Behind her, another group was emerging, weapons ready.

“Behind!” I called out.

No place to take cover. Withdrawal shielded her with his body, empty syringe-gun held out like a shield. Both groups fired in concert, from opposite directions.

I used my aura, aiming to break up the rhythm. It affected Caryatid’s group, but it affected the attackers too. More, if I had to guess.

“What’s the catch!?” I called out.

“Do it,” I could hear Withdrawal’s voice, muffled around the edges. I’d been reeled in enough that non-shouts were barely audible.

Byron, meanwhile, was dealing with the group. He was taking cover by the back end of a car. The group couldn’t move much, so they were continually drenched. One of the guns had stopped working.

“If there are any more—” Finale said. “I don’t want to use my power if there are more coming.”

“There aren’t!” I shouted. “They got what they wanted!”

She looked at me, eyes wide beneath her brimmed cap and behind her mask.

Byron’s water took out the guy who was lassoing me. The gun fell to the ground, the beam twisted into a thousand loops like a badly kinked hose, and then winked out with a sound like a titan clapping his hands together a single time.

And Finale was doing her thing, wheeling on one group.

A blue light shone at one of the thrall’s shoulders, then detonated with a musical intonation, like a gong being struck. He was thrown to one side, as was everyone in his immediate proximity. The movement was slower than it should have been, glittering particles surrounding them.

More lights shone, one after another, with a rhyme and reason that likely only made sense to Finale.

Another detonation, throwing people in another direction, toward the group that Byron was working on incapacitating. One of those people was illuminated with an imminent explosion. As the flying bodies drew into range, the detonation that was waiting for them came down, a higher sound, a faster roll-out, sending them the opposite way.

Juggling them. Herding them together, so people crashed into each other, were thrown into waiting explosions.

Not perfect—people fell free of the cascading effect, of detonations synced out to sound like a drum solo writ out in gongs, bells, and cymbals, complete with a soft destructive effect.

I flew down to take out one of the guys who had fallen free of the chain reaction, who was fleeing for cover. I kicked him to the ground and then landed on him with added force, before stepping on his hand and driving my weight down with my flight. My eyes roved for other strays.

It seemed Byron and Withdrawal had them.