Malos moved, quick and certain, his body darting for the Rhino, dropping, spinning, so that he kicked the big man's legs out from under him. The Rhino had far too much of a mass advantage on the Ancient. Malos's kick was viciously strong, but he wasn't properly braced to transfer enough of that strength into upsetting the Rhino's balance, and all he was able to do was kick the Rhino in the ankle hard enough to annoy the big guy.
The Rhino kicked him back. It was a blind kick, and didn't land with full force, but it was still strong enough to send Malos flying into a half-stripped old pickup truck, slamming him through the safety glass to a painful impact with the steering wheel and dashboard.
We had to work fast. The Rhino had taken Mor-tia out of the equation, at least for a little while. I had no idea how far he'd actually thrown her, but if she didn't hit something solid, wind resistance would slow her down eventually—say, within half a mile. Then she'd land and head back. Given how fast I'd seen her move, we had maybe a minute to take out at least one of the other Ancients; ninety seconds, tops.
That made me eager to mix it up as soon as I possibly could—but that wasn't the plan. We had to see if my theory was correct, and to do that I had to let them start on the Rhino. So I clenched my hands into fists and waited.
Thanis closed on the Rhino in perfect silence, and as a result slammed his first couple of hits in without opposition. Hits like that probably would have broken my neck. The Rhino just grunted at the first, and was a savvy enough brawler to roll with the second. He swiped one huge hand in an arch and got lucky, more or less. The blow landed, and Thanis staggered back a pair of steps.
Great. Of all the times to have a great opening round, the Rhino picks now, when he's supposed to be losing.
At this rate, he'd probably rough them up just long enough for Mortia to return. I debated tripping him or something. It wouldn't be like I was trying to get him killed. I would just be sticking to the plan, which was everyone's best chance of survival.
As it turned out, I didn't need to do it. Malos came back into the fight with a vengeance, literally seizing the Rhino by the horn and sweeping him up and over to slam the big guy's back onto the ground with earth-shaking force. The impact stunned the Rhino. Malos stepped forward and, with brutal efficiency, stomped a heel down on the Rhino's head, a motion similar to that of a man crushing an empty can of beer. The Rhino's thick skull withstood the impact (of course) but the sheer power of it drove his skull six inches down into the gravel and mud of the junkyard's ground, and it seemed to daze him even more thoroughly.
"Take him," Malos snarled, and lifted his eyes to me.
Thanis bared his teeth in a nasty smile, lifted a hand, fingers spread, and then drove it flat against the Rhino's chest, where another burst of sickly light flared out between his fingers. The Rhino screamed again, and the sound sent a surge of adrenaline and rage through me.
I went into a swan dive, aiming for the Ancient kneeling over the Rhino. As I expected, Malos threw himself in the way, leaping up to meet me in the air. I folded into a roll and, as the Ancient met me, brought both heels into a lashing kick that tagged him squarely on the forehead and killed both his momentum and mine. We dropped the last fifteen feet or so to the ground and landed ten feet apart, facing one another over one of the chemical-spill puddles of various auto fluids.
On the way down, I hit the top tire of a stack behind me with a short webline, and used the elasticity of the line and my own strength to fastball it into Malos's chest. The blow knocked him back— because super strength doesn't mean you suddenly have more mass. Malos might have checked in at around two hundred and fifty pounds, and the tire hit him hard enough to take him off his feet and dump him onto his butt. Best of all, the old tire had been half-full of stagnant water, and it splashed all over his fancy clothes. He looked up and directed a snarl of hatred in my direction.
"Welcome to New York, chump," I said. Then I bounded up onto the tire stack, and from there went over a twelve-foot-high wall made of crushed cars.
Malos let out an angry snarl and chased me. He came sprinting around the corner, focused entirely on my red and blue costume, intent on catching up to me and neutralizing me before I could take a swing at his brother.
Of course, if I had been in the costume he was chasing, it probably would have worked better.
Instead, I hopped up to a shadowy section of the wall of cars and froze, while Felicia bounded through the predawn dimness in my backup costume. In better light, or if she'd been still, there would have been no way anyone with eyes would have mistaken her for me—but wouldn't the Ancients have thought of that kind of thing before they set up the time and place for the showdown?
Malos ripped free a heavy mirror that had somehow survived its parent truck's crushing, and flung it after Felicia. The Black Cat dodged it with contemptuous grace, cleared the wall of cars, and hit the car crusher with her grappling line, then retracted it, hurtling through the air as it pulled her, just ahead of the enraged Ancient, leading him away from the Rhino.
I went back over the wall and flung myself at Thanis. Once upon a time, I probably would have said something cute to make him turn around before I hit him, but wasting time on such a thing in this kind of fight could get me killed.
That said, though, I'm freaking Spider-Man.
"Warning!" I shouted. Thanis blinked and halfturned his head, just in time for me to lay a haymaker directly across his jaw. He flew back from the Rhino and slammed into the side of a junked school bus, and I followed right on his heels. "The surgeon general has determined that attempting to eat the Rhino may result in unanticipated side effects." He bounced off the bus and ran into my fist. I heard teeth break, and felt a rush of furious satisfaction. "Including but not limited to dental problems." I gave him a double-handed sledgehammer blow to the guts. "Nausea." I sent a flurry of jabs at his head, pretending it was a speed bag, and bounced his skull off the bus maybe fifty times in seven or eight seconds. "Headache."
Thanis wobbled forward, his eyes gone glassy, his face broken, bleeding, swelling. He could barely keep his feet. "And," I said, drawing back. "Drowsiness."
It's rare for me to go all-out, but I hit the jerk with every fiber of my body and sent him clear through the bus's metal siding.
The bus rocked a time or two, but the Ancient did not arise. He lay sprawled and motionless inside.
Not bad. Maybe it wasn't as impressive as a Rhino-strong blow, but for a guy who weighs in at one sixty-five, it was a pretty good hit. Even better, my hypothesis had been proven. Thanis had indeed been vulnerable as he fed.
"Don't let me down, Doc," I muttered, and flicked one of the three Alhambran agates at the downed Ancient.
There was a whisper of sound, no louder or stranger than that of a door sliding closed, and Thanis— and the agate—vanished. Gone. Poof Just like… well. Magic.
Hot diggity dang, it worked!
I threw myself over to the Rhino's side. He lay on the ground, his breathing labored. "Aleksei," I said. "You all right?"
"I," he wheezed, "think I do not like these Ancients. Did it work?"
"Yeah. One down. Can you move?"
He shuddered, and after a second I realized that he was trying to get in a sitting position. He gave up with a groan. "It would seem not."
"Okay," I said. "I'll get you out of here."
"No!" he wheezed. "You must finish them before they realize the danger. You may never get a second chance like this one."
"I can't just leave you here. Mortia won't be gone long, and she'll be angry."
The Rhino growled, and swiped an arm weakly at me. It was an improvement, of sorts. "Will be fine in a moment," he said, glaring in my direction. "Now, you must fight. You are using your wits. Speed. They have only strength. And they do not know the danger they are in. This is your kind of battle, Bug Boy. Take it to them."