This is what I’m here for.

😀

He felt oddly calm as his group squared off against the villains with some of the highest power ratings in Brockton Bay, beneath the grim display of the three hanging corpses.

Heavy hitters indeed.

He reached into the slot of the armor at his side and withdrew two sheaves of paper.  Moving his thumbs in one direction, he fanned out the papers, holding them like anyone else might hold a pair of knives.

Hm. Now what’s this? Gonna rip them up and freeze the shrapnel or something?

He realized what it was, this calm.  Whatever else it was, this fight was a refuge from that feeling that had plagued him since the fight with Leviathan ended.

I see.

The feeling that he was always in the wrong place, doing the wrong thing at the wrong time, in the face of a city in crisis and a dying father.  This, right here, was where he was needed.

Ah, yeah…

Weld staggered as Genesis lunged forward, and Clockblocker ducked low under Weld’s arm, planted a hand against the plywood.  He felt his power snap out to encompass the material, and he fixed it in place, cutting it off from the flow of time.

Why? I mean, it’s a more effective shield against this one attack, but now it’s stuck in that one spot for a while.

A second later, he felt a heavy hand on his shoulder.  Weld, standing over him, gave him a quick smile and an offered hand.  He returned it with the briefest of nods and took Weld’s hand to stand straight.  Together, the pair of them stepped back and away,

Nice. Good to see that they can work together even if they have their differences. And hey, Clocky did admit he should go easier on Weld.

to see Genesis rising into the air with heavy flaps of her bat-like wings, inhaling to prepare another blast of the noxious smoke.

Okay I kinda think I should go back and reread Tattletale’s explanation of Genesis’ powers.

…remotely controlled, solid projections. Right. Genesis probably isn’t actually there.

I can’t keep track of this guy.

He’s rather… tricksy.

Clockblocker looked around to survey the situation.  His group was sandwiched between the Travelers, now.

Welp. That’s probably something Trickster’s been deliberately arranging.

On one side, Sundancer and Ballistic crouched in the far corner of the building.  Trickster and Genesis stood on the other side, atop the rubble that spilled across the building’s entrance and onto the flooded street. 

Genesis inhaled, chest expanding, and Weld was the first to react, stomping one foot hard into the rubble underfoot, using his foot to raise a large, ragged piece of plywood.

Hm.

With his hands, he forced the large wooden board into a standing position, placing it between himself and Genesis.  Kid Win, Flechette and Vista wheeled on Ballistic and Sundancer.

So does that mean he’s using the board as a shield…?

Weld’s piece of plywood served to block the worst of whatever it was that Genesis exhaled.  From what Clockblocker could see around the plywood, it was a dark, gray-black vapor.

So wait, wasn’t Genesis’ ability a sort of illusion? In other words, is there even something real there to block?

Wisps billowed around the edge of the board and drifted their way – it had a bitter smell and taste, like ashes mixed with something foul.  Even inhaling a trace of it through the air holes of his mask forced barking coughs from his lungs.

Real enough to cause a reaction, I guess.

His teammates seemed to be in rougher shape, Vista falling to her hands and knees.  The changer’s exhalation hadn’t even reached them directly.

Hm, strange. Did Genesis get ahead of herself in stimulating reactions to match the visuals?

So, that’s what a changer nine brings to the table.  Different forms, each with their own powers.

That’s a reasonable assumption.

Weld, for his part, staggered back, his hand glowing white-hot.  He flexed his glowing hand, and it moved slowly, stiffly.  Even as far down as his elbow, the metal of his arm was an orange-red.

Ah, maybe I spoke too soon.

At least we know he can melt parts of his body in the first place, and does so regularly to absorb metal that got stuck to him.

Clockblocker didn’t get a chance to see if Weld was okay.  He charged around his team leader, using the metal boy’s broader body to put himself in Trickster’s blind spot.  From this position, he tried to charge and tag the villain.

Ooh, good luck.

An instant before his hand could brush against Trickster, the villain was gone, and Weld was in front of him.

Dang it. 

His hand touched the metal of Weld’s back.

Welp, guess we’ve got both molten and frozen metal at once.

He breathed a sigh of relief when Weld turned around.

Wait, really? Is he immune to Clocky’s power too? I know Weld was immune to most powers affected by the Manton effect, but as far as I’ve gathered, that’s not actually the case with Clockblocker’s.

Only the fact that he’d expected something along these lines had allowed him to turn his power off in time.

Ah, okay.

