Precipice grabbed a tinker gun, aiming it—and it too went dim. He jumped forward, swinging it like a club instead.

Hardly mattered. The big guy charged at me like he wanted to tackle me to the ground. Mid-run, he stopped and collapsed hard onto his stomach.

A second later, his buddy did the same. As he toppled, I brought my knee into his chin. The impact jarred me, brought me a little bit further into reality, while taking him all of the way out of it. Out cold.

The third had learned his lesson. Cradling his hand, he moved carefully, not running or charging. Shuffling, hand up, he drew closer. Precipice hung back, while I squared my shoulders to his.

“Sorry,” I told him.

Then he froze as the others had.

Precipice cracked the big guy on the back of the head with the butt-end of the rifle, because falling over wasn’t being knocked out.

I pulled restraints out of my pocket and caught the frozen guy, forcing him to kneel, at which point he resumed moving normally, struggling against me.

While I took care of his restraints, I looked through the windows that lined the alley until I found her. Juliette. ‘Catena’. Her mask was metal, and had spikes radiating out and back from the edges, following her hairline. It reminded me of my old tiara, but hers was intended to look more wicked than ‘rays of the sun meets Statue of Liberty’. Sharper, longer, sleeker. Her costume was black clothing, but for a few pieces of metal—one sleeve of armor studded with spikes all the way down, ending in a gauntlet with clawed fingertips. She turned away, the gray of metal replaced by the black of the back of her head and her costume, effectively disappearing into the darkness within the building.

Above, at the rooftop’s edge, Capricorn was making his way down the fire escape, metal boots on metal. He drew out constellations. The remaining two guards were panting for breath, their breath fogging, and one of them dropped her truncheon because her hand was so numb. She was groping for it when another blast of water caught them, sending the weapon spinning out of reach, so she dropped to hands and knees instead, bringing her shield between herself and the water.

Restraints handled, bandages set in place to stop the bleeding…

The water became stone, trapping the two guards. There was water beading them and soaking their clothing, and that became something of a crust. The Manton effect kept the clothes in their entirety from being captured by the transition. The shallow water they stood and knelt in gripped shoelaces and bits of clothing that were far enough away from the body.

Capricorn Blue was noisy as he climbed down the fire escape. He called out, “Surrender!”

I saw the same blank, stubborn looks as I’d seen earlier. They couldn’t even comprehend the idea.

“They can’t,” I told him.