Thunderbolt focused his attention on the control module. It was much like the energy he sensed from Scott, but yes, there was an electrical component there... he sucked it dry. He sensed a second, more sustained energy source come up. Outside, the hologram flickered between Mind Lazer and Don Vincent as the latter personality reasserted itself.
    Mind Lazer focused, redoubling his efforts. "It's not a staring match. I can just crush—you."
    "I was waiting for that," Albert said calmly, standing firm. Mind Lazer gave a cry of pain. I was out of the loop now, the two of them locked in battle.
    "Kill him," Albert muttered, drawing on additional reserves of willpower.
    "I'll see what I can do...."
    Scott rammed a probe into Silverblood; Thunderbolt felt something bang into his hand, then Scott grabbed his legs and pulled him out of the combined mass, sending him flying as Scott's strike shivered home. A large, inert pile of Plovian liquid superconductor settled to the ground. Phoenix Talon tried to catch Thunderbolt before he could hit the ground, and managed to break his fall.
    I hit Mind Lazer again. His astral form vanished. Albert gasped, half-collapsing; I jumped to catch him.
    "Well, I don't think he's dead...."
    "No," he agreed. "He wouldn't be. But that had to hurt him."
    "I certainly hope so."
    Scott went to work on Silverblood. He couldn't drain it of energy completely, because that would effectively kill Vincent, so he decided to see what he could do about removing its weapons systems.
    "And the Storm Crow went where?" Albert asked, looking around as he got his breath back.

[Aside: Elsewhere]

    Albert was steady enough to support himself on his cane without me, so knowing his pride I let him go and sat down on a hunk of the erstwhile Caduceus Project, looked around at the team: burned, bruised, battered, bloody and possibly other words starting with B. Scott's normally pristine surface was marred by scorch trails and little quivery areas where he'd taken damage to his internals, Phoenix Talon was looking a bit wild-eyed, and Thunderbolt seemed haggard.
    Half of us had been going for more than forty hours straight, unless you count various episodes of blacking out thanks to blood loss, pain, or energy drain. I had a vague memory of bad, scalding coffee from the emergency crews, and assumed that I'd eaten something at some point but had no idea what or when. Every centimeter of my body hurt.
    We'd fought Toy Man, Roy McCoy, the Wuxia, the Wuxia again, the Circuit Board, more Wuxia, Toy Man again, whatever parts of Chinatown hadn't wanted to talk to us about the Wuxia, the Wuxia for a fourth time, scattered members of the League of Nations repeatedly, and Silverblood.
    We'd lost our headquarters, most of our equipment, and virtually all of our belongings.
    Any second now was going to be another emergency. I knew we had to go after Hoagland, figure out what she'd been talking about and try to stop it, but I couldn't make myself move just yet.
    There was a strange, wrenching sensation. The world went white.

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