“MeLaan is a miscreant!” VenDell said. “Why do you think she was assigned to you? Only she and TenSoon are capable fighters; the rest of us abhor it! I should, er, get away. And plan. Yes, plan how to respond.”
Marasi glanced at Wayne, who was rolling his eyes.
“You’re basically indestructible, right?” she said to VenDell. “Like MeLaan?”
“Well, technically. But you see, I—”
“Then get out there,” Marasi said, “and draw some fire. Also, if you can manage it, toss me one of those aluminum guns.”
“Very well,” he said with a deep sigh. “This is the last time I let Harmony convince me—”
He broke off as a short woman rounded the back of the truck, somehow moving at their speed — and then she stepped into their speed bubble.
The stout woman wore a bowler hat and held a dueling cane in one hand. “’Ello, lovelies,” she said. “What’re we doin’? Havin’ a meetin’? I like meetin’ new folks. Killin’ them breaks the monotony.” She grinned, then leaped for Marasi.
It was such an incongruous experience — no one had ever violated one of Wayne’s bubbles — that Marasi reacted with embarrassing slowness. Wayne wasn’t so inhibited. He grabbed the woman by the arm as she swung, preventing the dueling cane from connecting with Marasi’s head.
All three of them fell in a jumble. Wayne ended up with the dueling cane, but the woman scrambled away. She became a blur for a second as she hit the edge of the speed bubble — and then she was crossing the room at normal human speed. A moment later she froze in place, moving sluggishly.
“Damn!” Wayne said. “Another Slider!”
Of course. Someone with Wayne’s same power — she could create her own speed bubbles. When she’d moved quickly for a moment, it was because her speed bubble had overlapped with Wayne’s, doubling her speed for a split second. But she’d been forced to drop her bubble to keep moving through the room, as Sliders had to take brief breaks in using their powers.
“Wayne,” Marasi said, “new plan. I’m going to try to grab my Allomantic grenades. They broke free during that blast earlier. You need to stop the strange version of yourself.”
“What?” he demanded. “Because she’s a Slider, she’s a strange version of me?”
“I agree,” VenDell said. “Wayne is already incredibly strange — so a strange version of him would be normal.”
“It doesn’t matter!” Marasi snapped. “Wayne, deal with the Slider. VenDell, distract the Coinshot. Ready?”
“Ready,” Wayne said.
“Not ready!” VenDell said.
“Drop the bubble!” Marasi said, already leaping forward.
Wayne complied, and the sound of the room hit her in a cacophony. Men scrambling for weapons and starting to fire. Screams and shouts of pain. Constables trying to organize themselves — a dozen different voices giving conflicting orders.
Marasi tackled Captain Blantach — who had barely reached her feet — pushing her behind another of the trucks. The Sequence’s shots hit the floor, tossing up chips of concrete, barely missing the woman.
Blantach scrambled to her feet in surprise, then nodded in thanks to Marasi, who already had her back to the truck. It was the one she’d ridden into the building — but Moonlight was nowhere to be seen.
Wayne tackled the Slider a moment later. VenDell hopped out from behind the fallen truck and began waving his hands. “Look at me! Defenseless! And a traitor! Ha! I’m going to tell the constables everything!”
He took a shot straight to the head.
“Rusts!” Captain Blantach shouted, finally putting it all together. “They have an Allomancer!”
Marasi sighed. “Can you organize a resistance, Captain!” she shouted over the increasing din. “The weapons at the top of each box in these trucks are real, and all of the vehicles are plated to provide cover!”
“Right, then,” Blantach said, turning and waving toward the eastern wall of the room. “Constables! To me! We—”
The truck they were hiding behind lurched. Marasi barely leaped away in time as a second powerful Steelpush shook the room. The warehouse walls rattled, wood breaking and nails ripping free. Men and women who had found weapons were again shoved backward.
And the truck Marasi had been using for cover was thrown away like it had been drop-kicked. It crashed out onto the street, tumbling end over end, spilling boxes that shattered into weapons. Rusts!
It narrowly missed Blantach, who had already been on the move toward the snarl of constables and thugs. Many of them had been knocked to the ground.
Now that Marasi’s cover was gone, she saw the Sequence shake an aluminum flask, then unscrew it and take a drink. More metals, Marasi realized. If she remembered correctly, every time the Sequence used duralumin he would need to restore his reserves.
As the Sequence finished drinking, a figure with a bullet hole in the forehead tackled him. VenDell was, at the very least, trying.
“Organize the constables!” Marasi shouted to Blantach, then ran for the gaping open front of the warehouse. Somewhere in the debris was her metals belt — with her grenades. Those had to be her best chance at stopping a superpowered Allomancer.
On her way, she passed an incredible sight: Wayne and the other Slider fighting.
Wayne leaped toward the Slider in a sudden burst of speed — but dropped his bubble in midair. She tossed hers up, catching them both, and the two became a blur of swinging dueling canes and frantic motion. The speed bubble dropped and they split apart, rounding each other — before speeding up and clashing again, so fast that Marasi couldn’t even make out their blurs.
Rusts. Stay focused, Marasi thought. She dodged out of the front of the warehouse and scanned the debris — ignoring the sorry truck that lay upside down nearby, one tire spinning.
There, she thought, leaping to grab her metals belt, which was peeking from beneath a broken box. She yanked it out and fished inside a pouch, but the latch had broken open and two of the grenades had spilled free. She only had one.
A floppy body flew past and slammed into the overturned truck. It slumped and hit the ground, then rolled a mangled face toward her on a broken neck. “I have been defeated,” VenDell said, words slurred by the broken jaw. “I am billing you for these bones.”
“Don’t be a baby,” she said, and immediately started burning cadmium. The box buzzed in her fingers, charging up.
She dashed into the room to find that Blantach had gathered a group of constables — both Marasi’s and her own — behind the cover of several overturned trucks. Many of the gangsters were grouped at the rear of the chamber near the Sequence. They were arming themselves with weapons from the back rooms, it seemed, and others were pulling out riot shields.
Wayne and his foe were still blurs. The Sequence had risen into the air, hovering on a Steelpush. Bullets bent around him, striking the wall, unable to hit directly. Rusts. If he could do that, he was far more experienced with his powers than the Cycle Marasi had fought. At least he couldn’t do those mega-Pushes without harming his own people.
Marasi dashed in, low, and crouched up against one of the overturned trucks. She set the timer on her grenade and watched for a moment when the Sequence was turned. Hopefully he’d rely upon his powers to deflect bullets, and wouldn’t see her grenade.
Unfortunately, the Sequence glanced in her direction as she hurled the grenade. He barely managed to Push it away, and it detonated near the far wall, not catching anyone. He caught her eye from up there, then shot a coin her direction. She barely ducked under cover in time. Rusts. He could move this truck at any moment.