“Stay still!” I snarled at her.  When I pressed again, depressing the two buttons with my pinky finger and thumb, she held her arm firm.

I shouted into the armband, “Clockblocker down, CD-6!  Need a teleporter to get him free, stat!”

Ooh, a teleporter, good call. The water won’t be in the way if he doesn’t have to be classically moved through the space it’s in!

The time freezing effect of Clockblocker’s power lasted anywhere from thirty seconds to ten minutes.  How long had we spent, here, since Clockblocker had given us this momentary reprieve?  It was hard to judge the passage of time with the adrenaline, the frenetic pace of the ongoing battle.

In my case, it’s hard to judge the passage of time in general, but that’s my ADD.

Trickster appeared in the place of the blue moon Woman, tipped his hat at me.

Perfect! Now we just need something to put in Clockblocker’s place.

Also, Luna must be so confused. One moment, Taylor’s borrowing her communicator, and suddenly she’s somewhere else…

“Clockblocker, in there,” I pointed with my good hand.

Trickster frowned, looked around.

“I apologize for desecrating your body, brave hero,” he spoke, looking down at where the cape with the trumpet icon on his chest had flopped, dead.  “You do good work even in death.”

I don’t know why it didn’t occur to me that there are lots of non-living objects the size and mass of a human body lying around.

Kaiser – I hadn’t even seen him in the group – erected a latticework of blades across the front of the alley, between us and Leviathan.  It wasn’t enough.

It was a nice try, at least.

Leviathan tore through them like I might tear through a wicker basket.  Edged pieces of steel spun through the air and clattered to the ground.

Unfortunately, “nice try” isn’t enough against this overpowered motherfucker.

Kaiser changed tactics, creating columns of steel instead, each three or four feet across, harder to shatter.  They were slower to emerge, but they bent rather than broke.

Nice! Essentially huge prison bars… at least it sounds like they’ll be a bit sturdier.

Leviathan responded by pushing.  He exerted his full strength on the barrier of blades and the columns, leaning against them.  The walls broke around the base of the columns, and the pieces of steel fell.

Dammit.

Turning on the spot, Leviathan moved his claw, creating a wave with all of the water he’d generated since entering the alley, driving it into one of the two gathered groups.

Uh oh.

As those capes stumbled and fell back, Leviathan leaped over the time distortion bubble, landing at the front of the other group.  The group with some of the local wards (sic), Velocity, some of Empire Eighty-Eight, and out-of-town capes I couldn’t name.

Landing from a parabolic arc means a spray of water echo over top of him, right?

The group I was at the rear of.

Shit.

Someone stepped up to grab him mid-lunge – some woman I didn’t recognize, who Othala was touching.  She was granting this woman some form of invincibility that let her take a hit and not get knocked away by Leviathan.

Ooh, that’s a cool power.

Invincible though she might be, she couldn’t do anything to stop the afterimage from crashing against and around her, through our assembled ranks.

A lot of people are about to get wet.

Laserdream’s ragged scream was like something distant, something I was barely aware of, because Leviathan was landing back in the area where the two alleys met.

I’m sorry. 😦

He leaped in Sundancer’s direction, caught the ground with the claws of his hands and feet to halt his momentum.  His echo surged forward, some striking the superheated orb, where it blossomed into massive clouds of steam.

It’s fire versus water… what’s going to prevail here?

The rest went low, catching Sundancer below the waist, sweeping her legs out from under her in one violent rush.  She flipped forward, her upper body colliding with the ground.  The miniature sun winked out of existence.

Well, there goes that chance of getting more of a look into the Travelers’ issues via Sundancer…

Sundancer down, CD-6.

…wait, she isn’t dead! (Sunny surprise!)

Legend fired a barrage of lasers at Leviathan, but the Endbringer was quick to hop to one side, landing on the roof’s edge.  He made a sudden, standing leap a good eighty or a hundred feet into the air, tail extending to reach for the airborne heroes.

I guess getting away wasn’t his goal after all.

Oh, and not only will he possibly be able to reach one or two of the flying heroes, but any movement above the rest of the heroes will result in a water echo that can come crashing down on them a moment later.

The whiplike tail struck Legend, and there was a firework display of light and sparks, Legend tumbling out of the sky, head over heels.  In the same movement, the tail reached for Laserdream and Shielder.

Legend down, CD-6,  The armbands announced, just in time to coincide with Legend hitting the ground.

Oof.

Laserdream put her own shield up, and I could remember how Photon Mom, Laserdream and Shielder all had the same basic powers.

Oh, so she’s not entirely without shields, nor is Shielder entirely without lasers. They’re each just better on one than the other.

The difference between them was that while Photon Mom’s powers were well rounded, Shielder had a far, far, better forcefield, almost no flight ability and weak laser blasts.  Laserdream was the opposite… her lasers and flight were good enough, but her forcefield, not so much.

It’s a pretty good setup.

Incidentally, I really like that Taylor is referring to Photon Mom by that nickname.