Normally, twelve against one would be insurmountable odds. I am not normal, and I am pissed.

A beam of red light flashes in front of my face, but I ignore it. A moment later, a wave of nausea tells me to leap, and lightning flashes below my skates. I hit the ground and roll under a swing from Hefty, then land a solid blow on Coach's knee with a baton I snatched off a fallen cop during my approach. He doesn't seem to care, but I'm already gone before he can grab me, twisting to avoid another beam from Anne just before leaping over a kick from McFly.

My focus is Heels, the one making that force field. Besides my desire for unfettered network access, I'm worried about reinforcements. I'm just one guy, after all. If I can take down Heels, we'll be able to call in the National Guard if needed. Not to mention the impact this force field is going to have on our food and water supplies if it stays up for too long. The other Suits might be more immediate threats to everybody around, but if Heels manages to slip away and hide, there's no telling how long it will take to root her out and shut the field down. Maybe the National Guard could just blast their way through by dropping some bombs on it, but maybe not -- and if they do, what kind of collateral damage might happen? And what about the Tonbosa River? If the field extends far enough to block the river, there will be a bunch of flooding to the north. Beating all of the Suits right now just plain is not in the cards, but if I can at least stop Heels, I can avert the worst of this mess.

To that end, I spray some pepper her way with one fist while swinging my new baton with the other. An invisible force sweeps away the pepper spray, and she simply ducks under my baton before grabbing my arm and throwing me with a lot more strength than I remember her having back in Pharmedica's lab. Not inhuman strength by any means, but a lot more than you'd expect just by looking at her. She's not exactly ripped. At least she didn't put up a force field; I'm guessing she can't maintain more than one force field at a time, so all she's got right now are those force-shoves. That's a relief, because otherwise I'd have to find a way to reflect one of Anne's beams at Heels, or maybe trick one of her friends into missing me and hitting the shield hard enough to break it. I don't know if they even can. Then again, the energy in a bullet really isn't that high, it's just concentrated-

My guts wriggle a little and remind me that the ground is coming, so I twist in midair to minimize the pain when I land, then bounce to my skates and launch into a dropkick aimed at Burnscar, who just happens to be directly in my path. I must be pretty tired still from all the excitement earlier, because Burnscar almost seems to flicker as I hit him. I blink and reach down as I fall to swing myself back onto my skates, then I launch into a feint at Butch before swerving around him to take another crack at Heels. This time I use my attack with the baton as a distraction while I roll a Peppernade toward her with my other hand. As expected, she shoves my baton aside with her force projection power but misses the real threat. It's too bad I haven't managed to restock on flash-bangs yet, but this will do.

I make another pass at Burnscar while the fuse on the Peppernade triggers, but I stumble when my baton passes harmlessly through him. Crap! He can he turn intangible like Harris! Coach takes advantage of my imbalance to land a blow to my chest. My danger sense gives me just enough warning to twist so that the strike isn't direct, and that's probably all that saves me from having a broken sternum as I go flying back with a torn poncho and empty lungs, trailing a stream of vomit. The vomit wasn't from his strike, though that certainly didn't help matters; it was from the intense danger sensing. So much for that last granola bar...

While most of me is busy being stunned, a little fragment of instinct tries to get my skates under me before I land. It fails, and I hit the ground hard, rolling to a stop next to one of the loudspeakers. My lungs aren't sucking air yet, but I don't have time to wait for them as my stomach writhes. I kick off from the speaker and narrowly avoid another of Anne's beams, then I grab a fist full of Hefty's pants to haul myself to my feet as he stumbles out of an aborted strike with a curse. "Watch yer lousy aim, Anne!" he bellows, then he turns to grab me. I'm not there anymore, and his pants are around his knees. Unfortunately, he doesn't trip like I'd hoped. His legs just rip his pants apart like tissue paper. At least it seems to infuriate him; an angry opponent is a reckless opponent. Between that and his slowness, I'm not too worried. Terence was scarier.

What does have me worried is my depleting stamina. I'm breathing again, but that hit Coach landed hurt, and I'm still sore from fighting Terence and Rob. Hopefully the distraction I'm causing will give whichever cops escaped Zappy's onslaught a chance to rally and pitch in. I'm not going to be able to keep going at this pace much longer without help. I duck a swing from Butch and turn toward Heels just in time to see her scrubbing at her face with a damp cloth. I spray a dose of pepper spray behind me at Butch as I close in on her, then leap as my stomach twists. I don't know what it is I leap over, but nothing bad happens. Unfortunately, this throws off my aim and I miss Heels entirely. I dig in with my skates when I land and carve out a sharp turn to avoid some major danger vibes from Butch, then jump the invisible threat again. I'd think it was Heels' force shoves if she wasn't facing the opposite direction right now. Well, there are means of dealing with invisibles, if necessary.

