We were working more as a collective now. Trading off, being aggressive, being different, without judgment. This was what I wanted this organization to be. It would take tuning.

I slowly turned up my aura while I stared down Trial. Error was in the background, ready to act, but she wasn’t sticking anything on me because I wasn’t doing anything. Not as far as she could tell—my aura didn’t reach her.

I stared down Trial. The second truck started up. Both started to make their limping way away from the scene. Trial wore a metal mask that covered the upper half of his face and some of his chin. It exposed enough that I could see his expression change, as his prize drove away.

He could fight us and do okay at it, but it was mostly a stalemate, as long as he and Error were the tag team they were supposed to be. Like this, however, he got nothing.

People like him would get nothing.

“Fine,” he said. “You win.”

“Thank you,” I replied, as coldly as I was able. The audience watched with careful eyes. One or two might have had phones out to gather evidence, now switched to video mode to track anything particular.

“You got the cargo. Let us go.”

“Not going to happen,” Capricorn answered.

“You can’t beat us, not without paying a price,” Trial growled.

“If you want to pull an all-nighter,” Shortcut said. “I think we’ll have more friends turning up than you will. You lost already. Anything more is theater.”

“Oh, but I do like theater,” Spright said.

Shortcut and Spright were taking point now. It was technically their arrest, and I didn’t care about jurisdiction. I cared about word of mouth.

“This is what you’re wanting to do more regularly?” Sveta asked me, her voice quiet. “It’s not bad, but…”

“This. But more,” I said. “Bigger targets, bigger numbers, more focus.”

I saw her nod.

“Which part are you nodding at?”

“Targets,” she said. “Focus. Mainly targets. There are too many dangerous people out there who need to be put down or dealt with.”

Others who’d been lurking at the periphery were making their appearances. We had our own cheats there. Our two projections. Chris. The perimeter guard was now working to pressure the villains.

They had nowhere to go. They were outnumbered ten to one. They could fight and they could make the arrests hurt, but there would be costs.

We’d won. They would cave before anything else. I’d use my power again in a moment.

For now, we’d let them be stubborn.

“You want bigger?” Capricorn asked.

“Yeah,” I said.

“‘Bigger’ can mean different things,” Rain said.

“In this case?” I asked. I lowered my voice until it was barely audible. “We might need enough in the way of power, people, resources, and tools to defeat a Goddess.”

Beacon 8.7