Spinning around, Clockblocker reached for the space Weld had just vacated, but Trickster was already swapping places with Glory Girl to place himself as far away from the thick of the fighting as he could get.

Glory Girl’s power might actually be among the more useful ones here. Intimidating Trickster might be distracting enough for Clocky to get his hands on the guy.

Really fucking annoying, Clockblocker revised his summation of the teleporter.

Ahaha 😛

Shadow Stalker had positioned herself on the ragged top of the wall where the roof had crumbled away, high above the skirmish, cloak billowing.  She fired a shot at Ballistic and Sundancer, reloaded as Ballistic sent a piece of rubble flying through her shadowy form, then fired again.

I wonder how long that position’s going to last. Pretty helpful to have objects pass through you when you’re fighting Ballistic, at least.

The Travelers had body armor, so she wasn’t doing more than distracting them.  The needles of the tranquilizer darts wouldn’t pass through the durable armor or material.

And the other darts are off-limits.

“Red rover!” Vista shouted, “Go!”

Good girl.  Clockblocker dashed for Trickster, and the distance between them compressed to a matter of feet, the highest points in the uneven ground flattening to make running easier.

Ooh, named combo tactics!

It’s a pretty good tactic – Clockblocker needs touch range, and Vista can arrange that for him.

As he spun in place, catching a glimpse of Genesis exchanging blows with Glory Girl, he had his position swapped yet again.  He found himself once more with his back to the brawling pair.  One of them bumped into him, and he sprawled.

Bunp.

If only he’d been able to tell if it were Genesis or Glory Girl that bumped into him; had he known, he might have used his power, taken Genesis out of the fight.

I suppose that’s why he was teleported in the first place – Trickster tricked him into turning around.

Annoying.  He climbed to his feet, wary of more teleportation hijinks.

So far, Trickster’s being the MVP. I have a feeling this chapter is going to show us more from the others too, though. Weld vs Sundancer, for example… What happens when a man made of metal goes up against someone who can melt it?

Ballistic is also a threat to Weld if he somehow knows how Weld’s power interacts with metal.

Kid Win wheeled on the spot to raise a square-nosed pistol and fire what looked like a brilliant blue flare at Trickster, but the teleporter swapped positions with him.  Kid Win ducked the moment he was teleported, but he still got grazed by his own shot, blue sparks showering off his armored costume, small arcs of electricity dancing briefly around the metal joins.

Ouch.

Sundancer created her flaming ball – small, but still far too bright to look at – and sent it after Kid Win.  The young hero scrambled for cover, dropping his gun in his hurry to get away from the superheated orb.  Flechette moved to shoot, then reconsidered, threw a handful of darts at Trickster instead.

Sending projectiles after Trickster didn’t work out so well for Kid Win.

The darts disappeared in midair, and splinters of wood and small stones dropped straight out of the air where they had been.

Huh, interesting. The teleportation swaps positions, but not momentum. Don’t know why I expected it to do so, really.

Might have some interesting implications for a hypothetical interaction between Trickster’s power and quantum physics?

“A shame,” Trickster bowed.

In the blink of an eye, Weld disappeared, and Genesis loomed in his place, eight feet tall and nearly as broad across the shoulders, a body of pebble-like scales, heavy with muscle, a short tail and broad bat wings sprouting from her shoulders.

Hah, nice. But doesn’t this just put Weld over to the side?

I guess it might’ve been more about putting Genesis in a strategically important position than about sending Weld off.

She spun to face the rest of the Wards as Weld fell from the window.

Oh right, her gargoyle-like position is a bit of an issue for Weld, especially with the element of surprise.

Ballistic turned on the fallen captain of the Wards, unloading a barrage of debris and rubble to keep the metal skinned boy off-balance and on the defensive.

Sounds like they’re focusing a lot on Weld so far. I’m not sure he’s the biggest threat to them here. That would probably be Clockblocker or Vista, both of whom can keep one or all of them in place.

Clockblocker lunged for Genesis, hand outstretched.  He was mere inches away when Genesis disappeared from in front of him.  Or, rather, Clockblocker had been moved somewhere else.

It’s entirely possible for Trickster to swap the positions of one of the corpses with one of the Wards. He probably can’t adjust the pose they show up in, though, so they’d presumably just fall down from there like Weld just did from the window.

A lack of proper footing made him stumble, and he nearly collided with one of the dilapidated walls of the ruined building.

One thing’s for sure, Trickster’s power can be quite disorienting.