The wave breaks against the force fields. Several fail, more shudder or crack or in one case bleed, but the mass of water falters as it's robbed of its momentum and turned into mist, boiled away by a dozen different types of fire and heat or scattered by the sheer pressure of the impact. What little that gets through splashes harmlessly against the line of Brutes standing tall in the chest-high water.

Then Leviathan passes through the defenses like they're not even there.

I take a step back, already moving and grabbing one two three other people who didn't step forward to join the Brute line, dragging them to the left and away from Leviathan with hooks of bone snagging their loose clothing or tangling around limbs. A moment later a building's worth of water crashes down on top of us as he pump-fakes and sends his water echo knocking over all the people I didn't grab, washing away all the light-weights to leave only the man in armor and his two companions somehow unmoved while Leviathan has spun on a dime to attack another group of capes and his claws and tail are lashing out in a million directions at once to split open chests and sever limbs and that's at least five people dead and-

"Scatter!" Revel's voice screams from my wrist, interrupting my train of thought and sending me back into the real world. Right. Not our fight.

I need to run.

The three capes I have a tendril on get bundled in close around me, bands of woven bone criss-crossing their chests as limbs sprout freely from the ever-thickening shell around us. I think they're speaking to me but now we need to run. I try to stilt us away, but the first few limbs shatter not even two feet off the ground as they fail to take the weight, sending us back into the water. Damn. Too heavy. I need to adapt.

I form a lattice to evenly distribute the weight of my passengers across the shell as my limbs shift from spindly feelers to clawed pillars, trading agility for power and thrusting the four of us to a nearby rooftop. I see flashes of light in front of me (Blaster projectiles, I think distantly in a moment of clarity) and promptly twist right, almost over balancing as I adjust to the extra weight.

I force myself to take a shaky breath as I cross over the street fifty feet below.

Calm. I need to calm down.

I don't calm, but I do slow down a little, the awareness of my panic making it more manageable. I focus on my movement, thinking about where each pillar should go, how best to avoid slipping or accidentally putting a hole in a roof. I keep moving, keep stiliting, working up speed as I put distance between us and the Endbringer. Eventually, the sounds are quiet enough that I can hear myself think. And hear my passengers screaming at me.

"Oya lassie ya can lemme down-"

"Miss this is quite far enough-"

"Dumb cunt let me go!"

Fuck.

"Sorry," I say, dropping down to a nearby rooftop and releasing the three capes, each left staggering as I free them of their bonds. "I didn't think when I reached out. Leviathan showed up and I stopped thinking and tried to do what made sense and-"

"Ain't complainin'," the black and white cape says, flexing his limbs then shaking his entire body like a dog, blurring temporarily and sending water everywhere. "I wasn't gonna take a hit from the beastie without help. Saved me life."

"Thank you," a woman I don't recognize mutters, nodding at me once. She's covered head to toe in scales that fade from purple to green, with talons at the end of her fingers, an upside down 'u' on the back of her left hand and orange ophidian eyes narrowed at me menacingly as she flares her flat nostrils. "But next time, try not to run so far." I feel a twinge of irritation but bite down a reaction. Starting a fight over this isn't going to be good for anyone.

"Chill out, Pansy Parkinson. It's not like a few city blocks is going to make the fight that much harder to find," the last cape comments casually, wasting my self control as she points a finger towards the little specks of light streaking through the sky and raining down blasts of energy. This one is decked out in chains, with small thin lengths around the joints and thick links around her forearms, chest, and thighs. "Leviathan's over there," she says sarcastically, "so if you want round two that won't be hard to arrange."

"If I could I would," Snake-Lady snaps, a forked tongue flicking out angrily. "On the other hand, my venom didn't work when I first tried it and my claws aren't cutting it anymore," she hisses, fingers curling angrily but not clenching.

"Ladies, y'all are beautiful, but can we keep our head in the game?" Black and White asks, prompting the three of us to look at him. He's staring at his bracelet, one finger tapping away at it. "The nice girlie who gives us orders is sayin' that the old plan's out the window and to put down anythin' that tries to kill us first." The three of us check our bracelets as well. While his explanation is a little more blunt than Dragon's, it's also not wrong, as a message to the same effect scrolls across our screens along with coordinates to patrol.

