Chum

"If that's how it's gonna be, let's show these kids what happen when they mess with the big boys," Aaron jeers, flanked by the dark-skinned and the light-skinned Coyotes while the other two amble towards us, gravel crunching underneath their feet. The dark-skinned Coyote reaches out to grab the pocketknife abandoned by the greasy one, pulling it into big, sausage-like fingers, while the white one looks around, mystified.

I watch Aaron, maybe a little too long, almost missing the fact that a pipe is currently being swung at my face. I lean backwards and it whiffs, but I feel the rush of air in front of my face, I hear the whoosh, and consider for a moment how close I came to what would've undoubtedly been an instant concussion.

I glance to my left. One of the pillars holding up the overpass above us, formerly a tall cylinder, has been stretched out into what's more like a pill shape, indicating the familiar twisting and churning of Jordan's powers. Who was once inches from my face is now feet, then yards, the two of them running at me like they're stuck on a treadmill.

"Boss, they've got fuckin' powers!" The bronze-skinned one yells, straining to get close to me, huffing and puffing as the space continues to stretch and stretch out. It's almost comical, if not for the fact that he's trying to hospitalize me.

"No shit. They're also twelve," Aaron shouts back. "Use your fucking heads! Go around!"

Jordan glances backward, their hands raised, fingers splayed, while I get into the best fighting stance I can manage. I remember everything Rampart taught me, to the best of my ability. Sure, I should be getting into a martial arts style right now, but what I drilled before the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu training was an hour of punching and kicking a sandbag until my knuckles and shins hurt. I tense my entire body up. I feel my nostrils flare.

"Snap it back, Safe. I'm ready," I say back to Jordan, just loud enough for them to hear me, while the bronze-skinned one vanishes behind the stretched out pillar, breaking line of sight. I'm only a little bit surprised to see him swinging around the other side, much closer to us now, seconds later.

"Whoa," he says, visibly double taking, while Jordan steps closer to me, turning around, back to back. He shakes his head, steadies himself, and starts charging again.

The world snaps back into place. Now haggard and panting, the greasy one is suddenly in my face - but I'm ready, and my shin makes contact with his side, sending him reeling a step or two back. He wildly swings with a pipe, missing me by feet, while I hear the rattling of chains getting swung behind me, feel them just dip into my hair for a moment.

"This is the only axis I can work with, Wolf!" Jordan yells, as I catch them ducking and bobbing and weaving like a boxer. A slow, clumsy boxer wearing platforms, but it's a much better outing than our first fight in the Walgreens. It seems like they've been practicing just like me. I push down the feeling of pride, not conducive to short-term survival.

The bronze one grunts at Jordan's clumsy fists landing into his ribs and gut, and then wraps his chains around their wrist, beginning to twist and pull and squeeze. Jordan's voice takes on a high pitched, shrill timbre, shaped through their voice changer. I hear their wrist creak. "Eyes on the prize, wolfie!" The greasy one yells, their pipe colliding with my torso. The padding on my costume eats most of the force, but it still hurts, and I swat him away, swinging twice for his face just to make space.

"Get off of me!" Jordan yells, trying to swing the larger man around. I take three steps back and grab for the chains, ducking down and torquing the bronze-skinned one over my shoulder, throwing him down on the ground - he lands with a quiet thump and bounces maybe half a centimeter, the wind forced out of him.

"Make some space. I got this," I tell them.

"You cannot handle a two on one, much less the five on one this is about to turn into," Jordan replies, voice wheezing through their filter while they rub their wrist.

"Watch me," I growl, ushering Jordan back with my arms. They sigh, and the space swells once again, filled with duplicate gravel that crunches into dust peals underneath my feet, space once again made - with us at the edge, and the miscreants at the center, unable to just escape out the back again. "Can't you use the walls of the underpass?"

"Oh, right, duh," Jordan replies, getting their hands out in front of them. "If I cut across two axii then I start getting exhausted. I'll have to collapse this one if you want me to pinch them."

