“No. The light came from me. From my eyes.”
“Laser eyes then. Wow.”
“They’re not lasers. It’s a voluntary magnetic pulse powered by the Aurora Borealis moving at jet turbine speed.”
Stardust hadn’t paid much attention to his classes outside of dance, so he had no idea what the beefcake was talking about. He tilted his head to the side in question. “What?”
“It’s basically a really strong and tightly focused wind.”
“And you can control it.”
“I can activate it at will. And the sunglasses Caleb gave me tonight allow me to aim it with precision. That was my first test of their accuracy and they did great.”
“I’m glad to know you aren’t wearing sunglasses at night trying to look cool.”
A smile twitched the corners of that serious mouth. “I assure you that was not my goal.”
“Damn. Your superpower is a knockout blast from your eyeballs. That’s pretty boss. You might be on a level with Helios.”
Mike shook his head. “Probably not. We received our powers in similar incidents, but he has far more abilities than I do.”
“You’re saying you can’t fly?”
“No, I can’t.”
“Well, thanks for stepping up and taking care of the second assailant. I didn’t even see them.”
The small smile began to fade. “That’s why I wanted us to wait and scope out the situation first.”
“That woman needed help. And neither of us were hurt so it worked out all right in the end,” Stardust said with an unconcerned shrug.
Zielinski pressed his lips together, the smile completely gone. He clearly didn’t agree with Stardust’s assessment.
“Running an operation like that is a surefire way to get someone hurt. You can’t just charge forward and hope it works out all right in the end. You need a plan.”
“There isn’t always time to plan. Especially not in the heat of the moment.”
“Then you need to learn how to make time.”
Stardust scoffed. “I don’t need to learn how to do anything. I’ve been patrolling the Playground for two years now and managed to help plenty of people. I don’t need some military man with a plan coming in here telling me how to handle my business.”
A muscle bunched in Zielinski’s jaw. Stardust couldn’t see the eyes behind those glasses, but he had a feeling if he could, he’d see the beefcake glaring at him. That was too bad. As far as he was concerned, what was done was done. If Zielinski didn’t like it, tough. “I’m going to report in to Strong then do a sweep for the rest of this area to make sure those assholes don’t attack anyone else. Are you coming or are you going to stand here and bitch about drawing up battle plans some more?”
Again, a muscle clenched in that hard jawline before Mike responded.
“Let’s go.”