"Area denial. Well, that's one way to do it," Chains says, shrugging. A gentle tinkle accompanies the sound and I can make out a smile on her face through a veil of what looks like bicycle chain. "So they just want us to walk around and kill things? I can manage that."

"Ain't murder. Just shutting down minions," Black and White says quietly, looking over the edge of the building and down to the flooded street. "Mind givin' me a hand down?" he asks, looking at me. I nod.

"A moment," I say, walking over to the ledge and shoving my misgivings about working with these three crazies into a box and shelving them for later. A tendril of bone crawls out from my foot, slips over the ledge, and splits into a ladder, Once I see the ends splash down into the water I motion at it. "After you," I say.

Black and White starts descending carefully and calmly, one rung at a time. After a moment Snake Lady follows, eyeing the material warily but still getting on. Chains simply steps over the edge, tilts parallel to the ground, and starts walking down the wall, a length of metal hooked over the lip of the building attached to her back. I take in the sight for a moment, then shake my head at the casual disregard for gravity and stilt down to the ground. A woman walking down a wall really shouldn't be nearly as surprising as it is, but it's still odd to see an absolute lack of hesitance in what would otherwise be a suicidal action.

About halfway through Snake Lady and Black and White's descent, our bracelets beep.

"Hostiles detected in your zone," a pre-recorded voice chimes.

"Back to back," Chains says, quiet and serious as the lengths of metal that rest on her start shifting and grating against one another. I hear a muffled curse from above us, then a rush of air and a splash of water. Snake Lady strides up next to me, tongue flicking out rapidly and eyelids flicking open and shut, the color of the iris shifting slightly with every blink.

"I can't taste anyone in the air or see anything odd in the other spectrums of light," she whispers, head slowly swaying from side to side in a decidedly inhuman fashion. "I don't think there are any Strangers nearby, but they could be affecting my mind."

"Calm down lassie," Black and White says, splashing down into the water and rolling his shoulders as he approaches our cluster. "The nice lady says they were in the area, right? That don't mean they're here. Zone's large." He holds up his bracelet and taps it twice. A grid shows up, with one square highlighted. He taps it again and the map zooms in on the highlighted square, with a red circle in the upper right hand square and a blue dot in the upper right hand square. "Damn clever," he mutters, looking back at it. "Wonder if it's got a phone function?"

"What's your name?" I ask. He looks at me, inscrutable behind his multi-patterned mask, and I clarify. "I've been calling you Black and White in my head and I'd like to know your name if we're going to actually work together." I know it's an awkward time, but I can't see a more convenient one coming up in the future. Black and White must agree because he shrugs and turns back to the bracelet.

"Name's Kat Sidhe," he says. After a moments silence he looks up at the other two women. "Might wanna share your names as well. Just a thought." Snake Lady and Chain both glare at him, but he's turned back to his bracelet. Eventually Snake Lady huffs and rolls her eyes.

"Vapa Igna," she says as she turns to look back at the streets. Chains leans back against a wall, apparently content that the threat isn't imminent.

"Caress," she says, as her chains fall flat. "Yours?"

"White Rose," I answer, briefly twisting my mask into a rose blossom. Caress does a little double-take while Kat spares a brief glance and Vapa looks on impassively. "Now, what's the plan and can we get out of the downpour?" I ask, sparing a glance up and shifting my mask to an avian beak and brow to keep the rain off my lenses. God, how much is it going to rain? It's still pouring, though the heavy clouds look lower than they were at the start of the fight. I wonder how much of that is simply pessimism making them seem closer and how much is Leviathan's next move.

"Plan's to go north-east to contain the minions, and if you can find a path that's covered feel free to tell me about it," Kat Sidhe says, finally letting his arm drop. He turns up the street and begins to slog steadily through the shin-high water. "Come on, let's get moving."

"So we just charge into the group of psycho Master creations that are at least as strong as a normal cape? Yeah, that'll go well," Caress laughs, sounding amused, eyes still on my face. "If you don't have a clue what to do, just say so." I feel a twinge of irritation, but the criticism makes me pause and look at Kat Sidhe. I was following his lead, but now that I think about it none of us actually know anything about him.

