There was no warning.

The construction truck went from zero to 80 mph in a blink of an eye, flying through the air to crash into Sanction's forcefields less then a second later. Even before the thundering boom died off, a veritable army of phantoms flooded in the truck's wake, flanked on both sides by Savage and Roughhouse, with Sinister Sam flying above them atop one of his glyphs.

The attack was swift, precise and powerful, perfectly executed for only a few scant seconds of preparation. It was the kind of an attack that could wreck an entire cowled team, if caught unprepared, dismantling them on both physical and psychological levels.

The Sanction were prepared.

Crossfire from Sortie and Airstrike scythed into the phantoms, decimating their rows almost as fast as they emerged. Fixer and Calibre activated some kind of strange, glowing extensions on their rifles, replacing bullets with semi-invisible beams of light. Sam, being a large, lone target that he was, got hit first – and simply vanished in front of my eyes.

I blinked.

It seemed highly unlikely that Sanction's rounds have entirely vaporized him. That would bring the Game to an entirely new level, and – even disregarding the villains' response – the emerging laws tended to be harsh on unauthorized use of lethal force within the city limits. There were a number of options, from shrinking rays to trans-dimensional prisons, but the name 'awol rounds' brought a very specific idea to the forefront of my mind.

“I'll need your jacket,” I informed the unconscious Beachhead, turning him over.

Four seconds.

That's how long I required to close the distance to my target.

One of the rays hit Sarah Savage, disappearing her on the spot. I was not particularly heartbroken about that particular loss, I'll admit. Sarah had the power to make things exceedingly personal, yet lacked the wisdom to know when not to use it. She tended to cause more problems than she solved, both within and without the team.

Then Bobby only barely avoided the same fate by suddenly changing directions mid-air, and I realized that my time has run out.

“Charging in three,” I told Mark. “Two. One. Go!”

I rushed from behind the cover, holding the baton in front of me with Beachhead's jacket hanging of its tip. I was, admittedly, making some assumptions regarding the type of ammunition Sergeant was going to use against me, but I felt my guess was fairly well-calculated based on his prior actions.

I guessed wrong.

The bullets pierced straight through the jacket and punched me right in the middle of the chest. I cursed out loud. Though I've long since altered my overcoat to be bulletproof, its padding was nowhere near sufficient to fully absorb the impact of the blow. If I was lucky, I'd get away with only bruises the size of my fist.

Then I was in close combat range, and there was no more time for self-pity.

Sergeant swung the rifle in front of him, warding me off. I chose to block the hit, making my arm ache in addition to the ribs, and jabbed at his face with the baton. The Neural Disruptors didn't work, again, but for just a second his view was covered with his subordinate's jacket. It was enough.

I reached down and pulled the pin from one of the glowing grenades on his belt.

As Sergeant brushed the fabric from his face, I legged it, pulling on the coat's hood just in case I was wrong. There was a surprisingly high-pitched yelp as the merc registered the situation, then a clunking sound, though I did not look back to see what the noise was.

Then the world flashed gold, and I was somewhere else.

***

There was a moment of utter timelessness.

Momentum carried me forward before I could get my bearings, and, as I skid across the asphalt, I realized that my foot hit empty air far too late to regain my balance. I dropped, hitting my knees and elbows and sliding down into the bomb crater with an all new set of bruises.

A rather fortunate circumstance, I realized, as something hard and heavy whistled through the air above my head.

Rolling to a stop, I dropped into a crouch to survey my assailants. There were three.

The youngest among them was a girl, no more than five feet tall in her designer shoes. Though her costume clearly had a necromantic motif, it was a highly personalized one. The black mantle was perfectly fit to her form, with a midnight blue underrobe, bright pink trim and a matching skull mask. Dark brown hair was styled into a complex braid, the kind that takes at least half an hour to create, held together with a teal ornament in the form of a celtic knot. The overall impression was surprisingly professional and put together for somebody who couldn't be a day over fourteen.