"Just cover me," I reply. "Keep them from hitting me."

My hands form into fists, digging my fingertips into my palms, and my teeth clench up hard enough to hurt. I harden my body in preparation for being struck. Jordan steps back, and I put myself at an angle to see as they leave the space between the two pillars. Now outside of what their power considers a "closed space", the world snaps back again, and I'm ready faster than they are.

I throw a punch, a quick jab to the chest, and send the greasy one reeling back, wheezing. I lean in close and throw a second punch to the same spot, and then a third, ducking underneath a swung chain and getting in close while it collides with the greasy one's face. The bronze-skinned one lunges for me, and missteps over Jordan's powers, stumbling into my knee as I drive it into his stomach.

My back sings with pain as a pipe collides with it from the side, coming in perpendicular to my spine - that means it's making a plus shape - and I spit out air. The chain holder's fist collides with my face, impact enhanced by the wrapping of rusted, heavy metal, and I reel sideways into the greasy one pulling back and swinging again. This time, it strikes right across my shoulderblades, and I thank Gossamer in my head for all the padding in my armor, turning what would've easily been a bone-breaking swing into just a painful thump.

I duck under an oncoming left hook and for a moment consider sweeping my leg. But, while looking cool, the killjoy in my head says that's a bad idea, so I just grab the greasy guy by the ankle and yank, pulling him off his balance. He skids for control against the gravel, and with my lower position, I immediately go to punch the bronze-skinned one in the balls.

I feel them against my knuckles. Gross.

He goes stumbling back, coughing and spitting and yowling like a wet cat. Jordan puts more space between them and I so I can catch my breath, while a cloud of duplicate-dust swirls around us, nobody able to determine what gravel is about to disintegrate underneath them and what's the real stuff, the kind that sucks to get thrown on. I wipe spit from my mouth against the back of my other hand.

I look back towards Aaron, and notice too late that one of the goons is missing. I whip my head around. "Safe, behind you!"

Jordan ducks back just in time to avoid a switchblade or a pocketknife or whatever the fuck catching the bare edge of their cloak. Thankfully, it does its job - preventing the dark-skinned guy from getting a bead on Jordan's center mass, and they slap their palms against the guy's ears before kneeing him in the balls. Jordan makes space sideways across the underpass, which keeps the bronze-skinned guy away from me, but doesn't do anything for the greasy guy pulling himself up from the ground, groaning.

"What kind of fucking Coyotes do you think y'all are? You can't beat up two fucking middle schoolers?" Aaron screams from the sidelines.

"They've got fucking karate training, man!" The bronze-skinned one whines, his voice half an octave higher. "She got me in the fucking balls, Aaron! Kill this bitch!"

"Fucking pussies," Aaron sighs. Something in the air feels wrong, which is all the notice I get before a nearby crate, or what used to be one, bursts into flames. It's immediately consumed in a bright yellow fire, sending off a plume of smoke that starts to waft over the bronze-skinned one.

I am distracted by the fire just long enough to get smacked in the ribs with a pipe at full speed. I grab his wrist, pray that Jordan can handle the other one without me, and pull him in close, jabbing my knuckles into his armpit. When he stumbles past me, his own momentum and weight and pain carrying him further than he intended, I sweep my shin into his knee, causing something to pop - and he buckles. "Get the fucking... Get the fucking cape one! You fucking dumbasses!"

"No you don't," I growl, turning around and bounding over the gravel towards Jordan. Out of the smoke emerges the bronze-skinned guy, swinging his chains over his head like he's trying to lasso a cow, zero finesse, zero skill. He may be bigger, but I've been playing soccer for a while - and I'm faster. I lower my head and dive into him, turning myself into a human spear and hurling all hundred-twenty-five pounds of me into his stomach.