"The intel we have ain't worth much and it'll only get more shite with time," Kat Sidhe snaps back, lifting his arm with the bracelet and checking it again. "And I don't feel like waitin' to be ambushed." Now I set myself in place, determined to take some time to think things through. Walking into a situation without knowing the risks nearly got me killed once already (I manage to avoid shuddering at the memory of bone burning in dragon fire), and I don't want to see if it goes better the second time around. Fortunately, my view seems to be the dominant one because neither of the other two capes budge.

"Have you ever fought large groups of enemy capes like this before?" Vapa asks, and I swear I can see something like an eyebrow arch on her hairless forehead. After letting the splash of rain on water dominate the silence for a moment, she sighs. "That's what I thought. The blind leading the blind."

"Not like we got any other options," Kat Sidhe presses, drumming his fingers on the haft of one of his axes. "Time's a-wastin, and it ain't like things are gonna get better as we burn more of it."

"Not necessarily," Vapa says, crossing her arms under her breasts and looking the other cape in the eye. "I've been a part of a team of parahumans for the past seven years and at no point has waiting five minutes to consider potential threats ever come back to bite me," she states, shifting her gaze between the three of us in turn. "I'm proposing we stop, get out of the rain, and clarify the chain of command before doing anything else. If anyone else thinks they have a better idea, tell me." After a moment, Kat Sidhe shrugs once and his hand falls still. Caress looks at the Protectorate cape for a long second, and her chains ripple once. Then she inclines her head towards the monstrous cape.

"All you," Caress says, casting a sideways glance at me. "What about you, Rosie?" I bite down the urge to chastise her for using Hookwolf's inane nickname and gesture at Vapa.

"Lead the way," I say. Vapa nods once, then turns to look at the display window behind her, three mannequins decked out in spring shirts and shorts contrasting with the grey deluge.

"We'll talk in here, out of the rain. Now, did anyone notice where the door-"

A length of chain with a metal ball on the end slams through window, cutting off Vapa's words in a crash of glass. Then the chain, unnaturally straight, slowly descends, moving back and forth like a saw blade, slowly knocking out more and more fragments from the window. After a few more screeches of metal on glass, there's a hole big enough to fit a sedan. Caress walks in front of a shocked Vapa, the smirk clear through the dirty bike chains covering her face.

"Lookee me, found a door," the she says smugly, stepping carelessly over the glass. "Now come on, I think there was a pretzel shop somewhere in this place. I want to see if they still have wares."


A few semi-stolen pastries later (Vapa left some cash on the register in case the original owner came back) and we're discussing potential plans. Well, for a certain definition of discussion.

"No, we're not going to charge into battle like the Celts. That is a terrible idea. I told you this already," Vapa says patiently, pretzel untouched before her and hands clasped over the table. I've been staring at her for the past three minutes of back-and forth, and every time Kat brings up the same idea her eyes narrow a little more. "Can you please just stop suggesting it?" I'd almost think the two of them had some sort of pre-existing feud, but he's from Ireland and she's from the States. It's just natural antipathy on an absurd scale.

"An' what do you want to do? Sit around and wait for them to come to us? Shit like that doesn't work against any cape with anything close to a sensory power," Kat replies stubbornly, crossing his arms and leaning back in his chair, body language compensating for his full-face mask. "I only keep bringin' it up 'cause no one's giving us a better idea." He snarfed down his food in less than a minute and is now fiddling with an axe he's disassembled across the table. It's far more complicated than it looks on the outside, but I don't think any of it is electrical. On the other hand, Tinkertech.

"You'd know all about good ideas from your wealth of experience from fighting Thinkers, hmm?" Caress says, punctuating her question with a loud slurp from a violently purple slushie. She's done little more than stir the pot, seemingly content to watch the chaos unfold. Perhaps the worst facilitator in history. She doesn't want to be left out, but she also doesn't contribute in any meaningful way. Dumb muscle, in the truest sense of the word.

"Fuck you," Kat Sidhe says, flat and unimpressed. Vapa sighs.

"Can we keep this civil?" Vapa asks, one hand going up to rub an area roughly around where her left ear should be. "We're all on the same side here."

