"Oh. You're the real American, aren't you?" Yeh Cha mocked Thunderbolt. He reached down, snapped off a fourteen-foot flagpole from the building's facade, and threw it like a javelin. Thunderbolt threw himself to one side, barely getting grazed as the flag ripped free and ended up draped across him. Yeh Cha bounded over to retrieve his improvised weapon preparatory to skewering me.
    Phoenix Talon snapped the edge of his hand into Liang Hsiang's neck in a nerve strike, stunning her for a moment. A few seconds from the ground she cleared her head, bringing them to a jarring stop, and he ended up swinging from the end of his cable, about ten feet off the ground.
    "You," she growled at him.
    I sank my mind gently through Liang's bioaura and gave her lungs a squeeze. She made a choking sound and dropped another ten feet, putting Talon's feet on the ground as she gasped, half-doubled over in pain. Phoenix Talon extended the blade on his weapon and leaped up to slash at her, but her shield absorbed the blow. She seemed to have cleared her head and to be breathing normally again, although she'd coughed up some foamy blood. I hit her again, and she finally slumped to the ground. Phoenix Talon swarmed up the side of the building to join in the fight against Yeh Cha as I made certain she wasn't going to wake up any time soon.
    In the meantime, Scott's gaseous form had landed o n the rooftop behind Yeh Cha, who spun around in a defensive stance. Thunderbolt took advantage of the momentary distraction to singe him with some focused sunlight.
    "Are you still up?" Yeh snarled.
    "You're in serious need of some dental work, sir," Scott observed from behind .
    Yeh threw himself of the cloud, at Thunderbolt, and landed a solid punch. A diamond-tipped tendril of Scott lanced out of his cloud and pierced the big villain's shoulder in a spray of blood. Thunderbolt staggered back upright and saw Yeh Cha pulling back for a follow-up. This time he was ready for it; the breeze of the blow past his face suggested that it would have broken his jaw at the very least. They were very close together now. Phoenix Talon sprinted over, silent and unseen, and left another bloody wound; Yeh Cha's left arm dangled uselessly as he retreated to face the three of them. Thunderbolt raised a hand, mere inches from Yeh's chest, and sent another light blast into his body. A split second later Scott hit the same spot with everything he had.
    Very slowly, Yeh Cha toppled off the roof.
    No time to gloat.
    "Let's grab both of them and get out of here," Scott suggested, to a chorus of agreement. Phoenix Talon called Reilly and requested the variant-class restraints.
    "Do you want us to meet you there?" he asked.
    "No! We expect their buddies to show up any time now," I snapped. The empathic link would let them know that something had happened, and they could plot a line between Vincent's place and Chinatown just as well as we could. We'd go and meet the car.
    However, we had a problem; I couldn't carry all of them. Yeh Cha was just too bloody big. I dithered for a moment.
    "Stop thinking, turn that way, run," Scott came as close as he does to snapping.
    Yes. I decided to leave the three of them together; if Chang Yen showed up, she'd only kill me. The other three dove into the tunnel system as I flew off to meet the police with our captives, expecting at any second to feel a sword. At least I'd be cheating the WCL out of something....

[Aside: Scott, Elsewhere]

