She lunged forward, gripping her own razor wires and leaping between them as a monkey might leap from branch to branch. Buildings groaned and tipped over as the wires that extended into them bore her full weight, but she didn’t touch ground.

Capes from the prison were attacking and protecting one another, but they weren’t coordinated. A pair of them were from Lab Rat’s choices of powerful recruits for his personal team. The wires appeared from inside of them, extending from shoulder to hand and out the palm. Out each foot, and out of the mouth. Lifting one to a spread-eagled position fifty feet above the ground. Thin wires looked thicker as the blood ran down them. The cape struggled.

The other one was mangled, twisted up, his upper body doing three rotations to the right as the wires pulled on him, his lower body doing two rotations to the left. His midsection simply split. He didn’t die immediately, not exactly, but at least the screaming was brief.

Hunter’s hand came to rest on the first, the one that was spread eagled. He was dragged down along wires, and those wires cut him apart from the inside, exposing bone.

Too far away for Marquis to reach to that bone and attempt to spear for Hunter’s vitals. Not that she had any he could see. She had no eyes, only a blindfold of wires and cracks in reality.

She moved on to her next prey. La Llorona. She was choosing leaders, captains. Powerful capes. A small mercy Marquis and his daugher hadn’t been that close by when Hunter had attacked.

The Gibborim Knight attacked her. It was sufficient distraction for everyone else.

They fled. Running from the spreading disaster, shepherding the refugees. Marquis turned the armor at his arm into a basket of sorts to hold Amelia close to him, extending legs and his other arm so he could prowl forward on skeletal limbs, traversing broken ground and fallen buildings.

“Is she hurt?” Flashbang asked, as he caught up with Marquis. As always, there was that brief moment as the man who had raised his daughter looked at Marquis and wrestled momentarily with feelings and prejudices before setting them aside. He wasn’t asking about the enemy.

Marquis took a second to consider and give Amelia the chance to speak before saying, “Only her heart and her pride.”

“It’s more than that,” Amelia murmured. Like this, she reminded Marquis of the little girl he’d once held in his arms. “What’s even the point?”