​     "Damn it!" 

     This from Klawmaker. With the Valids there, the situation was now officially out of his control.

     "Shit!" Hoby said. The Silvers had fought the Valids twice before, and both times they got their asses totally kicked. They were some very tough customers, those four Valids. 

     Trevor dropped and rolled away from Kevin. The smoke from the smoke bomb was still plentiful. The idea was to crawl out of there and escape while the Valids dealt with Klawmaker and his two idiots. He'd also worked with the Valids twice before, so he knew how capable they were.

     Plus, he had a wild crush on Shawnacy. Damn, she was good looking!

     Brock dropped until he was just above the heads of the hundreds of police officers crowding the lobby floor. He made for quite a sight, a young man in a wheelchair floating over everyone's head with what looked like blue lightning crackling all over him.                                                                                                         He waited until he saw all their eyes, then...                                                                 FLASH!                                                                                                                           It was like he became an azure flashbulb. He blinded everybody who'd been looking at him. While they recovered from that, he spread a little low-level energy over them like fairy dust, only this fairy dust knocked them completely off their feet like they'd been Tasered...                                                                                                   for a few seconds, anyway.                                                                                             Niki flattened against the wall of the courthouse away from the not-dissipating-fast-enough smoke. She, too, headed for the exit, but she intended to do it by sliding along the wall near the ceiling. 

      "Fuck," Belle muttered. She hated Shawnacy with a purple passion. Fuck trying to track down some invisible asswipe. Belle flew at Shawnacy, intending to smash Shawnacy's face into bone fragments. 

​     Shawnacy dodged her easily.

     "Fuck!" Belle'd forgotten how fast Shawnacy was.

     And, oh no, oh no, was Shawnacy actually grinning at Belle, laughing at Belle's clumsy attempts to hurt her? That simply could not be tolerated. Niki'd ruined Belle's pincer, but she still had plenty of tail to swing.

     Shawnacy didn't seem particularly worried. She pulled her club from her hip to use defensively. She eyed areas of Belle's armor she might want to strike. 

     Then, shit, here came Hoby.

      Klawmaker hadn't needed him, after all, not after the Valids showed up. He came up on one side of Shawnacy while Belle came up on the other. Now all they had to do was close in on her and...

​     BRAAAP!

     That was Brock. He got to them in time.

     BRAAAP! 

     The blast slammed Hoby hard against a wall...

     missing Niki by inches, although Brock didn't know that because she was invisible.

                                                      CONTINUE