"'S why I'm arguing," Kat says, and I can make out some genuine regret in his voice. "Really don't think that waitin' around is gonna help anyone."

"Nor will charging in recklessly," Vapa presses, dropping her head into her hands. "Will you at least concede that?" A tendril of chain slips up over the edge of the table, hooks through a loop of her pretzel, and pulls it away. Moments later the same pretzel reappears in a grinning Caress's hand. I sigh.

This is going nowhere.

"Why don't we start from first principles instead?" I ask. The two active participants in the conversation turn to look at me, and I steady myself by growing a vine through my sodden hair, a rose bloom forming at the base of the pony tail. "Let's look at what we want to do and what we have, then try to start coming up with solutions. Work smarter, not harder." That, and it gives everyone a moment to breathe. An old trick Mom used to use when she and Dad got into arguments. It seems to work here as well, because Vapa and Kat exchange a glance before signaling agreement, Vapa by inclining her head once and Kat with an exaggerated shrug.

"Need to rustle up some coffee anyway," Kat says, pushing back from the table and walking away. "You want any?" he asks, looking between the three of us.

"I can't drink it, but thank you," Vapa says, standing up as well. "I'm going to find some paper and writing utensils," she says, looking at me with a pleading gaze. "Can you keep an eye on her?" she asks, motioning to Caress, who promptly puts on an innocent smile as she bites into the remaining half of Vapa's treat.

"I'll try," I say, eyeing the other woman warily. Vapa sighs and departs, leaving me alone with Caress.

For a solid minute we sit there, silent save for the sounds of her eating. I observe her as she makes a theatre of it, smacking her lips and licking each finger clean of brown sugar while giving me suggestive looks that don't reach her eyes. Those stay cautious and sharp. I keep my mask blank and hold my shell perfectly still. Once the treat is gone, Caress lets out an exaggerated sigh and falls back in her chair.

"You're no fun," Caress moans.

"And you're not helpful," I reply, leaning forward, taking up space. "The whole sniping, arrogant thing? It's irritating. Knock it off."

"Make me," Caress says, light and mocking. I notice the gentle curl of chains around her tighten and feel the scrape of metal against bone near my leg. A warning.

"You won't win this fight," I say quietly. Time to play hardball. "I fought a man who could regenerate through losing limbs, who could fill whole streets with fire and throw around cars like plastic cups." I pause. "He's dead now."

Caress doesn't move.

"I've dodged fire from the fastest, most destructive flier this side of Legend, and I did it while carrying a hostage," I continue, slowly pushing a spike of bone out of my hand. I keep it simple, just a point of bone angled towards Caress's eye. "Dozens of gangbangers have unloaded on me with automatic weapons and failed to get past my first layer of armor." I pull apart the plates on my arm like a flower, revealing the flawless skin underneath. One of the few things I'm proud of. "You may think that you're scary. That you have the power to take me. Let me assure you, you don't."

I let the words hang in the air for a moment. Caress isn't smiling anymore.

Then I slowly let the spike unspool. First come the vines, forming a skeleton of a cone, then the ivy leaves, filling in the gaps and turning the vague outline into a vase. Inside I form coltsfoot, petals so thin they're nearly transparent, stems far longer than nature could ever make. Once the arrangement is complete, I place it on the table between us, gently severing the stems inside and my connection to it, leaving the flowers to clatter lightly against one another as they come loose.

Caress blinks.

"We're not enemies," I say, leaning back. First the stick. Then the carrot. Fair trades are the basis of a healthy relationship. "We're both here to fight monsters. All of us are on the same side. I will pay you in flowers to remember that. Fair?" I try to meet her gaze. She's still not smiling, but this time her eyes is fixed on my hand.

"Can you do that again?" she asks. I smile behind my mask.

Hook, line, and sinker.

"Play nice and I will," I reply, making eye contact. A spike of bone comes up, but it's just a spike. Caress returns my gaze, unimpressed.

"You're gonna make me fucking say it, aren't you?" she asks. I stay still, wordless. Waiting

She breaks first.

