Our eyes locked. That was a mistake. The air between us started to crackle, almost looked as if it was starting to burn. If I looked away that power was all going straight for me... I knew I wasn't going to win this.
     In my peripheral vision, Promethean fired another blow at Monster, who shook off the attack and snarled curses. Outside, No-name appeared to desert the battle, headed off down an alley and vanished.
     My staring contest wasn't going well. Very soon there was going to be an explosion. The point of meeting between our warring powers was inching its way closer to me.
     "Hans, you might want to get out of here," I muttered.
     Monster threw a punch at Promethean and took out part of the wall, shook his fist free with a growl.
     Something outside exploded. Flame-face looked up, breaking our lock—much to my short-lived relief. Part of the ceiling caught fire.
     "Switch partners," Promethean suggested suddenly in his accented English. "You take the big guy, I'll get this one."
     "Thank you, Mister Tactician."
     I feel I ought to mention that it was a really good idea, and I was about to take his advice when the lights went out. Unnatural darkness descended, but began to fade almost immediately as Scott struck out at the woman who had wounded him.
     The tall guy floated out through the impenetrable shadow, the edges of his cloak fluttering through the ground. The light poured off him unstoppably, laser-bright; closing my eyes didn't do any good at all, and after a moment of agonized certainty that my eyes had just fused to the back of my skull, I passed out. So I missed the rest of the fight, including the part where Promethean tried to remove me from the field of battle and was forcibly returned to it by the tall light-caster, who has a certain degree of power in the area of flight. Then No-name showed up again and demonstrated his mind-control on Hans. The tall man finally took Lucky down as she sparred with Monster. Scott lasted longest of us all, but with the rest of us out of the fight, even he eventually succumbed to the attackers' combined attentions.
     They caught us.

| Top |