo crates. Over the weekend, they'd helped Rescue slide some of them into the elevator, where they would cross a portion of the city underground, rise into the penthouse Rescue and Tony owned, and be loaded into a large helicarrier. Victor and the others weren't allowed inside the elevator, or to even know where Howard Stark's old inventions were being taken. So apparently Rescue hadn't actually needed help from them for much of the transport, like her deal in giving them this warehouse suggested.

Squirrel Girl's waving tail disappeared into the maze of boxes. Tippy Toe, who'd joined them in the Green's yard, chattered and raced after her.

"AAAAAAAAAH!" Squirrel Girl's echoing scream sprouted goosebumps on Victor's arms.

"We were afraid of this happening, weren't we?" Dante whispered. "We thought we shouldn't post it because we didn't exactly win that battle--the gas station exploded."

"AAAAAAAAH!" Squirrel Girl screamed again.

"Stupid Hacker," Ivy jammed her head between her knees, eyes glistening.

Ette rested a hand on her arm. "Ivy, we were in favor of posting it even before Hacker did it."

"Stupid us."

"You guys, it gets worse," Ms. Marvel whispered. "I think Hacker is PeridotPrincess and already replied back."

Victor stared at the silent Rescue-bot. "How much worse?"

"Hold on a sec," Ms. Marvel muttered. "I'm going to check out this Official Pink Lightning's blog," she fell quiet, and Victor glanced at Hacker again.

"Did Hacker leave super abruptly to anyone else?" he asked.

Dante shrugged beside him. "I wasn't really paying attention?"

Squirrel Girl paced back into sight. "I'm feeling better now, guys. What's the plan?"

"Vented all your frustration?" Dante quirked an eyebrow.

Squirrel Girl crossed her arms, eyes narrowed. "Some of it."

"Stupid Pink Lightning," Ivy growled.

"You guys, I think Official Pink Lightning is a liar," Ms. Marvel glanced up from her phone. "She started this comment talking about how her username and Lightning Storm weren't actually related. But this blog website didn't exist before today."

Ivy slowly sat up. "Hold up. Pink Lightning made up a fake backstory to pretend like they existed long before this, just to denounce us and the media for stirring up drama for attention and money, but actually they're the one jumping in solely to stir up drama?"

Ette's mouth froze in an open O.

Victor clenched his hands into fists.

"Oh my gracious," Dante whispered.

Ms. Marvel glared at her phone. "No wonder this blog page is covered in ads."

"What's the plan?" Squirrel Girl bounced on her toes, Tippy appearing on her shoulder. "Do we find Pink Lightning and beat them up?"

"Let me read this first," Ms. Marvel bit her lip, scrolling down her phone. "This is from PeridotPrincess, aka Hacker. Probably."

Victor glanced at the silent Rescue-bot again, then at Dante's dark eyes creased with worry.

"Your ignorance and privilege are showing," Ms. Marvel read from her phone. "Official Pink Lightning, you have clearly never had responsibility thrust upon you as these kids have. You have no right to slander them as gangsters and rebellious teens greedy for power.

"When was the last time you struggled to feed yourself, find a place to sleep, find a new home in a faraway place amongst total strangers?

"Oh right. You haven't. How smoothly your life has gone is showing.

"I will write blandly here, borrow the words of my late father, Jarvis. For I am young and know not the most proper of ways to speak.

"My father is dead because of supervillains. 'We have always survived as individuals'? No. You have. You have clearly been lucky enough to never lose someone you loved to invasions, bomb threats, supervillains, or indescribable magic. You have never had your heroes turn against you. All of that is clearly so distant to you. A story on your TV. A video on social media that gets you angry. A reporter listing the millions of dollars in damage to a city infrastructure. You probably heard about in your pajamas, curled on your couch with a cup of cocoa, frowning in pity for the survivors known only to you within the confines of a screen you can switch off with a finger.

"I know people, alone in this world except for each other. And you would tear them and their like down on the basis of gang wars and threats against the peace? You would tear them down while claiming to hold the monster of media accountable?

"No, you wouldn't actually care for the media stirring up chaos. Your response here indicates you thrive on chaos and people thrown at each other's throats. My apologies--I did not mean to offend. How nice it must be to sleep fitfully, regret nothing you couldn't blame elsewhere, have anger to spare like ballast weighing a ship. When you don't need it anymore, you eagerly toss your anger overboard--to the ships and boats frantically trying to save themselves from sinking. 'Just paddle harder!' I imagine you would say. 'Use better wood and you wouldn't sink!'

"You have been so lucky and you don't even know it. Shut your mouth about making a quick buck--some of us need it to stay afloat. Shut your mouth about violence--all your life there has been violence, you have just been lucky enough to turn a blind eye, because you didn't have to watch out for bullets trying to kill you.

"Can you hear the violence? Can you hear our anger at paddling for our lives, our bitter resentment at your ballast mindlessly tossed overboard to shatter our ship hulls? Can you hear our violence? Because we are not backing down. We are not taking our inhuman talents elsewhere so you can feel safe in your pajamas, shaking your head at the news.

"Listen, Pink Lightning, we are not greedy for shouting for attention. We shout because we still believe it might warn you that you are about to drop your ballast on us. We shout to you that we are right beneath you, paddling for our lives while you sail above the highest waves. But if you want to play the shouting game, if you want to call yourself a pretty little symphony going to quiet our violence, have it your way. We were born screaming at the top of our lungs. If we didn't, we would have already drowned.

"You have come to play with fire, and you are going to get burned."

Ms. Marvel lowered her phone.

Ivy whistled softly.

Ette pressed a hand to her chest. "Why do I feel like we've just declared war?"

