There were more capes coming up the stairs. The Major Malfunctions. Finale hung back, but Withdrawal vaulted over the pile of debris we were using for cover, while Caryatid got directions from Golem and found a position beside me, arms out and raised.

Some of the braver capes were getting in close, and Withdrawal joined them, venturing into that telekinetic storm. Every movement he made was matched by a sound from Finale, wincing in anticipation of collisions, squeaking in alarm. Those sounds joined the battery of other shots she was voicing.

One of the three tinkers from the ‘cross the beams’ crew at one of the ‘cubicles’ that Teacher’s old propaganda teams had worked from was struck by a bit of rebar, speared to the pillar behind him. A moment later, the tinkertech they’d been working on was lifted free, held up in the air.

The weapon fired, a beam aimed at us, forking, and I blocked the bulk of it, flying forward so I could catch more of it before it forked out and around me.

Withdrawal moved close to the tinkertech, reaching, but failed to grab it, not that it looked like he was really trying. He landed, hugging his syringe, and rolled with the landing, before crouching, both hands at a terminal on the syringe’s side.

The problem was, he had extremities that weren’t covered by the Manton limit. She got a grip on the extended limbs with telekinesis, and pinned him.

“Vista!” Byron called out, his voice overlapping with my inarticulate cry.

His constellation erupted into existence, a spike of blue, spiraling rock, like fossil or some seashell. Vista’s power twisted it in the air, and it blocked the section of ceiling that would have taken Withdrawal’s head off.

Withdrawal disengaged from his tinkertech frame, and he held his hands over his head, pointing up at Byron’s stone. It looked like he was holding a remote control.

The Simurgh was blocking three out of four of our moves now. We had enough big guns that she was still taking a beating, but it didn’t feel like enough. I could believe she was one or two steps ahead of us, but it didn’t feel like we were fighting a sea of toppling dominoes, wondering where they went or what the end result would look like.

Not yet.

Withdrawal went back to his syringe, slipped something into a chamber, oblivious to his surroundings as more debris fell around him.

The chemical in his syringe turned yellow. Veins crawled across his costume, yellow, and the fabric turned yellow where it had been pink. The lenses shifted color too, to orange.

He couldn’t lift his own syringe on his own, but he stood it on end, then stepped on a jutting bit at the side.

The spray rained down over himself and his frame.