Her partner, on the other hand, forsook subtlety entirely. His cloak was large, black and voluminous, blatantly designed to loom over the opposition and intimidate them into compliance. In his right hand he held a gnarled pseudo-wooden staff topped with an old-fashioned lantern, the light currently dim and even. I would've said that he was trying too hard, except there was something genuinely eerie about his figure. It took more than a moment's look to realize that the shadows, whether of the truck, the building or the people, never quite reached him, seemed to deliberately avoid touching him – and that his own shadow was nowhere to be seen.

Unlike her two companions, the third teenager barely bothered with a costume at all. Though colored grey and brown and accessorized with chains and belts, it was still rather blatant that her attire consisted of jeans, t-shirt and sneakers. The bandana, wrapped over the lower half of her face, the scowl that could be seen even despite that and roughly cropped dark hair made her look more like a backstreet mugger than a cowled villain. Judging by the baseball bat in her hands, she was also the one that took a swing at me.

“Doombringer,” I nodded at the staved silhouette. “Million Mandy. And... I'm afraid, I did not have the pleasure of meeting you before, miss?”

“The hell are you supposed to be?” the girl scowled, gripping the bat, her entire body expressing the willingness to commit violence at the slightest of provocations.

“Ruth, this is Carnival, he's helped us out before,” Despite being the youngest of the bunch, Mandy took control of the conversation easily and naturally, and neither of the other two gainsaid her. “Carnival, this is Ruthless, she's new.”

“You got an eighth member?”

Mandy grimaced.

“Seventh. Perry Louis left.”

“My condolences,” I nodded, then added somewhat hastily, as I saw Ruthless' scowl. “And congratulations. What would your powers be, miss?”

“Wouldn't you like to know?” she snapped.

“My apologies for the presumptuousness, then,” I let it go, especially since we had more important things to focus on at the moment.

“And speaking of powers,” Mandy interjected. “Carnival... have you been here all along?”

Have you placed us under your power, I heard the unasked question.

I snorted. While it tickled my ego to be thought of as some kind of an omnipresent mastermind, it was probably better to diffuse the misunderstanding before it had time to fester.

“With all the military trappings, I was fairly certain that 'awol' stood for absent without leave. Add in the way Sinister and Savage disappeared - ”

“Good riddance,” Ruthless muttered under her breath.

I politely pretended that I heard nothing.

“ - and the obvious answer was teleportation. Given that powers bestowing paranatural abilities upon objects are fairly rare, I made a calculated guess that two weapons that glow the same way most likely have the same effect – though diffused or weakened on grenades due to covering a larger area.” I climbed out of the crater. “And now it's time to see whether my efforts brought about the desired result.”

As I moved toward the last semi-intact construction truck, I heard Doombringer whisper to Million Mandy.

“Did... he actually answer the question? You understand anything he said?”

“Of course,” Mandy replied with great confidence. “I thought it was perfectly clear.”

“Perfectly clear,” Dimka mocked her back.

Peeking over the side of the truck, I was met with a scene of complete and utter mayhem. The grenade had transported everyone within several dozen feet, breaking up the Sanction's neat formation and scattering them in a random pattern across the entire parking lot. Roughhouse was also caught within the effect, but this time, instead of being trapped in the crossfire, he ended up right in the middle of his enemies – the exact place needed to utilize the full extent of his abilities. He leapt over improbable distances, suddenly changing directions in midair, punched, kicked and shoved the people around him like a miniature hurricane, overwhelming anyone caught within his range

Bobby once described his power as imbuing things with a momentary 'impulse', one he could use to move objects – whether himself or others – in a set direction. His Answer, internal balance, stabilized his internal organs in regards to the outer framework, which meant that he never had to worry about things like whiplash or concussions. Those two facts combined meant that while Roughhouse was far from the strongest or the fastest cowled that I've met, he was among the top percentile in regards to maneuverability and acceleration.

Right as I though that, Bobby twisted on a dime and tagged one of the gunners with a deceptively light punch. Calibre, for I recognized that particular string of obscenities, flew through the air like a cannonball, crashing into one of his allies and sending them both tumbling down several feet away from me.

I couldn't possibly reject such a considerate invitation.

I darted out from behind the cover and sprinted toward my fallen quarry. I lost my baton when fighting Sergeant and didn't pick up any other weapon, but I had my power and my wits, and that was enough.