My tackle pays off, sending him grinding against the gravel, ripping open his shirt from the back. I get on top of him, just like Rampart taught me, and pin his arms down with my knees. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Jordan fencing for position with the dark-skinned guy, as he pokes more and more holes in their cloak, each one a near-miss. Jordan's palm smashes into his nose, and a sudden gush of blood wakes up my own, nostrils twitching to life despite their lack of proper use with my powers. It just feels right - to open up and smell the metallic air.

"Safe, the fire!" I shout, before turning my attention back down to the struggling, squirming guy beneath me. He's trying extremely hard to get up - it shouldn't be that hard to remove a fourteen-year old girl from on top of you - but I'm stopping him from using most of his leverage with my knees and hands, grinding them down into his joints. He gasps and breathes in pain, and I turn my head just too late, getting clipped in the shoulder by a recklessly swung pipe. I try to hold down the fort, but my sudden jerking makes it child's play for the bronze-skinned one to wrench me off, hurling me away. I curl up and roll with it, using my heels to stop most of my momentum, shaking gravel out of my costume.

"A little busy!" Jordan shouts back. I reach down, grab a fistful of gravel, and hurl it at the encroaching two, just to distract them, to get them to flinch. The air is rapidly filling up with uncomfortable smoke, but I don't need to look to see where the knife-wielder is - I just turn around and grab his wrist mid swing, pulling myself underneath his arm and beginning to bend his elbow the wrong way around.

"Now get the fire!" I shout, wrenching his hand, getting my feet inside his own. My front is pressed up against his back now, like I'm holding him hostage, pulling his arm in all sorts of ways that G-d never intended arms to move in. His fingers shake as he clearly tries to retain a grip on his knife, and Jordan turns back, clapping their hands together. Suddenly, the two pillars squeeze together, and the burning debris vanishes, leaving a solid wall of concrete cylinders and blocking Aaron and the last remaining lackey from view. "Drop it and I won't break your arm," I growl to the dark-skinned guy.

He drops the knife. I stomp on it with my metal cleats, and then I stomp again with my heel, shattering it. I let go of his arm - I don't know, to prove some sort of heroicness - and shove him forward into Jordan.

"Watch it!" Jordan yells, stepping out to the side and shoving him towards the two charging goons. We've got everyone back in front of us again, and when Jordan unsqueezes the space, the debris is totally extinguished. "Oh, shit, I didn't know I could do that."

"Cool, great discovery, let's get this done," I growl back, not able to stop the affect from leeching into my speaking voice now that I've turned it on. Aaron stares daggers at us, before looking up at the underpass. "Hey! Fuckface! Are you gonna back up your boys or just let them get their ass kicked by a couple of middle schoolers?"

"Working on it, shithead!" Aaron yells back, still staring upwards, lackadasically. I hear him when he lowers his voice, but just barely - "Go help them, dumbass."

The white guy gets up from his seat and reaches under the table to grab... Another knife, I can tell from the glinting. God damnit.

"I can't believe you guys are all losing to a baby girl like this. Embarassing showing for the Tacony Coyotes," Jordan taunts, while the three active combatants pant and wheeze, blood flowing down the dark-skinned guy's nose and around his lips.

"Eat shit and die," The bronze-skinned one hisses, glancing around. "Where's the fucking gun?"

"It's in the truck, homes," The dark-skinned one says - and before I can even tell them to, Jordan is bolting, running faster than I thought someone who was wearing platforms could possibly run.

"Yo, Aaron, you gonna help yet?" The greasy one says, while the bronze-skinned one and Jordan both race to the pick-up truck.

"I'm helping," Aaron says, continuing to stare at the beams holding the underpass up.

The greasy one lets out a grunt of anger, smashing his pipe against the ground, kicking up gravel.

I put out a hand, fingers together, thumb in my palm. I pull my fingers closer to me, all at once, and then do it again. The universal signal. "Bring it".

Do I think I can take three men at once? Absolutely not. Just so we're clear. But I can't let them know I don't think that.

They all approach as a pack, spreading out to circle me, while I'm flanked by the two concrete pillars. This place was a road once, decades ago, and now it's just a battleground.