    Adding to the wonderful situation, I found that I was too tired for really fast flying. I tried to focus on just getting there and handing these two over. If I made it that far, I'd worry about the next step.
    "Go!" I heard from below. I looked down. Saw six men in some sort of armor attacking—was that the League of Nations front?
    I don't have time for this shit! I wailed to myself. And banked down to take a closer look. I just couldn't let them do it. If it had been anyplace else, I might have let it go, but they probably had no idea they were about to get killed. Electricity arced around between the six members of the Circuit Board as they approached the front door. One of them spotted me. Son of a fucking....
    "Don't worry, stick to the plan! We can take them!" another one yelled. Lightning reached skyward.
    Hell with it; I used Yeh Cha as a blunt instrument and flattened one of them. [Ed. - this tactic wasn't my idea; Tom mentioned it first ("I block with power-suck girl!") and Dave followed up, convincing me that my moral qualms about the idea were misplaced.]
    "Jeet, what do we do?!" one of them shouted.
    "Don't use my real name, you idiot!"
    "Well don't tell her it's your real name, who's going to think someone's named Jeet?"
    The five who were left fired their homemade weapons; I dodged a lot and blocked with Liang Hsiang. Smacked another one. The members of the Circuit Board seemed a trifle confused by my "companions."
    "I think that one's Thunderbolt!"
    "That's a she! What are you doing? Who's the flying guy?! Look out!" They concentrated fire on my "teammates." Yeh Cha was smoldering in a couple of places.
    "Idiots, she's just throwing mannequins at us, or something!" their leader figured out at last. "Just focus everything on her!"
    I tossed Yeh Cha at him, but he threw himself out of the way in time.
    "Ha! As you can see, the genius of my battlesuits is converting the bioenergy of our bodies into an electrical impulse that allows us to control the energy around us! You are no match for such genius!" he scoffed.
    "What was your GPA?" I inquired. Theme villians will be theme villains....
    "What does that have to do with anything?! I'll show them!! THEY SAID THIS WAS STUPID!" he ranted, firing at me. The others, I noticed as I slipped to one side, were all now firing their weapons at him, feeding him power.
    "What was that about bioenergy?"
    "You couldn't possibly grasp such esoteric concepts," he smirked.
    "Actually, I think she could if I remember the files—" one of his henchmen started.
    "Shut up! Who needs to pay attention to that? I was learning how to rob banks!"
    "And you're doing so well at it, too," I remarked, grabbed hold and twisted. Witchlight surrounded him, invisible in the noon sun. I could feel the links connecting all of their auras, felt the injury I'd just dealt him replicate itself across the others. They all collapsed. "What were you saying?" I'll have to take a look at their tech if I ever have a quiet moment again in this life.
    It seemed less than likely at the time. I saw the shadows of the Wuxia closing in, just as the door to the electronics shop burst open and a half dozen men with high-energy rifles charged out to repel the Circuit Board.
    The Wuxia, as I think I have noted before, are faster than I am in the air. I could see three of them, and for a split second actually saw Chang Yen before she slipped from my perception. Tried to touch her and reached only the sucking emptiness I remembered from last time. There was no help to be had, no point in running.
    So, I figured for at least the fifth or sixth time in the past eighteen months, I'm going to die. I set our prisoners down and flew up to meet them. Wu Tung was smiling. I opened the pyramid's case and pushed the button, waited to see what happened.
    Must remember to ask him for more details if I ever need to do this sort of thing again. Though it did end up being helpful, after a fashion, it seemed less so at the time. Light flashed over each of the pyramid's four sides, and corresponding walls of golden energy appeared, surrounding all of us, cutting through buildings and cars where they came into existence. The base was a good hundred feet on a side.
    The Wuxia seemed to stagger briefly. Their flight had become far less steady than usual, and Yen and Wu Tzu-Shi were making their way downward in something close to a fall. Fascinating; Liang Hsiang was on the outside of the pyramid, and if I recall correctly she's the one whose absorption powers feed their energy projection abilities. The pyramid had actually severed the wormhole link. This definitely bears looking into for the future; I didn't know something like that was possible.
    Something bounced off my shield—a sword blade, at neck level. She'd stopped playing around. I made a mental note to follow my own orders regarding splitting up in the future.
    Yen and Wu landed on the ground. Yen, quicker on the uptake, looked for cover. The latter focused a glare at me that under normal circumstances would have been deadly but at the moment did nothing at all. Unfortunately, Wu Tung's mind control was unaffected.
    "Very clever, I'll admit, but not good enough," he remarked. "On the ground. Oh, and shut your defenses off before you—"
    It was not, all things considered, that bad an impact, but given the lousy shape I was already in, it pretty much did for me. I thought I might have broken my ankle.
    "What did she do?" Wu Tung demanded of Yen.
    He sighed. "I don't know, it feels like some sort of mystical force field."
    "How would you know a mystical force field, you fool?!"
    "Do you have a better solution?" Yen snapped. "Other than constantly throwing us into this pointless warfare? Never mind the fact that the only reason we're not at a building of ours, which is a critical asset currently falling down, is because we're chasing people for no reason, to get back people who should have never been in jeopardy!"
    "You're very mouthy for someone whose powers have vanished."
    "Ah, but you can't kill me," Yen reminded him with something close to a sneer. "We're as one, remember? You don't know what would happen."
    No, no; kill him, I wished I could say. He never liked you anyway.
    "Now give me a minute to figure out what she did, so I can undo it, so you can take credit for this glorious victory."
    Pause. "Another time," their leader promised.
    "Another time you'll threaten me more. I grow tired of this, Wu Tung," Yen growled. He stalked over to me. "New costume. Looks good on her, too. She must have...." He fiddled with my belt for a moment, retrieved the pyramid and case. "This is probably the pyramid. Shut this off...." He reached back down and picked up my communicator, turned it on, and dropped it again before turning to his comrades. "I think this is it. We should be safe once I shut this off." He glanced down at me and murmured, "Remember this." He tapped the button, and the pyramid vanished.
    As I gather things happened, Phoenix Talon had a bad feeling about this whole thing and was already en route. When the pyramid went down and EM signals were flowing freely again, the emergency Yen had so kindly signalled from my phone went out to the rest of the team. I was drifting in and out of consciousness, vaguely aware of Wu Tung standing over me.
    "Surely you can see how utterly ineffectual you are against us," he sneered. "If this is the best you can do, the city is already ours. And where, pray tell, are your teammates?"
    The guys have always been good with a cue. I smiled contentedly as a sewer cover rocketed up several stories with the force of Scott's exit.
    The men from the League shop had beaten a rapid retreat after the force field went up, so the coast was relatively clear for what followed.

[Aside: Elsewhere]

    Phoenix Talon slashed in with his katana at Wu Tung, but the Wuxia's mastermind slipped aside. Chang Yen appeared beside him, and he parried instinctively. She looked startled. He spat at her.
    Yen looked around and came to a conclusion. "This is untenable; we must withdraw. Grab our allies and go!"
    "Nonsense, you old fool!"
    "Fine, have it your way! I'll get them," he snapped, flying off to grab the other two and start his ascent.
    He has the pyramid, I thought fuzzily. Can't let them get away, not after all this.... I focused carefully through the haze of exhaustion, pain, and really wanting to go home except home got burned down this morning by these stupid cat-murdering sons of bitches.... It took more effort than I would have thought possible to reach out and tap the top of the pyramid, knocking it from his hands. I sensed I was bleeding somewhere inside, and gratefully surrendered consciousness as the pyramid walls reappeared.
    Wu Tzu-Shi looked panicked for a moment, then realized that all six of them were inside this time and his powers still worked. "Ha!" He stared at Thunderbolt, pouring on the pure energy until the asphalt bubbled beneath him and and the air was full of sparks. Thunderbolt smiled slightly and walked toward him through the barely-visible storm, taking everything he could give.
    Phoenix Talon slashed at Wu Tung again, who hovered five feet in the air with a look of supreme contempt on his face.

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