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With Armsmaster's death, Miss Militia is promoted to team captain. Even with the losses, however, the Protectorate ENE doesn't get new capes—all teams got hit hard by the last Endbringer attack, and even though it was by all accounts a major victory, it did not cause capes to start lining up to join.
Days pass, and winter hits Brockton Bay. It's pretty mild, as winters go, but it's enough to drastically reduce criminal activity. The heroes have an altercation with white supremacists the following week, but nothing much comes of it, as cape muscle seems to prefer to remain comfortable inside. Capes nationwide are somewhat subdued, perhaps as the aftermath of the victory against Behemoth. Nothing much seems to change, however—the Simurgh continues to fly around in her unpredictable pattern, Leviathan continues to be impossible to locate, lurking in the depths of the ocean. The public gets hopelessly contradictory information about what really happened during the fight from unofficial sources, secretly fed from official ones to make sure people don't jump to the right conclusions, and the topic loses its momentum.
And all of this completely fails to distract Sadde, who seems to not be getting better from the post-battle funk. Or, at least, not straightforwardly better. The depression and fatalism turn—maybe not completely, but at least a bit—into unease and anxiety, or perhaps stir craziness. It is, after all, true that, other than for class, Sadde doesn't really leave HQ a whole lot, not since they reached the comfortable position of being able to patrol from the comfort of the console—of, in fact, being more effective when doing that, for the average uneventful patrol.
Fatalism, depression, anxiety, and unease, all combined into a Sadde-shaped ball, are currently floating upside down in Lorica's workshop, failing to read a book while she fugues.
"Those poor mothers. We should make sure to get salad so they'll feel better."
"Yep. But first, ice cream!" he says, now that it's their turn in line. He collects her order—there are various possible sizes and flavor combinations—gets his own ice cream, and pays for both of them.
She gets a cone with pistachio and chocolate chip cookie dough! "Oh, you didn't have to do that, I can pay you back." But that would be unthinkable.
"Don't worry about it, I don't really spend a lot of money on—pretty much anything, so it's nice to make someone else happy with it."
"I'm not very big on personal material wealth, owning stuff, that sort of thing, anyway."
"Most of 'em. I like knowing things, learning things. I read a lot, I like behavioral economics and math in particular. And I'm also kind of a cape geek."
"Yeah, like, studying the way psychology and how people think and feel affects their decisions, particularly when it comes to economics, but economics is a microcosm of the kinds of systematic mistakes people make, and how they tick. I like understanding people—I like people."
"People are the most important, most interesting thing in the world," she agrees emphatically.
"They are! People are so interesting, I just want to know all about them. And, again, still your turn! I keep talking about myself, you must be exhausted of listening to me.
"But you're a person and therefore one of the most important and most interesting things in the world," she says. "I'm not tired of it at all."
"I dunno, I've more or less told you random things about me, you could do the same!"
"Oh, let's see. I'm an only child but I always wished I had a big family. I like movies and museums and I used to do a lot of hiking but I've fallen out of touch with my hiking buddies and it's no fun alone."
"I'm sorry about the hiking buddies. I never went, the only place anywhere near here one could do that is Great Bay National and it's tiny." Does it count as a date if he asks her to go see a movie with him? Perhaps a museum is safer, but Brockton Bay is fairly short on those, there's only—" But Brockton Bay has a boat museum a bit north of here, actually."
"Yeah! It's really a Brockton Bay history museum, but said history has lots of boats in it, so. The shipping industry used to be the backbone of this city. It's one of the reasons it's gotten so much cape attention over the past couple of decades."
"Ooh, you did say you were a cape geek. Do you have a favorite?"
"Here in BB, I used to really admire Armsmaster, and the way Glam and Lorica team up and combine their powers to deal with stuff is really awesome." He glows a bit inside when he says that. "Less locally, I think Narwhal is awesome, and Alexandria, too." Pause. Sheepish grin. "I did say I was bad at this whole 'favorite' thing. How about you?"
"I was a big Alexandria fan when I was a little girl. Pajamas and action figures and all."