One guy on the ground ran, and Withdrawal pounced onto them. A feint, or a sacrifice play, because two more ‘hurt’ thralls went after him while his back was turned.

Caryatid slammed into them, a burst of movement, a push. She went still again to absorb incoming fire.

Imp… I had no idea what she was doing.

The usual thing about cape fights was that they involved a fight against another cape. Even the way the PRT broke down fights, with classifications and calls, number ratings and priorities, there was a standard order in which capes were to be dealt with. One at a time, knock them down. Thinkers first, tinkers second, brutes last.

This wasn’t that. It was a fight against a swarm, and I had only limited experience with that, ‘fighting’ Crusader, getting tag-teamed by Tattletale and Skitter. Dealing with the Merchants.

None of them had the individuality to stand up and step out from the crowd, pull out any special heroics. But they did shelter capes, and they did target ours.

Imp could do a lot, I was sure, but there weren’t many major players here, and I imagined she was best when there was a specific, vulnerable, high-priority target to go after.

My focus, as such, remained diffuse, looking for telling breaks in the pattern. Large scale movements, individuals that stood out, and convergences on our guys.

Stonewall had gone still. He was drawing more and more fire by the second. I saw him move, trying to bring his shield around, and it was slow.

Being affected by a power?

“Support Stonewall!” I called out.

My squad wasn’t the only one to leap to his defense. Balk came down, and Stonewall’s group from the decahedron broke out of cover to hurry over. The injured made a simultaneous break for the hallway our other injured had gone to, taking advantage of distractions and the fact that our group at the one entrance was drawing all of the attention.

I landed right beside Stonewall, borrowed shield out to block incoming fire. His stone armor had been scarred and whittled away. The guys at the nearest checkpoint had what looked like rifles that fired railroad spikes. One or two had embedded in Stonewall’s armor, and blood was leaking out of the wounds.

“Power died,” Stonewall reported. “Not strong enough to move my armor.”

He laughed.

Withdrawal caught up. He’d gone out of his way to pick up the riot shields, and he now had two attached to each of his arms, one near each arm-tip, and one near where his actual hands were. Orange motes circled around us. What would be a protective wall.

And past those motes, even in the wide open space that was the gallery, there were enough thralls that they were walking shoulder to shoulder. Many armed, though only a third of the weapons seemed to have battery.