Calibre's companion – the one called Fixer, I think, though the similarities in costume and weaponry made it difficult to distinguish one from the other – rolled away before I could come close and reached for the rifle that he dropped when Calibre slammed into him. I followed closely on his heels, having little interest in being shot point blank, again. To his credit, the gunner reached his weapon a few moments before I reached him, but it was still too late. As he turned around, rising into a half-crouch, I tapped him on the nose.

Connection established.

“Now you see me,” I smiled.

Fixer raised his rifle {and the world flashed gold. There was a moment of utter timelessness, and when the mercenary came to, he found himself face to face with Sergeant, whose eyes briefly widened over the half-mask.}

“And now you don't,” {came the sound from behind his back.}

Fixer turned around {to find me a dozen feet away, wiggling my fingers at him}. He reacted more out of sheer instinct than clear thought, unleashing a burst of gunfire. Sortie – at least I think it was Sortie – let out a breathless scream as the bullets slashed across her lower back. Roughhouse hesitated, surprised at the feminine cry, and Sergeant managed to drive him away from the fallen subordinate, but nonetheless she was out of commission for the next several hours.

I generally disliked using my power in such a crude manner, but I was given neither the time to prepare nor information to work with. I had to focus on effectiveness over style.

Fixer stood still as he saw the result of his actions, his face frozen in a rictus of horror. A moment later he whirled back toward me, snarling in a rage uncharacteristic for the otherwise placid man.

I looked down upon the situation from Mark's eyes, making sure I was properly positioned and not about to get a bullet in the back.

“You sure you want to do that?” I questioned politely, as the man gripped his weapon. “Just how certain are you that this is really me and not Calibre?”

Fixer hesitated for a second before striking forward with the butt of the rifle. I twitched {backwards} to the left, evading the blow.

“You wouldn't dodge if you were just an illusion,” the gunner told me. “And Calibre is a dick anyways.”

Then he opened fire

“What the fuck, Fix-Man?” Calibre howled, leaping away from where he was sneaking up behind me to avoid being perforated.

“Told you so,” I shrugged when Fixer looked at me.

He grit his teeth.

“Another trick? That's all you are, isn't it, tricks upon tricks, smoke and mirrors.”

“I can also cook a mean lemon pie,” I offered.

“Well, I refuse to play your games,” Fixer stated, ignoring me. “You can deceive my sight? Then I'm going to rely on sound instead.”

The mercenary closed his eyes and tilted his head, the gun raised to respond to the slightest noise.

I stood still and exchanged glances with Calibre, who also froze in a half-crouch a few feet to the right, wary of provoking his trigger-happy friend.

Not so far away, Airstrike and Roughhouse were moving around, unsuccessfully trying to beat each other down. The older cowled lost his gun sometime since I last saw him, and neither his power nor his fists were fast enough to hit Bobby. The teenager, surprisingly, had a similar degree of difficulty in tagging the merc. Somehow, each time he got close, Airstrike seemed to expect the attack, even when Roughhouse managed to maneuver behind the man's back. The merc's instincts were just that good.

Too good, as a matter of fact, to justify with training alone.

Testing out a hypothesis, I silently reached down and picked up a broken piece of asphalt, tossing it in the combatants' direction. Fixer responded with a burst of gunfire the very second the rubble hit the ground – yet, Airstrike reacted before that, seeming to shift aside even before I completed my throw.

Precognition-type danger sense. That was a rare Answer, and a particularly aggravating one when attached to somebody capable of mass destruction with just a few seconds of preparation.

Still, that wasn't what made me wary. It was the fact that Sergeant was nowhere to be seen. Somehow I doubted that he's been courteous enough to get taken out while I wasn't looking, which meant he was planning some kind of an unpleasant surprise. Bobby couldn't abandon Airstrike lest he use his power, and so dealing with Sergeant was up to me.

I had to finish this up, pronto.

I picked up another chunk of rubble, looking in Calibre's direction, but the merc was a step ahead of me. A molten lump of metal bounced of my forehead, and I barely managed to ensure that it was {completely soundless} in time. I felt just a tinge of vindictive satisfaction, as {I laughed behind his back}.

