He twisted, angling himself like he was going to leap to another building as a springboard to come at me again. He didn’t. He leaped sideways, twisting in the air, one shoulder partially unfurling to extend my way, claw breaking apart to be half as dense, the points twice as long.

I tried to bring the cable around, holding the midpoint and catching him with the cable-ends on the approach and the hook on the departure. I only managed the former. Too fast, too much momentum, and I had to get away from those extended claws.

The damage was less than minimal. Too choked-up on the grip—like I was swinging a baseball bat at someone and trying to hit them with the end closest to my hands.

No.

He was building up the strength of his lunges faster than I was figuring out a means of attack.

This sucked. Every bit of it sucked. It sucked that Lord of Loss had more cachet with regular people than we did. It sucked that this neighborhood was a nightmare, and someone was going to track the damage, blame all parahumans, and it would land in our laps before it even touched Lord of Loss.

Just like the community center.

Win the battle and lose the war? It pissed me off that with this asshole, we didn’t even get to win the battles and we still lost the war. He lucked out, he got a good power, and he leaned on consistency, doing jobs both small and big, building up a reputation, and never having cause to lose it.

Meanwhile, those of us who were trying to salvage things and manage a bad situation were getting kneecapped. The public turned against us.

It was petty, it made me a smaller person, but I wanted to hurt his smug-ass face and knock him down a peg. Take away that consistency and knock him down a peg.

And it galled me that it probably wouldn’t work. At best we’d eke out a draw.

Momentum was key, so long as I was using the cable. The Wretch was grabbing and plucking at the cable, which threw off the rotation a bit, but enough arms and teeth were holding on to keep my weapon firmly in my grip.

Anticipate the approach, assume he’ll time his attacks to avoid the hook—

He did. I tried to maneuver myself in the air, to bring the hook around faster, so I could catch him, and I failed.

Not good enough.

I was starting to feel the accumulated effect of Precipice’s power. It was like being on the basketball court, a thousand eyes watching me, and failing. Failing in the eyes of my parents, failing in the eyes of my boyfriend, my sis—

Failing.