And, barely taking any time to recover, he switched to the offensive. More needles were thrown, and the needles he’d set on ice were creating a storm of hail and rock shards. He barely seemed to care as they came down on his own head, but it impacted the others.

Figurehead apparently had a read, because he went after the driver, who had backed off, and the black woman in the suit.

When Figurehead could use his power, he was an action movie star in a movie with great choreography. Every strike was predicted, countered. Every step was a weak point. The woman reaching for a weapon saw Figurehead getting his hands on the weapon first, using the butt-end of a pistol to rap the chauffeur across the knuckles as the man threw a punch.

Coiffure lashed out. Her hair was longer, this time, her weapons that she’d woven into her hair now tailored for ranged strikes. Whips and chains. When Steamwheel wasn’t in close, Coiffure was lashing out, forcing Paris to dance. Tribute was focused on Coiffure. He would switch to the next person as soon as they took focus.

Paris began throwing darts at Coiffure. Steamwheel put on the pressure, this time, stepping from the cloud of steam to attack Paris from behind—

A feint. He was expecting her, and needles went to Steamwheel’s elbows and knees. She reacted by hunkering down, her wheel spinning, and producing vast quantities of steam. The steam was hot, hot enough that Coiffure had to back off, and Paris had to hunker down.

Moonsong hit him again. Furcate leaped down from a shipping container, splitting as they landed, and Tristan marched forward, leveling a glare at Paris.

We’re on a dock. If he goes for the water, I’m the answer for that.

Somewhere along the line, the choking gas had become water, and then the water had become ice. Where Tristan seemed static, remaining with solids with only slight nuance, Byron had evolved.

Byron liked to think it represented some growth within himself. Finding Brianna. Finding assertiveness.

Paris used his darts to create localized hazards, it was how he fought. He was athletic, agile, and he knew how to fight. As he threw down darts, Byron and Tristan took turns covering up the areas where the darts spat out geysers of bullets.

As the darts started getting flung in their direction, they swapped back and forth, closing the distance, forcing Paris to retreat further. Furcate flanked, because they loved flanking. Coiffure moved out to the other side, her hair creating limbs she could move on, chains and whip noisy against the concrete of the dock.

Paris stopped being quite so conservative with the darts. He threw them out in messy ways, toward Furcate, who split into two, toward Coiffure. They were lower velocity, landing in clumps, but the resulting sprays were violent and harder to work around.