Deflecting Cradle's attacks

Cradle swiped his cables at me. I flew back and away, evading. He swiped again, a backhand, and I barely needed to evade.

Not meant for me. He'd swiped at the camera.

The camera dodged.

The hand shook, and cables reconfigured. The one at the middle finger was longer.

One swipe, angled to connect with either me or the camera. I hit it with the Wretch, and saw the crimson highlighting twist and distort, as the camera struggled to keep up with the outline of the cable.

The cable hit the ground around the base of Cradle's robot, and the soil exploded with the impact. Again, that surrounding force.

His version of Rain's power. Or something he'd begged and borrowed for, maybe, another tinker's tech, modified to work with his gear. That was a thing tinkers could do- a thing that drove them into tinker enclaves or the PRT. Past tense 'drove'.

That effect meant I couldn't catch it, but I could still deflect. Where things got harder was that I wasn't sure of the fallout now. The cord was over a hundred feet long now, the arm was twenty five or so feet long, and even if I knocked the cord to one side, I couldn't be sure it wouldn't land in a way that put it near teammates.

I closed the distance. There were still other cables, and if I couldn't control the whip-

The hand came up. I flew to intercept, and hit the back of the hand as hard as I could, before it reached the momentum necessary to flick the whip. The impact dented the surface of the hand, but didn't stop it from raising up, catching me as it rose. The movement was too slow for the impact to hurt, but it was an impact, and that impact made my gunshot wound hurt more.

***

Cradle moved his whip hand. I smacked it down, then evaded the various cables that swung in my direction, while I waited for the Wretch to return.

***

I struck an arm again- getting past the endless barriers was next to impossible, especially when the cables were whipping around and I was vulnerable right after any impact. This hit was aimed at destabilizing, putting him on tilt, so he had to adjust, shift weight, and move arms around.

***

An arm moved- not the hand or the arm itself, but the elbow that came at me. I deflected.

- Pitch 6.5