Fixer's gun rotated in Calibre's direction, and the merc lunged to the side, heaving up a chunk of garbled profanities. He was fast, but the bullets were faster, ripping a throaty scream out of him and leaving his left arm a bloody mess. I would have felt some sympathy, but the throbbing in my skull was a surprisingly effective remedy to that particular ailment.

Fixer opened his eyes in surprise.

“But, I heard...”

His head slowly turned toward me.

“My dear man, whatever made you think I was limited to optical illusions?” I asked, not bothering to hide the amusement in my voice. “I'm not, I assure you. What you see, what you hear, what smell and taste and feel... I control everything.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Motherfucker,” Calibre swore.

Fixer's face pinched in a mix of denial, fear and anger. He opened his mouth once, twice, a third time. Finally, he seemed to decide on what he wanted to say -

- and Calibre smashed into his side like a rabid rhino.

He was unarmed, one-armed and battered in every way possible, but the man ripped into his former ally with a ferocity that surprised even me. He hit fast, hit hard and was not afraid to fight dirty. Blood started flying before Fixer even fully realized what was happening.

I couldn't help but blink.

Much as I would have loved to take the credit, the current situation exceeded my expectations. While the idea of turning the two against each other briefly danced its way through my mind, I thought that would take both more time and more effort than I could spare. The fact that Calibre was so easy to turn implied either a shortness of temper on his part or a wellspring of hidden power on Fixer's, one frightening enough that I was disregarded. Possibly both.

Either way, this granted me an unexpected, but much needed reprieve, and I did not hesitate to make use of it. Closing my eyes, I reached out to my connection with Mark, seeking that bird's eye view that would let me find Sergeant. Unfortunately, when I looked through my second set of eyes, I found myself much lower then expected. It seemed Kindly One's wounds have finally forced him to land, and he perched atop one of the forcefields like a giant vulture, observing the battlefield with keen vigilance, seeking prey sufficiently weakened that he could swoop in and maul them on his own. Even grounded, his point of view filled in enough blanks that I was reasonably certain Sergeant was not hiding behind one of the forcefields with a sniper rifle. But if he did not go back, that meant -

Pitter-patter of footsteps beside me interrupted my train of though, and I opened my eyes just in time to see Ruthless punt the rifle out of Calibre's hands with a particularly well-executed running kick.

“Did you seriously just freaking fall asleep in the middle of a fight?” She snarled.

“My apologies,” I nodded back, checking on Fixer's senses to make sure he was out for good. He was.

Considering how quickly the struggle had ended, I did not think he resisted all that much.

Calibre rolled to his feet and slashed out with a low kick in a single motion. Ruthless leapt back with an ease that spoke of long practice, then rushed forward while the mercenary was off-balance. It did not help her as much as she probably hoped, as the man swerved and fired a series of rapid jabs at her face, forcing the girl backwards.

Coming to a stop, Ruthless lowered her arms from a fighting position, before raising one hand to her face, making Calibre pause in a moment of confused indecision.

“My eye! It burns!”

“I didn't even touch your eyes!” The mercenary protested, now thoroughly befuddled.

“The pacts struck in the dark come to haunt me once again! The forbidden power entrusted only to me, it rises! It rises!” Ruth's voice grew into a wail. “It's burning wrath cannot be matched by any mortal, and I can hold it back no longer!”

The mercenary's face slowly shifted from confusion to a sort of dawning revelation, the kind of a look a man gets when seeing a car crash.

“Take this! My love! My anger! And all of my sorrow!”

Calibre winced, covering his eyes in sheer secondhand embarrassment, unable to believe that anybody would actually say that, much less proclaim it loudly in the middle of a battlefield.

Then Ruthless dropped into a crouch and rabbit-punched him in the junk.

The croak the mercenary emitted as he folded upon himself was matched only by the sheer amount of incredulity on his face. I winced in sympathy. The girl just punched him in the temple, rendering Calibre unconscious.

“Ruthless, indeed,” I muttered.

The teenager almost preened.

Then a sharp bang echoed from behind our backs, swiftly followed by a young, female scream. I turned around, already suspecting what I was going to see.

We found our wayward Sergeant.