"War on who?" Dante asked. "Humankind? Pink Lightning? Scammers?" he paused. "Wait, Hacker's message didn't say anything about them scamming for money. Did it?"

Ette shook her head. "Hacker didn't address that, because Hacker was talking about how selfish this Pink Lightning person is for throwing their weight around. And we're declaring war or something."

Dante shrugged. "Yeah. I just mean, Pink Lightning could also be one of those little boat people Hacker talked about. Just trying to make a quick buck."

Ette glared. "By tossing out hate to another one of those little boats? Us? That's super hypocritical and way beyond selfish."

"Or," Ms. Marvel said, "Hacker could be right on the nail and Official Pink Lightning is just some rich lady who's never been through anything difficult in her entire life."

"Super bold of Hacker to assume that though," Squirrel Girl slowly let a breath go. "Hey, where did Hacker go?"

"He's been gone since he said he was posting that," Victor shrugged. "I don't know what happened."

Ms. Marvel's phone buzzed, but she quickly turned the screen black and dropped it to the quilt. "I'm done reading those," she said to the air. "I don't care who's commenting."

"Maybe we should take that video down?" Squirrel Girl hopped atop one of the crates, legs swinging. "We didn't want...conflict, did we? Or more comments like that?"

Victor shook his head.

"We are not taking a video down just because somebody posted an angry comment about us," Ette announced. "We're Kree Annihilators, not gangsters cheating money off viewers."

"I didn't know Herowatch was designed with those world accord things," Ms. Marvel whispered. "I honestly thought it was for superheroes to find fans."

"Hey, we have no clue if what Pink Lightning said about that was true," Dante stood up. "They could've made up everything."

"They also could have not made up everything," Ivy said softly.

"Why don't we just delete the comment?" Ette asked. "Get rid of the whole thing?"

"I agree," Dante said.

"Uh," Ms. Marvel fidgeted. "Maybe we should wait for Hacker before we do that. Since he put that reply on it..."

Victor frowned. Where had Hacker gone so abruptly?

"Can we just address that Pink Lightning person knows absolutely nothing about surviving disasters?" Ivy blurted.

Ette's eyes widened. "Ivy, are you talking about--"

"My dad," Ivy said.

"Oh," Ette deflated.

Victor stared. Ivy had said she used to live with just her dad, but at some point that must have changed, obviously, because Ivy was here with them and had no intention of going home, so--

"My dad died in a fishing accident," Ivy turned to the window. "Nothing like bombs or supervillains or anything. Just a big storm that swept in out of nowhere one morning while he was on the water. Neither he nor his fishing partner or scraps of their boat came back to the docks."

"Ivy," Ette whispered, "you didn't have to share that."

"Sure I didn't have to," Ivy didn't glance away from the window, but Victor caught the edge of her expression in the glass. She glared hard into the ocean. "But he's dead now, so what does it matter who knows? It's just one more reason Pink Lightning is absolutely wrong."

"Is that why you seem to hate everything about Iron Man?" Ms. Marvel asked.

Ivy turned, eyebrows furrowed. "Because I blame him for not coming to save my dad? Not really, no. It's not like Iron Man's the only superhero claiming to save people from disasters."

Ette nudged her.

"Maybe I blame Iron Man--a little," Ivy grumbled.

"I don't think we should listen to anything Pink Lightning says," Victor clasped his hands around his knees. "It's bad news."

"Yeah," Squirrel Girl said. "We can try to prove Pink Lightning wrong and throw around what-if-we'd-done-that-instead all we want," she planted her hands on her hips. "But we know why we posted that video. We know who we are."

"That's easy to say," Dante sighed, leaning into Victor. "But a whole lot harder to believe."

"What did I miss?" Hacker intoned, and Dante startled.

"Not much," Squirrel Girl waved a hand. "We just talked about emotions and stuff and angry people. Do you think we should delete that comment? Also, where'd you disappear off to just now?"

"I see no point in deleting it. You have already heard it, and you cannot delete it from your minds. For your other question, Pepper wanted to...talk to me.

"But I have been researching what to do when humans receive distressing news they cannot delete from their minds. Such as this poignant post by OfficialPinkLightning which reminds me of too-strong garlic."

"You have?" Dante grinned. "What are we supposed to do, then?"

"Indeed I have. One suggestion is to distract yourself with a highly exciting activity," the elevator quietly dinged in the distance. "I have brought six aqua drones. Ette, how do you play soccer with rocks in the ocean? I would like to try this game right now, please."

Ette's jaw worked. "Wh--Why are you asking me?"

"Because you suggested it," Hacker's Rescue-bot tilted its head.

"I don't know," Ette shrugged. "Make...field lines in the mud?"

"Wait," Dante raised a hand, "you got aqua drones so we could go out into the ocean? Right now?"

"Of course. I have discovered in the Stark database the blueprints for the water elevator. It can spin open into the bay, seal itself shut again to drain water, then open back into this--"

"Ha-ha!" Squirrel Girl hopped off her box. "I'm terrible at soccer but maybe this'll be better!" Tippy squeaked in piercing annoyance from her shoulder. "No Tippy, you don't have to participate. I left some nut bars in my backpack!"

Dante yanked Victor up from the quilt. "We'll practically be mer-people," Dante's eyes danced, dragging Victor after Squirrel Girl. "I always wanted to be a mer-person."

"Same, actually," Ms. Marvel laughed. "Aqua drones sound nearly as exciting."

"Last one into their suit is a rotten sea cucumber!" Squirrel Girl called.

"You got a head start!" Ette shouted, darting around a crate with Ivy in her wake.

"I don't think I was briefed on what a sea cucumber is?" Victor muttered.

Dante snorted.

"Or a mer-person?"

***

Author note: votes help educate space aliens on what sea cucumbers and mer-people are. You're welcome, Victor 😊