"Please?" she says, and it sounds like it had to be torn out of her. I nod, resisting the urge to ask how difficult that was. This time I make it a tulip. I grow it as slowly as I can, petals unfolding from the spike as smoothly as pouring milk, spike thinning until all that's left of it is stem and leaves. Caress is enraptured, laser-focused on the slowly molding bone. Once I finish the bloom, I make it wilt, still slowly. Petals droop, shrivel, thin, and eventually fall, the wafers of bone so thin the pain is barely more than the sting of clipping nails a little close. Once that flower is done, she looks back up at me, expression an odd mix of supplication and hard determination. I hold up my other hand placatingly, already growing more flowers. Hyacinths. These ones are a little more tricky, a little less perfect, but the process doesn't appear to be any less fascinating to Caress. She just stares, entranced, looking at the steady life and death of bone flowers until footsteps start echoing throughout the mall again.

Her posture shifts, becoming more loose, less caring, and she starts smiling again. Her body is still pointed at the flower though, and when I pull the bone back in I see her hands tense a little. Disappointment?

"Did you get me my triple-espresso-not-fat-soy-milk-macchiato?" she teases. Kat plops down across from her and pushes a tall paper cup with a black plastic lid at her. Caress pouts at his lack of reaction, but nonetheless accepts the drink and sips loudly at it. Vapa shows up not much later, a legal pad in one hand and a packet of pens in the other. She tears one free, grips it awkwardly in her claws, and divides the paper into three columns, one labeled "powers," one labeled "goals," and the third labeled "potential strategy," all in shaky handwriting.

Then she looks up at us and I learn what the business face of a monster cape intent on doing harm to someone looks like.

"Let's start with powers."

"Patrol approaching," Vapa says beside me, eyes glowing a clear white through the rain.

"How far out and how many, lassie?" Kat asks over the bracelets. He managed to turn all of our wrist-wear into short-ranged radios, which makes coordinating a moving ambush zone far easier. When Vapa asked what other tricks he had in store, he responded with "not many" and didn't say anything more on the subject. I think he's a villain just because of how evasive he's being, but I wouldn't put money on it.

"Six in a cluster traveling about four blocks out," Vapa replies. Besides sharp claws, fangs, poison, and a low Brute rating, she's also got some sort of variable enhanced vision. She doesn't quite know how it all works, but one of the easy ones is magnification, from a factor of two all the way up to more than is practical in any given situation. "Two flying above, one with several extra limbs and one that looks like it got melted. The east most one has some silver spheres floating around her, the woman next to her has a bandolier of some sort with blades of glass threaded through it, and the last two are naked."

"Melted one has a healing factor of some sort," I add. "I've fought one that looks just like it before. It was able to shrug off being nearly decapitated."

"Sounds irritating," Vapa replies, "But remember the plan," she adds, making eye contact with me. I nod.

"This isn't my first rodeo," I say, echoing the words of Gaucho. I wonder if he's alright, what he's doing now. Transport, maybe? Get the Thinkers out and away from the fighting, then come back for anyone else who wants out.

"Still," Vapa presses, genuine worry creeping into her throat. "We're going to be killing people here. Do you think you can handle it?" The amount of concern in her voice makes me sick.

"Not my first rodeo," I repeat, more quietly this time, and I sort of stare at the roof beneath my feet. Vapa's a veteran, one with more than a few Endbringer fights under her belt, and she has to psych herself up for this. I default to lethal force.

What does that say about me?

"Now that you two have had your moment, how about I kill the two not-obvious ones first?" Caress asks and I can almost hear her chains clinking over the rain. "Scariest cape is the one you've never met before."

"Only if you can get to them without taking too many risks," Vapa replies before turning to look sideways at me. "Are you ready, White Rose?" I roll my shoulders, let out half a breath, and nod.

"Ready," I answer quietly, walking backwards across the top of the building until my heel hits the other lip. Vapa is standing tall in the rain, once more focused on the street. Somewhere down there is Caress and Kat Sidhe, making their own preparations for the fight. I wonder what they are doing. Praying, maybe? Taking some calming breaths?

For a moment all is silence.

Then it's not.

"They're stopping," Vapa says. "Now!"