I take stock. Dark-skinned guy is on my left, bleeding, while the white guy is to my right and the greasy guy is coming straight up at me. I turn towards the latter two, able to feel the other one in my periphery from his bloody nose. I can tell he thinks he's being sneaky, because he's moving slow, further and further behind me, trying not to crunch on the gravel. The other two both come in, basically forming a right angle, with me at the corner. The one with the pipe lags a little bit, so I head towards him, lowering my head to duck under his telegraphed swing.

Boxing stance, one fist in the stomach, and then I just drop to the ground at the guy with dark skin swings over me, clearly trying to get me in a bear hug. I roll backwards and then start to scuttle as the greasy guy swings his pipe and cracks the guy with dark skin right in the chest.

Then, a knife skids across my arm, clearly flung, twisting end over end and landing in the gravel. It mostly bounced off, but I feel the shallow cut blooming with blood, the sudden distraction of my own vascular system blossoming into my mind's eye. I roll over sideways, to get on my belly, and then shove myself off the ground, aiming to shoot towards the white guy who just threw a knife at me and missed. "Dawg, how'd she fucking see me?" I hear from my side, as I go sailing off into the white guy's knees.

Unlike the other times, this tackle doesn't work. I can tell before it's even over - he stands his ground, squares his hips, and reaches down to grab me by the belly, yanking me up. I try to get my legs around his neck for some kind of leverage, but all I hear is "-watch wrestling?" and then the ground rises up to meet my skull.

I pull up, getting it to crunch against my significantly more padded neck and shoulders instead, but it still hurts, electricity crackling through my veins and joints and nerves as his piledriver lands. I hear laughing, and too stunned to move, just shut my eyes for a second, feeling the bleeding one getting closer.

I go slack.

"Yo? I think you just killed her, dawg," the voice I recognize as the greasy one says, tapping against my head with his pipe. No, I'm not dead, but I'm certainly going to play it. "Look, she's not moving."

I hold my breath. I hold it without taking a big inhale beforehand, and it starts to hurt within seconds.

"Oops. Oh well," The white guy says, dropping his grip on me. I let my weight just pull me on the floor. "Yo, Aaron! We killed the wolf bitch!"

Dark-skinned guy is looking away, back towards Aaron. I can only hope this means the rest of them are, too. I hear Aaron call back. "Well, crack her skull to make sure and then dump her into the Delaware. How long have you fuckers been doing this for? You should know what to do by now."

I jerk upwards, bring my teeth to bare against greasy guy's ankle, and bite. I feel a bone, or maybe a ligament, tear underneath my teeth, and the taste of blood, salty and chrome, quickly floods my mouth. I jerk away before I can tear a chunk out, and then twist upwards while the greasy guy starts screaming, dropping his pipe.

No use saying no to a free pipe. I grab it, do a sit-up, and while everyone else is yelling, swing it at the white guy's knee, then again, and then fling it away. I twist out from underneath them and ignore the loud noises, scraping up what blood I can collect from the almost-closed cut on my arm and swiping it against his pants just to mark him. There - three out of three.

In the distance, I hear Jordan's unmistakable voice. "Go fish!"

"She bit me! Crazy bitch bit me!" The greasy guy wails like a baby, blood spilling out onto the gravel, marking his path for me. "With those fucking teeth! Call a fucking doctor, Aaron, this isn't funny anymore!"

I make some space while they're busy yelling at each other, and see just the tiniest silhouette of something being flung into the Delaware. It hits the surface, imperceptible over the screaming. "You fucking idiots, it's just two fucking girls!" Aaron screams back, getting up from the poker table, slamming it, chips rattling.

"You said you were gonna help, man! I didn't sign up to fight no fucking capes!" The greasy guy screams back, while the white goon doesn't even seem to have noticed me marking him with my blood - only that I've scrambled away.

"I am helping, fucker! Stand back!" Aaron shouts. My blood runs cold.

The overpass collapses on top of me.