A glass ball shattered in Thud’s eye socket, and in that moment, his eye sockets were riddled with uncoiling wires and glass fragments. He didn’t seem to mind much, but the scenario bought me a moment to act. I dove, saw him bring his finger to his eye to pry the wires free, and I changed direction mid-flight. A twist in the air, leg out, Wretch out—

I slammed my foot into his hand with all the strength I could bring to bear, using flight and rotation in the air. In the process, I slammed finger into eye socket, all the way to the base of the finger where it met the hand.

It got him to let go of Bluestocking.

Paris had taken a simultaneous shot, but the shot had missed the eye, catching brow, temple, and the ear, wires mangling flesh.

I acted before he could get his composure together enough to lunge forward and drive the dart of disintegration into Bitter Pill’s back. Wretch-strong, I hit him full in the chest with my arm that didn’t have deep cuts in it. Sternum and ribs shattered in my hand.

He was laid flat, obviously enough. I saw him flounder, trying to sit up, immediately and intensely failing, small sounds escaping his mouth.

In his floundering, he created a dart, larger than any I’d seen him make. I had to wonder if it was reflex, while he was stunned with pain, or if the expression of power was an automatic thing. In addition to the principle of stronger powers in times of appropriate kinds of stress, there was a tendency for powers to unlock additional capabilities if the situation was dire enough. Not second triggers, but adaptations to changes in the host’s core physical or mental state.

The Wretch, I had to assume, was that.

Either way, I stomped on his forearm. There was a chance it was innocent, but I didn’t have any more tolerance for chances.

“Give me one more excuse, and I end you,” I told Paris.

He went limp. His breaths were wheezes.

“You’d better hope this situation you fucked with doesn’t take too long, or—”

A distant cry—a warning from a parent or teammate. I saw the heads of Birdbrain and Crested turn. Crested flicked out a sharp knife, and it became a fan, the fan extending, extending, layer by layer, into one corner of the quarter-circle barrier bit into the station platform, the other corner into the pillar behind Paris.

Thud’s fist slammed hard into the metal, denting it a matter of a foot from where my face was.