I sprint forward across the rooftop, forming a javelin in one hand and cocking it back as I try to work out the angle. I'm the only one of us with a ranged option, so instead of trying to fillet the monsters roaming the streets, I'm stuck lobbing bits of sharpened bone at them from a few blocks away. Vapa insists that this is the best way to do things, but I have my doubts. That could just be the sharp, stabby part of me though.

"Incoming!" I shout, hopefully loud enough to be heard by the bracelet, as I step forward and hurl the javelin, this one several times thicker than the one that killed the clones who attacked the medical tents. It's also heavier, with bone that's denser in a way I can't quite describe and didn't think I could make before I tried to.

Well, denser save for the streaks of weaker, thinner bones I wove into it.

I track the spear as it flies silently through the air, counting the heart beats as it travels. One. Two. Three.

On four, somewhere about two thirds of the way through its arc, I reach out and twist, shattering the weapon into dozens of different projectiles, transforming the attack from a scary-if-easily-dodgeable pike falling from the sky into a rain of razor-sharp shards that weigh no less than three pounds each.

Sometimes I scare myself with how versatile my power is.

Then the entire group of capes jerks right before the rain of splinters strikes home.

The multi-limbed cape gets hit at least three times and the melted one take a spear to the belly, but neither's flight so much as stutters. The girl surrounded by silver orbs gets struck in the thigh, falling to one knee as two more spears cut uselessly through where her chest was. The other three capes somehow contort between every single projectile that falls from the sky.

"Fucking Thinker or Brute bullshite," Kat Sidhe mutters over the radio. "Going in."

"Wish me luck," Caress sing-songs in reply, excitement seeping into her voice.

A few blocks away from us two figures sprint out from opposite alleyways, closing in on the group. One flickers, then splits, two clones in slightly different black and white suddenly running beside them. They in turn flicker and split, bringing the count up to five. The one at the head of the pack tosses one, two, three, four axes behind him before swinging his own, the weapon's haft extending out into something that makes me think of longships and Beowulf. A wild cry rises from the pack of men, something old and vicious and furious.

A harsh rattling draws my focus to the other cape on the ground. Caress is lost in a whirlwind of chains as large as a car, all spinning so fast that I can't make out the human inside of them. The girl with the silver orbs and mutilated leg must be able to though, because she points her arm and the projectiles start moving through the air towards Caress, slowly picking up speed as they zip along odd paths towards their target.

"Ranged attack didn't work and you don't have the precision to shoot into melee. Let's engage!" Vapa hisses from behind me, wrapping her arms around my neck and tapping my chest. I shake my head free of distraction, then nod, holding my arms out to my side. "On mark. Two. One. Mark," she says, lifting up her legs as I snap my arms down, completing the piggyback. I throw a few bands of bone around her for safety, then grow some limbs and fall forward over the edge and into the water.

The splash is gargantuan, a veritable fountain that briefly obscures my vision of fight. I push through it, shaking water clear of my lenses as I tear through the knee-high water, Vapa's weight barely a hindrance. I pour on the speed, the group of capes growing rapidly in my vision. Let's see how they bleed.

One of the naked figures, a sickly woman with swollen joints and a face stretched into a grimace that shows more teeth than humanly possible, charges to meet the five black and white clones, the melted cape soaring above her seemingly unconcerned by the length of bone sticking out of his stomach. More silver spheres pop into existence around the legged cape and start streaking towards the whirlwind of chains as another naked man lopes towards Caress on limbs packed too tightly with muscle, more simian than biped, water cresting before his charge.

"Incoming!" Vapa shouts in my ear, a single talon pointing forward. The multi-limbed parahuman is flying towards us, still stabbed and still mobile. I can also make out the cape with the bandolier cocking an arm back, something glinting in her hand.

"Launch me," Vapa whispers into my ear. "I'll take the knife thrower!" she shouts, loud enough for everyone to have heard her, and I pick up on the plan and smirk behind my mask. Good hunting.

I take two more steps, then flip forward, extending bone to provide a platform for Vapa to kick off of. She doesn't miss a beat, and I feel the double impact of a pair of feet pressing down onto my back as she leaps into the air. By the time I'm vertical again she's grappling with the other cape in mid air, talons lashing out and mouth fastened to his neck. Then my eyes are locked on the cape in front of me and it's time to kill.