Somebody shouts a warning to Heels, but I still manage to land a blow this time. I hit her shoulder instead of her neck, though, and she remains in the fight. She does miss me and hit Bigfoot with her shove, at least. I'm not sure where he came from, though I get the impression he dropped in from above. I jump up and spring off his back while he's on his knees, then land a kick to Coach's face on my way back down. That's when Mr. Invisible tries to interfere again. As I duck under the threat, I spray my Pepper Fist at it. The spray seems to disappear after a foot or so, but I hear a scratchy voice cursing. I've got too much momentum to make another attack on him, so I lean out of the way of a lightning bolt and then give Butch his own taste of Wheels Brand pepper spray.

I'm not using the stuff quite as liberally as I normally do, since I used up a lot of it with Terence and haven't had time to swing through the Wheelhouse to refill. To avoid wasting any, I'm trying to only fire when I think I'll hit, rather than using it for suppression. Therefor, it comes as a surprise when I turn toward Heels again and notice Burnscar nearby scrubbing his own face. I know I didn't hit him, and he wasn't in range of the Peppernade either. He must be the invisible guy. I roll a Glownade his way and then make an attack on Heels. I figure she's probably expecting another feint, so instead of doing anything fancy, I just charge in and strike. Something whooshes past my side and her reddened, watery eyes widen as she realizes that she miscalculated, but then she twists aside and deflects most of my blow with her own arm. Not missing a beat, she whips out a blackjack that leaves a sizeable dent in my helmet before I can react to the roiling signals from my gut. Yep, definitely getting tired.

I shake the stars out of my eyes and begin a wobbly turn when a sudden spike of nausea sends me diving to the side as a sharp crack rings out and then keeps on ringing. I roll back onto my wheels again to find myself face to face with a gun held by Bangs. That's okay; the nausea's gone now, so that means she's either not going to immediately fire again, or her next shot's not going to hit. I hop up with a little of the residual momentum from my roll and then come down with a kick to her knee that makes a pretty ugly sound. Then, as I watch her fall to the ground with an expression of fear and pain on her face, I recognize her. Trembly, the very first person I freed from Pharmedica. What is she doing here with them? Stockholm syndrome?

No time to wonder; yet another lightning bolt fires at me. I dodge it, but then a second twist of my gut tells me I've been caught in a pincer attack. The second bolt hits my left shoulder, courses through the cables I wrapped around my chest, and blasts out the other side. Not all of it goes through the wire, though. It feels like a hot, twitchy drill being stabbed through my shoulder, upper chest cavity, and out my back. At least I can feel the wound throbbing rapidly. Throbbing is good. Throbbing means it didn't stop my heart despite getting real close to the poor thing. Breathing is pretty painful, though, and now those wires are uncomfortably hot. Not enough to burn me through my padding, but-

My gut twists some more and I duck, purely by reflex, while another crack from Bangs's direction enhances my tinnitus. At least Speedy, Stubbly, and McFly don't seem to be joining the fight. Where are they, anyway? I parry a strike by Bigfoot with my baton, dose him with pepper spray, and make a quick spin to look around. Oh. They're fighting what's left of the police to keep them from backing me up. I try to duck a swing from Heels, but I move too slowly and take a hit from her blackjack on my good shoulder. Something about her feels off. Familiar but wrong, and it seems like she has more reach than she should. I'm moving slower this time, but that's not necessarily a bad thing since it lets me curve around more tightly and land a blow to her side while she throws her force shove at where she thought I was going to be. Then Bigfoot falls out of the sky directly in front of me and I have to dive between his legs to avoid his bear hug.

I roll back onto my wheels on the other side with a grunt of pain and try to hit Burnscar, but I pass through him again and then feel an invisible attack coming from my other side that I barely dodge. Then it clicks. He isn't using invisibility or intangibility. Something else. Better let folks know while I take a breather. "Spook," I mutter as I try to gain a little distance. "Burnscar makes illusions, displacement style, and Bigfoot flies or power-jumps. Coach is a brick. Bangs uses a gun, and I broke her knee without trouble, so I'm not sure what she's got, but she was a Pharmedica captive. I remember rescuing her. Butch might be a brick; he hasn't hit me, but his attacks carry way more danger than they should. Heels only seems to do one force field at a time, but can do force shoves and is a lot tougher than she looks." I dodge a few more lightning bolts, gunshots, and lasers; I thought I was going to catch my breath, but I forgot that gaining distance from the melee fighters just means the ranged ones can unload on me. "Running out of juice here. Gonna crank it to eleven for one more try, then bail." I really don't want to give Heels an opportunity to flee, but a dead Wheels can't help anyone, and if I keep this up much longer, I'll be too tired to escape. Should have ordered more tacos.

No matter. I might be tiring, but I'm also finally getting the feel of these guys. Zappy is careful and tricky. Anne is reckless about friendly fire. Bigfoot is directly in front of me. I go around, keeping him between me and Anne. Zappy has a clear shot, but he won't take it with Bigfoot this close, so Anne's the one to worry about. Hefty's too slow to be a problem, so I swing past him next, careful to stay out of reach, then dart between Butch and Coach. Those two don't seem to like each other for some reason; they've been maintaining a fair amount of distance and glaring at each other all fight, and both hesitate when they realize approaching me means getting near the other. Then I'm past them and heading toward Burnscar. He's stumbling around looking vulnerable as he continues groping at his eyes, but that's a trap. He's trying to sucker me into attacking his illusion so he can hit me from elsewhere. I'm not playing that game anymore; I charge directly through the illusion at Heels, who is not expecting that but reacts to it quickly. What she doesn't react to is the fact that my left hand is now holding a knife; I drew it while on the other side of Burnscar's illusion. I don't give her a chance to see it, either, because I throw my baton at her and then immediately make a slashing motion with my right hand to spray pepper spray into the space she's going to want to dodge into. She uses her force shove to clear the pepper spray while dodging the baton, but neither was the true attack. The true attack is me rolling between her knees and slicing open her inner thigh with the knife.

