Charonite was watching, and Castor was going to die.

There was no way they were going to win this: even his punch, fuelled by panic and terror and hate, was what could only be described as "weaksauce", and certainly didn't get in the way of a bloodied, furious Lieutenant Hematite with death and death only on his mind. And there was Charonite watching like a sentinel, a weak bundle of orange and black tossed over his shoulder: holding the whip like a fisherman might hold his pole, waiting for the fry to stop squirming, blood still coming out in gouts. He was going to die.

Unfortunately, Charonite's usual cover of all the bases hadn't quite worked out. As it turned out, he wasn't going to die so long as Astraea was around. She immediately seized on the arm that was sliding into Castor's chest and bit down with excessively sharp cat-teeth, until Hematite cried out -- but that wasn't enough to make him grab his hand back from Castor's star seed. Her hand shot out to his face and, from point-blank range, her fingers and the shining star on her forehead glowed in tandem. The same beam that had shot at Nealite before slammed into Hematite, right in the forehead, making him stumble back and away and trip over the razor wire of Deathcord.

And then, in the confusion, she darted down, and accompanied by the sound of her own high-pitched screaming unwound Deathcord from Castor's ankle. It cut into her soft hands and immediately sliced them to ribbons -- and as Charonite started forward, she lifted her bleeding fingers to her star-symbol again, and the energy gathered in a million tiny motes.

It didn't shoot at Charonite, though: Astraea aimed at the already-injured girl slung over his shoulder, and the beam struck her squarely -- Nealite shuddered epileptically, and Charonite stopped his advance.

"LUNA, YOU b***h," he bellowed --

And to add to the general confusion, police car-doors slammed, the noise of about four safeties clicking off as the police officers scrambled into position to yell useless warnings. Astraea grabbed Castor and with a pop! disappeared, except for a bloodied patch.

Charonite reached forward for Hematite, and they did the same; and suddenly the police were pointing at nothing, and it was quiet.