The villains started to corner them, and Flapper made her appearance, diving down from above. She landed, and long clothes-wings extended out to sweep the legs out from under a whole crowd of mooks. Her sleeves raised up to become a barrier around her, a shield against incoming fire.

Then, with one herculean flap that drove people back with dust in their eyes, she took to the air again, weaving past the lights that illuminated the area and past power lines. She had to run alongside the edge of a building to reach the roof.

They didn’t have a lot of space to maneuver. The area was a loading bay to a large store, more or less a wide road without markings that sloped gently down to the bay doors that lined one wall of the brick building. Neither of the vans had made it to the bay doors, if that was even the goal—the wheels had been slashed. One had bumped up into a yellow-painted pillar, the front grille dented.

Round two. We could use what we’d learned from the first round. The buildings opposite the row of loading bay doors looked residential, which was inconvenient. I could imagine the employees of the store lived there.

“If we corner them, and we will corner them,” I said, “they’ll threaten civilians again. Can your power get you inside to warn civilians, Fox?”

“Only if I have someone else I’m tracking that gets close.”

“I can get you close,” Kite said.

“Good,” I said. “Lookout, are you there?”

I heard her yawn. “I wish I was there. But I’m here.”

“We’ll get you in the field,” I pledged. “Communicate with Sveta, see if her contingent of capes has anyone who could help notify civilians and get them to evacuate.”

Kite and Foxtrot slipped away. I gave them a wary look as they made their way to the ground, then around to what would be the ‘front’ the residential complex, if the back of the building was what faced this loading area and fight.

My attention fixed on Spright and Shortcut. If they needed help—even if they were hit by something and fell, I was ready to fly to them. They’d wanted to do this alone, they apparently felt capable.

They were evading, distracting, forcing Prancer’s hires to deal with them. The trucks were disabled and the animals were within. The villains’ prize.