Its arms come down, glass flashing in the low light, and the lenses of my mask fracture, the bone armor keeping my head still through the impact. Dangerous, then. Let's see her pull that trick off without fingers. I immediately push a bone lattice over my lenses, but the damage is already done, my vision obscured by a spider web of cracks. I shed the damaged lens over my bad eye and look around. Where are you? Running away, more glass flying from her hands as she retreats towards the legged cape. None of it's aimed at me, but I don't feel like waiting for whatever plan she's thinking up to come together so I dash forwards, stilts finding purchase in the water as more and more bone stretches out from my arms. I see a pair of eyes too large to be natural widen further as talons of bone close around her biceps, then watch them squint in pain as I shred her muscles with serrated jaws of bone. Despite all that she doesn't scream.

I pull her close, retracting bone until it's my fingers in the claws around her arms and my single unobstructed eye is glaring into her watering ones. Normally, looking at people head-on like this makes me uncomfortable, like I'm breaking some sort of social taboo. Right now though, I don't feel anything other than disgust.

"Rot," I whisper, lancing out bone from my chest to perforate the twisted cape. She chokes once, then goes still. I pull the bone back in and turn around to survey the rest of the fight.

The multi-limbed cape is gone, and Vapa is leaning against a wall a block away, two glass shards embedded in her chest. The five clones of Kat Sidhe are alternately chasing the stick-limbed woman and dodging out of the way of the melted flyer, who's trying to catch them but can't seem to keep up. A three-way game of tag, currently locked in stalemate.

The whirlwind of chains is retreating away from the muscle-bound monster, silvery bolts impacting on the outermost layers and slowly wearing them away. I can still hear laughter as I approach the fight, but it's pretty clear that Caress is on the back foot. The naked cape must have something that lets him bypass her chains, and the Blaster gives their side inevitability.

Well, she does until I shove a blade of bone into her lungs.

She wheezes once, then slumps forward, silver orbs fading out of existence. The muscle cape spins around, switching his gaze from the chains to the me, which slow for long enough to reveal a glimpse of Caress. She's clutching her side and has a rapidly-darkening eye socket, but otherwise seems okay, and after a short smile the chains start up again.

"He fucks with shit around him," Caress shouts, water turning to mist as she slowly drifts to the side, trying to pinch the cape between us. "Little pushes, but he's good at it."

The cape looks between the two of us and comes to a decision.

"Retreat!" he shouts, sprinting for the gap between us. Caress careens forwards, chains spinning in dizzying circles as she rushes after him. I'm faster though, and the sound of bone crashing through water comes out as one continuous roar. Let's see how well you run missing a leg. I reach out an arm, blade extending, aiming for a hamstring-

The cape spins around to glare at me. I feel myself stumble, center of balance swinging suddenly to the right and causing me to wipe out in the water. Liquid flows into my mask, and only judicious use of bone-creation keeps me from drowning. I shake my head, clear my air passages of water, and look up.

The muscle cape and the stick-limb woman are hanging off of the melted man, the three of them rapidly disappearing over the rooftops. Water ripples beside me as Caress's chains slowly come to a stop and I can hear the approaching splashing of multiple bodies slowly becoming less and less cacophonous until it's just one Kat Sidhe who stands next to me, axes once more stowed away somewhere on his person.

"They got away," Caress says, irritation clear in her voice.

"We got three o' them and they only wounded one o' us," Kat says, clapping me on the shoulder twice. "Good shit. Now come on, snake-lass might need a touch-up." With that he turns around, once more slogging through the water. After a moment, Caress follows him, muttering under her breath about there being two wounded.

I stand still, looking towards where the retreating capes went, waiting for my blood to cool. I take a breath, hold it, and let it go. When that doesn't work, I grit my teeth and resign myself to the impotence, shoving down the urge to shatter a rib.

I can't imagine how people handle eye-splitting fury without powers, but I'm going to fucking have to. After another moment of fuming, I turn around, stilting after my temporary teammates. The night's still young, and Vapa probably needs help. No time for standing around being angry.

There's work to do.