Heels spins and kicks me hard in my bad shoulder with her other leg, then falls as her wounded leg gives out. Meanwhile, rather than keep skating, I dig my skates into the ground to powerslide myself upright and spring back at her, knife now in my right hand and aimed for her throat. I hit it too, except that I don't. My eyes clearly see the knife sliding through her neck, but what my hand feels is the knife lodging under what might be a collar bone and slipping out of my grip. Another illusion? What is-

I dry heave while launching myself as high into the air as possible, narrowly escaping a lightning bolt, only to throw myself into the second bolt. It hits me square in the abs, and while most of it routes through the wire mesh to the other side, a good portion sears through my innards and spine. And that's the end of that. I collapse to the ground and moan uselessly while Butch laughs and runs toward me. My legs don't respond to my orders to get up and skate. I can't even feel them anymore. "Noooooooo..." I moan through gritted teeth. "I need those..."

Suddenly there is blinding light right in my face. I squint my eyes and make out the form of some kind of glowing person with wings standing over me, crouching to rest a hand on my chest. Tendrils of warmth and coolness reach through my body from the point of contact, and I feel the itchiest I have ever felt in my entire life. And then there is no pain. Major lethargy, but no pain. Not even soreness. The light softens to a dull glow, and I see a teenage boy standing up, his cheap costume angel wings flopping in the breeze. He turns to Butch, who has stopped and is staring at us in confusion. The "angel" presses his fists to his hips and speaks. Loudly. Actually, everything is loud, and the dull ringing from the gunshots is gone.

"Quake in fear, foul evildoers! Dillan's Fist of Derringers has arrived to smite thine wretched backsides!"

What.

"Hey!" shouts a familiar, irritated voice from above. "It's Derring-Do, Dillan. Not Derringers!"

"Yeah, that!"

A man in a white leotard under yellow football armor lands next to me. "Never fear, Wheels. We're here to save the day!" That voice. He's got a bunch of paint on his face inside that helmet, but that's definitely Rob. Behind him are four others. One is Dillan's brother in a toga and a smaller set of wings, armed with a fancy bow and a quiver of arrows. Another is a man-sized person wearing one of those sheet-ghost costumes. The third has a sky-blue open-face motorcycle helmet, a white bandana over his mouth, a tasseled white leather jacket with matching pants, sky-blue cowboy boots, and a pair of brass knuckles. The last one is bare chested, wearing only sandals, a white kilt, and a green and white luchador mask, and he's armed with a club.

I take a deep breath and push myself up into a sitting position. I can feel my legs again, but I can tell they're not going to be supporting me quite yet. "Pretty sure I'm hallucinating all this, but thanks, Imaginary Dillan."

"Just doing my duty!" He starts moving toward Heels while the others split up and engage with the rest of the Suits, who are starting to look a little worried. When Dillan presses a hand against Heel's cheek, she goes rigid for a moment as her wounds seal up, then collapses into unconsciousness. He heads for Bangs next, who looks back and forth between me and Heels, then down at her ruined knee. She grits her teeth, drops her gun, and nods at him.

Meanwhile, Dillan's brother has crouched behind a police barricade and is firing arrows at Anne and Zappy, who look way more freaked out than the situation calls for. "Y'all think Forchester belongs to you," he shouts, "but your emotions belong to me! Flee while you still can!"

Closer to me, the guy in the luchador mask is fighting Butch. I was wrong; Butch isn't a brick. He's a cutter. His swings never actually connect with the luchador, but they leave open gashes behind. Those open gashes then promptly seal back up as the man keeps on fighting. Butch, on the other hand, is looking more and more battered, and starting to shiver. The wind shifts and blows a bunch of very cold air from where they're fighting. Huh.

Rob and the white leather guy are fighting Bigfoot, Coach, Hefty, and Burnscar. Rob's keeping them all afloat so they can't get any leverage, while White Leather Guy flies in and does the actual fighting one-on-one, flying away to fight a different one any time things stop going his way, like when Coach tries to throw a knife at him. It bounces off a tiny little black disk that flicks into existence for a moment before Leathers throws Bigfoot at him.

Then there's the ghost. He stares at me for a moment, then drifts off toward the cops, who are losing their fight against Speedy, Stubbly, and McFly. I decide he must be Harris when he drifts directly through a barricade.

"Wheels?" crackles Joe's voice in my head. My Skullbuzzers must have taken some damage. "Are you okay? What's going on over there?"

"I have no freakin' idea, Spook."