Etna, having retreated, was now faced with a huge numbers disadvantage, with no help from her peers. A surrender.

Crested was a mix of offense and defense, but he was up against capes who were pure offense or pure defense. Fume Hood blasted him, and as our guys backed away to safer ground that was free of the noxious gas, Crested had no such option.

But Trial and Error—that was a team that was tough to crack.

People closed in, but we had dealt some damage to ourselves, thanks to Error. Nobody wanted to be the next to hurt a friend or alienate a potential ally with an attack turned the wrong way.

“We had this,” Shortcut said, behind me.

“You still have it,” I said, watching Error and Trial. “It’s yours.”

“We might not be able to beat them, but they’ll have a hell of a time fighting us,” Shortcut said. “They go to any contacts, any place they think is safe, we’re on them. They want to go home? We’ll be after them. We will win because they—because crime does not have a place in this world.

I felt that crime as a whole was taking root too easily to be so easily dismissed. That we couldn’t deal with Trial and Error was another problem.

We had the power, but not the means to use it.

“Cryptid is saying he could climb to a point above them and unload his cargo on their heads. Nonlethal,” Kenzie reported, over coms.

“Let’s not,” Capricorn said, within earshot of me.

Sveta joined us.

Above us, Cryptid crawled along rooftops, peering down. Beside us, Spright was talking to Shortcut.

We had them cornered, but there was no way to follow through. Not when Error could turn a simple action like an execution-style shot, into something more risky for someone in the area.

I glanced at the damaged residential buildings. Not a soul, no lights, all dark. It looked like we’d evacuated fine—the contents of rooms exposed to the world looked fairly fine.

“Just take the vans away and they lose,” I said.

At my statement, some people headed to the overlong vans, climbing into the driver’s seats.

If they won’t fight alongside us, we’ll take away the rewards and satisfaction.

One of the trucks started up.

Trial rose up, using chains to climb. Sveta grabbed two. Capricorn created his motes. Chris—he burbled, I supposed.

I checked the coast was clear, and then I brought the Wretch out.

The associated emotions were heavy, a weight on my shoulders. But he lashed out and I deflected. I felt Error’s power take hold of me and dodged instead of fighting back, and I felt a measure of triumph as someone else took my place on the defensive line.