Seven Advance Guard, Sveta and I, with Capricorn and Looksee on the way.

Love Lost screamed, and the diagram-drawer blocked it. Nobody caught at the edges. I imagined it helped the group had shrunk to seven.

“I can’t convince you guys to up and leave?” I asked.

“Our teleporter is pulling one at a time,” Mayday said. “She’d pull us all at once, but the impression got scrambled when the scream hit our thinker.”

Sidepiece and Disjoint were moving to flank the group, sneaking around a parked vehicle. A diagram-wall appeared to block them off. Disjoint hopped up onto the vehicle and was knocked off as Mayday swung a hand in his direction, casting out a tiny version of the red projectile he’d been bringing in from the horizon. As Disjoint landed at her feet, Damsel started cussing him out for getting in her way.

“It’s going to take a bit,” Mayday said. “Gets harder as our group shrinks. Injured go out first, then the less mobile.”

“They have reinforcements incoming,” I said. “Infighting is slowing them down, but the enemy group is going to get larger while yours gets smaller.”

“We know this,” Mayday said. He had a deep, rich voice, which was muffled slightly by his mask. “The thinker I mentioned, Mapwright, showed us before evacuating out.”

“They have more strong capes than we were led to believe,” the diagram-woman said.

“We need to talk about who you talked to,” I replied, under my breath.

The good guys were stuck, in a way. Powers aside, the vehicles and nearby railing were the only things that kept the Hollow Point villains from charging in all at once. It wasn’t that they were that great an obstruction to a group of people like Nailbiter, Moose, or Prancer. It was that they made it so that for people to pass that point, they needed to approach in ones and twos.

“We need to talk, Prancer!” I called out.

He didn’t answer, verbally or otherwise. There was a dark look on his face, and it was the violent clique that grew louder. Not Snag, not Love Lost, but Nailbiter and her fellows. Damsel didn’t jeer, but she said something, and one of the villains smirked.

“Let’s call a ceasefire!” I raised my voice again.

At the front lines, Velvet flung a rusty newspaper box with telekinesis, more to take away something that contributed to the bottleneck than to outright attack. It crashed hard, squealing as the metal side slid against the rough textured road.

That would be their answer, then?

Fuck them.

Moose stepped forward, and Shortcut took a step to meet him. The road distorted, space rippling and appearing like water, spray and all, and he leaped forth at Moose’s side. Shortcut was there, pole in motion, the blade at the end making the end heavy even as he used the dull side to connect with the back of Moose’s leg.