He appeared in front of her again. This time he had four arms. The two other arms drew combat knives.

Same maneuver. She blasted, sailing over—

The other teleporter made his appearance. A woman in a stylized modern camouflage uniform, mask strapped on with a bandage wrapped around her head to help keep the mask in place. Long black hair escaped from the bandage and straps of the mask to billow in the wind.

First thing to notice—the woman had a handgun. She pulled the top back with one hand while holding the gun with the other.

Second thing to notice was that the woman had materialized in such a way that she stood on the wall, her body horizontal. She didn’t seem bothered by it.

Damsel used her power to change her course in the air, then used it again to propel herself forward. She heard a gunshot above her, roughly coinciding with the second blast. A miss.

She would feel this in her shoulders tomorrow, but she was winning.

The mutant cape appeared further down the alley. This would be one of the more bizarre end results. The rough shape was similar to one of the childhood toys Damsel had had. A giant head, where she could plug body parts into holes. No neck, no body. A massive head, stunted hands and feet. The mouth extended around the side and nearly to the back, and yawned open as she drew nearer.

The woman with the gun appeared again.

This was their tactic. To use the teleportation and positioning, one hemming in, stalling, and forcing reactions, the other cool, calm, collected, ready to snipe the target.

This casual use of guns was why Soldat didn’t already have East Boston locked down and firmly in their grasp. Capes using guns became a target. People were paying more attention to Soldat than to Orchard, and most seemed to despise Orchard.

Part of it was that they wanted to keep this fight over Boston from getting too lethal.

Damsel was cornered, with one teleporter ahead of her, large enough to block the exit, one above her, and the cape with the tube looming at the mouth of the alley, ready to shoot the moment the coast was clear.

She spotted what she was looking for. She’d carved out an escape route in anticipation. The trick had been placing it somewhere she could use, which meant placing it this far down.

This distance hadn’t seemed quite so long before she’d had to run it with parahuman soldiers nipping at her heels.