No need to bother, then. I ignored them, walking casually, and the fact I ignored them seemed to throw them off.

I chose the largest group that had assembled off to the side. Six individuals, all together. I let my aura burn and I watched the effect it had on them. My eyes searched for weapons and saw none.

This wasn’t a planned thing, a raid or a rush.

It was impulse. I could even imagine it was desperation, like how people stole for a loaf of bread. The difference was that this wasn’t to fulfill such a basic need.

Probably, anyhow. The cold season was sneaking up on us, and they might have felt they weren’t ready. Maybe this was borne of that.

Except I felt they’d probably be more organized if they were thinking that far ahead. There were bags of what looked like clothes, and they weren’t winter clothes. Not needs in the sense that those clothes would help survive the winter.

“Bad luck, guys,” I said. “You pulled this just as my friends and I happened to pass by. Let’s make this easy. Surrender.”

A woman hucked a brick-sized package of batteries at my head. My forcefield caught it, knocking it aside. Heads turned to look at her.

I could remember the movie scenes where the mob of criminals went after the cape or hero, shot, saw they were invincible, and then kept shooting despite the futility of it. I was suspicious the PRT had used leverage over the media to encourage those scenes, with the follow-up of the mob getting taken to pieces. A way of affecting the public’s approach to capes and the willingness to go all-out.

“Oh. I am really, really sorry,” she said.

There it was.

“Get down on the ground,” I said. “Hands on your heads.”

Some started to obey, the woman foremost among them. A group of others at the periphery and around the first truck dropped their stuff and bolted. They all ran as a group at first, and then, as I took off and one saw me on the approach, the idea went out. They scattered.

The car door behind me slammed. The driver had climbed into the second truck, and others were piling into the back with the stolen merchandise. The truck peeled out, making it about half a foot before the spike of stone that Tristan had made popped the tires.

“Stay,” I told the ones who were already on the ground or partway there. “The way things are now, if you cooperate and own up, you’ll get off with a slap on the wrist. Okay?”

I saw a few nods.

I went after the ones who were running. I started at the far left.