I hurled a few marbles out onto the ground, each one exploding into a cloud of thick smoke. The waves ripple and shifted, the best warning we got as a tendril of psionic power rushed our way. I jumped aside, yanking Dynamo along by the sweater. Thank fuck he was as heavy as a bag of socks, because even that modest weight made my aching joints scream in protest.

  “It hasn’t been an hour,” I said, dragging him behind a few columns of broken crystal. “Why are you... normal again?!”

  I saw Dynamo grimace, flinching as a violent tremor shook the ground. “I... I guess I took too much damage, and it knocked me out of my form? I dunno, I’m no expert!”

  “You’re not an expert of your own fucking powers?!”

  “Christ! I don’t have a lab to study this shit, do I?!”

  I peered around the corner of our cover, wincing as I saw Impact heading our way. A few shots from my raygun cleaved through the air, striking her barrier only for the lasers to bend and curve around that translucent shell. Luminous red scars shimmered around Impact’s barrier, strands of hot plasma that steamed and smouldered.

  “Oh no,” I murmured, watching as a flickering strand rose from Impact’s barrier, kicking up a gale from the sheer speed of it. I braced, grabbing Dynamo by the collar as I reached out to the springs in my boots.

  A red flash glinted at the back of the chamber, and a split second a beam of boiling hot red light as thick as a van cleaved through the air. It struck the back of Impact’s barrier, the Psion letting out a pained shout as the force of the shot sent her crashing through the ceiling.

  Dust and debris tumbled down in great tides, and suddenly a shaft of dusky light. Foresight came staggering up the war torn chamber, doubling over and gripping his knees. “Ow, ow, ow,” he groaned, slowly shaking his head. “Using my eye beams so much... really starts to hurt after a while.”

  “I think,” Stretch said, staring up at the distant hole in the ceiling, “maybe we should cut our losses and run?”

  “Run?” I asked indignantly. “Stretch, that bitch can fly fast enough to keep pace with Titanium. The damn van isn’t gonna be fast enough to get away. It’s as simple as this: We beat her ass her, or we’re all fucked.”

  The others stared at me gravely. Except for Rover, who just looked mildly hungry.

  “Well, we need a plan. Brute force isn’t gonna cut it,” Dynamo said glumly. “Her shield is tough as hell, for one thing. Foresight’s lasers couldn’t cut through it. And I couldn’t get close enough to use my fists on it. Plus my lightning... well she was damn fast, dodged the bolts before they could it her.”

  That seemed odd, making me knit my brows. She’d tank everything else head on, but went out of her way to dodge Dynamo’s lightning.

  “Alright,” Foresight grumbled, glaring my way. “You’re the smart one. Plan.”

  I glared at him. Fucking asshole. But, loathe as I was to admit it, he had a point. That blast probably only stunned Impact briefly, and she’d come crashing down on us again at any moment. But what could I actually do?

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  I didn’t have the firepower to break that shield if Foresight couldn’t, and it would be a challenge to get Dynamo and Rover close enough to land some hits on her shield.

  I closed my eyes tight behind my goggles, trying my best to force myself to think.

  Drip.

  Why did she dodge the lightning? Why was that Impact’s first course of action? Could it not ward off electricity? Well, even if that was the case, she was still fast enough to dodge Dynamo’s shots.

  Drip.

  I clenched my right hand a few times, felt my secret weapon shift on my gloved palm. Maybe... maybe she could be baited into close range? Hit her with something she couldn’t dodge?

  Drip.

  The damn dripping sound, echoing through the smoky cavern, made my eyes pop open. I glanced over to the great hole in the wall Dynamo had previously been punched through. If I squinted I could just about see a pipe in the hollow beyond, hissing and dripping with water.

  “Got it,” I murmured.

  There was a sound like a crack of thunder, and the entire chamber shook violently around us. The yawning sound above us was torn asunder, like the hand of God had just reached down and rent it open. Impact was a black speck against the darkened sky, faintly aglow with an aura of sickly yellow light.

  “You little shits,” she snarled, voice echoing around the cavern. “I had a good thing going here! The paying spectators, the livestreams, the betting pool! I was earning a nice pile for Warmonger, with enough left over for me! You know how long it’s gonna take for me to get this shit back up and running again?!”

  “Don’t know, don’t care,” I said, my big fat mouth moving before my brain could snatch it shut.

  Her gaze snapped my way and the air rippled as a huge something surged from her barrier. But Rover was faster, leaping into the path of the attack. He yowled like a kicked dog as the bolt of telekinetic pressure slammed into him, his body absorbing the brunt of the blow that sent tremors rolling under our feet.

  Rover was sent spinning through the air, one arm dangling limp at his side, and he smashed into the rim of the pit. The whole side collapsed into a heaving mass of broken concrete and the obliterated remnants of Zirconium’s constructs.

  Impact’s field spread out, uprooting chunks of earth the size of boxcars. Then the twisted clods of rock rumbled and vibrated, breaking apart like shattering glass, and all the rock shards came surging our way as a hail of bullets.

  “Oh fuck,” Stretch wheezed. She moved fast, faster than I thought she could, and in an instant her body had elongated and unfurled like a tarp that shrouded all of us. Each rock exploded against her like a grenade, those that truck the ground beyond her shield gouging great tracts and craters in the rocky ground. Stretch’s extended form bounced and strained from each impact, but her rubbery hide managed to repel each blow. “Ow, ow, ow, ow!”

  “Chesh,” I hissed, grabbing the teleporter by the shoulder. “Get me over there, help me clear some space,” I said, raising my voice against the raucous din of Impact’s storm.

  “This... part of your plan?” Cheshire asked warily.

  “Best one I’ve got.”

  She gave me a firm nod and, to my shock, I saw... trust in her eyes. This was life or death after all, a situation worse than any we’d wound up in so far. And yet she trusted me. The thought made my stomach twist in a knot.

  Having someone trust me, believe in me, it was nice and horrifying in equal measure. Because the thought of failing her, of failing the others, I couldn’t abide it.

  Cheshire grabbed my wrist and w vanished in another plume of purple smoke.

  The opening in the wall was broad, the area beyond a mottled mess of misshapen stone. But it was a small alcove, barely large enough to fit the two of us inside. I took a breath, pressing one of Knuckle’s weapon to the cracked rock.

  “Come on, come on, come on...” I punched the wall, felt the impact roll up my arm. And then a flash of gold erupted from the tip, displacing a swathe of rock. It had not been a hard punch, but there had been enough behind it to gouge a meter of stone into rubble. I struck again and again, each punch kicking up a flash and tearing deeper into the hardened earth.

  By now the cracks in the water pipe had broadened, and a small pool of water was gathering in the alcove. It was deep enough now, I reckoned, in that I could walk a few strides into it.

  Unfortunately, all that noise had gotten Impact’s attention. I saw her spin in the air toward me, just as Stretch’s unconscious body was flung limply across the room, her arms and legs coiling up like ropes of liquorice.

  “Oh,” the Psion growled, “don’t think I’ve forgotten about you, bomber bitch.”