Knuckle was an Artisan like myself, but the only tech he seemed able to make were his namesake weapon. That, as it happened, was all he really needed to make it as a thief and an enforcer. Fortunately that reliance on a sole piece of tech meant there was a lot of footage to study.

  They were kinetic amplifiers, designed to greatly multiply kinetic energy. They could store a decent charge and unleash them, even when he wasn’t hitting a solid surface. There was no risk of them running out of power, and a punch from him would hurt far more than a blast.

  But for as strong as his weapons were, he was largely a one trick pony. If we could dance around him with Cheshire’s mobility, bait out his attacks, we could get an opening.

  And so that was what we did. I felt space lurch around me with each puff of teleportation, moving us from point to point across the underground to avoid the sweeping explosions of Knuckle’s gauntlets. Zirconium had left an abundance of his namesake littered around the battlefield, columns and spires that threaded the earth as he weaved around a continuous attack from Rover and Stretch.

  The columns were shattered by Knucke’s blasts, but we were always a step ahead of him and moving as soon as he got a bead on but. I managed to take aim with my raygun as we landed on the fractured concrete of the stands and fired a crackling microwave beam at him as he rounded on us. He shouted, cursing as the heat of the ray scorched a red hot line the side of his breastplate.

  The boxing glove wobbled in my other hand, braced.

  Another flash brought us behind a row of crystal, and Cheshire came to a huffing halt. Her knees were shaking, and she leaned partially into our cover. “Fuck,” she said. “Spamming it like that? Not fun.”

  “You little shit!” Knuckle shouted, throwing blasts wildly around him. One struck the rim of the pit, shattering a vast swathe of steel and concrete. “Where are you hiding?!”

  “Dude’s pissed,” I murmured. “That armour of his is tougher than it looks.”

  “Looked tough to start with,” Cheshire grunted.

  The sounds of thunder and snarling echoed all around us, tremors rocking the ground under my feet and sending chunks of dust tumbling down from the ceiling. I caught sight of Dynamo for a split second as she was launched through the air, smashing clean through a wall of rock and into the collapsed subway tunnel beyond.

  “Fuck, we can’t waste too much time on this guy. If Impact can manhandle Dynamo, it’ll take all of us to get her down.” How had she known about my bombs? She’d reacted the instant I hit the trigger. Some kind of psychic sense? If she was mind reader she would have taken us out the moment she laid eyes on us, but some kind of precognition made sense to me.

  Cheshire nodded grimly. “I’ll get you an opening.”

  She vanished, and I glimpsed her as she puffed in and out in the air above me. She built momentum as she dropped and carried it with her as she barrelled into Knuckle from behind, cracking her batons harshly into his back. The blow made him reel, chips flying from his outer armour. “You little-” he hissed, throwing another swing.

  Cheshire teleported to his side, avoiding the earth-shaking swing. But as she closed the gap, swinging for his head, Knuckle grunted and punched his fists together. A wave of pressure slammed into Cheshire, sweeping her off her feet and sending her bouncing and tumbling off the ground. I winced as I pressed forward. Her own costume was armoured, but I didn’t envy her.

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  Another salvo of fire from laser fire from my soldiers cut into his armoured side, making him reel and stagger. It gave me just enough time to sprint in, sweeping my boxing glove up and pulling the trigger. It rocketed forward at speed, a great rush of air whistling around it. The blow thudded harshly into Knuckle’s helm, breaking large chunks off of it, and he was sent spinning through the air until he struck the ground on his side.

  He didn’t get up again, but he was groaning weakly.

  “Good work,” Cheshire croaked, pulling herself up on a slab of broken concrete.

  I nodded, reaching down and slowly pulling at Knuckle’s namesake, sliding them off his gloved hands. I doubted I’d keep them, the damn things were too big for me for one thing. And, for another, I wouldn’t be able to fix them if I needed to. Still, they’d be useful to have in a pinch.

  A strange tingle rushed through me as I squeezed the brassy material, a small flicker of pain hitting my mind. “Ah!”

  “You good?” Cheshire asked as she staggered my way.

  “Yeah, just...” I grimaced, and I felt some odd gnawing sensation in my head. Whatever it was, it could wait. “Come on, let’s help the others.”

  At that moment I saw Stretch launching herself upward, her legs like coiled springs from the knee down. She caught Zirconium with an unfurling punch, fracturing a plate of crystal on his arm and launching him off the platform he had been using. The blow launched him straight to a protruding spire of crystal, and I expected him to thud noisily against it.

  Instead, to my shock, the crystal shimmered like rippling water and he passed clean through it line a diver striking a pool. He flipped elegantly through the air and summoned a slope of his namesake that he elegantly skated down.

  “Shit,” I muttered, blinking. I was actually a little impressed. Even so I raised my raygun and fired off a long stream of crackling orange light, and Zirconium raised another barrier to block it. The ray cut and carved into the crystal, sending shards racing into the air.

  Rover came galloping around at his other side, his dark flesh marked with bruises and bleeding cuts which were slowly closing. “Keep back, ugly!” Zirconium shouted. Another spray of crystal shot from his side, overwhelming Rover and them suddenly growing solid all around him until he was trapped, suspended in a great block of pale crystal.

  He was twitching and stirring in the block, tiny cobwebs of cracks spreading around him, but it would take time for him to properly break free.

  My soldiers flanked around, raining fire on Zirconium’s right side. Crystals sprouted around his arm in an instant, blocking most of the shots, but a few strays cut into his legs and sent blood splashing out onto the rocky ground. He whipped his other arm out, unleashing a hail of shards that struck the troops and crushed several of my sharpshooters. The others scurried into the shadows.

  Another shot of the raygun tore clean through Zirconium’s barrier, and he hurled himself to one side to avoid it... right into the path of Cheshire, who rammed the butt of one baton clan into his gut. He wheezed, doubling over, and was sent stumbling backward... right into the path of Stretch’s whipping fist. He hit the ground hard, groaning as blood pooled at the mouth of his mask.

  “Phew,” Stretch said, wiping at her brow. A few cuts had damage her costume, but she sported no bruises or scars of her own. I suppose rubber like her would be hard to damage. “Appreciate the assist. For a goofball, that guy was quick... knew his shit.”

  “No doubt,” said Cheshire, huffing.

  I made my way over as more cracks spread out along the block encasing Rover. The structure shuddered and then exploded apart with a sound like a giant window being smashed, sending sprays of glittering mater along the ravaged floor. His arms and the length of his back were studded with small points, like hardened blades of bone. Their sudden sprouting had been hard enough to break through the encasement. Now he stood huffing for breath, glowering at Zirconium’s unconscious body.

  “Good work, Rover,” I said, patting him on the shoulder.

  “Hggghh...” he hissed, seeming almost to grin at me. Slightly unnerving...

  “Alright,” I said, wincing as I tried to stand upright. “Now we just need to-”

  A great crash shook the entire chamber, and a blur carved a vast swathe through the ceiling above us. We scattered, leaping in different directions as lumps of debris came crashing down. The Dynamo fell through the air, landing like a stone and furrowing the concrete beneath her. Her form flickered, hazy and indistinct, and in a flash she returned back to Sam’s all-too-human normal body.

  “Fuck,” he groaned. “That bitch hits like a train.”

  From the far end of the underground chamber came a raging whirlwind of dust and debris. Impact was at the heart of the tempest, her costume marked by a few burns and tears. “Oh, trust me!” she shouted, her power like a vortex that had nearby steel warping, an expanding hemisphere that obliterated any concrete it touched. “You haven’t seen how fucking hard I can hit yet!”