Much as I had in the jet, I felt Magnus’ attention. Strictly speaking, it was the presence of Magnus using Artificer senses through what I’d heard called the Galaxy Core Device, but whatever.

Along with that attention, I also felt burning energy coming this direction. It wasn’t a question of being able to pretend I wasn’t here and avoid it.

There was no time to get myself into that mode of thinking, no time to dodge. At the moment that I’d noticed it, it was here.

Except… Nothing happened.

I wasn’t dead. I didn’t feel burning pain. I was fine.

The problem was, of course, that I wasn’t the target. Magnus’ people were. I’d been told that he could empower his allies even without full control of the device.

I remembered that as the effects became obvious all around me—literally in all directions since my HUD showed the world in 360-degree vision. Our opponents exploded with light, though they didn’t physically explode. They shone in a rainbow of colors that reminded me of disco balls.

Light washed across Justice Fist’s tower and the block around it, eclipsing the sun for a few seconds, and that was only the visuals. I didn’t even try to concentrate on the phenomenon, but despite that, I felt it in my bones. I saw the organization of it, how Magnus used Lee’s device to hook into their powers and send energy into them to the degree that they could use it.

A glow hung on all of them, visible to me and probably also to Rachel. I didn’t know what it was, but my gut feeling was an energy reservoir. Along with the targets I could see, I noticed power heading toward the tower. That worried me. The only person in there who could be a potential receptacle for Magnus’ gift would be Jody. Over my comm, I said, “Watch Jody!”

As bad as it looked, seeing them use their power-up made me feel worse. The balance of Izzy and Power Burst’s fight changed from even to Power Burst’s favor.

They’d been throwing punches that knocked each other in one direction or another, but now, a glowing Power Burst launched a punch that threw Izzy to the ground. Before she pulled herself up, he reached her and began to pound on her with his fists.

I heard her gasp with surprise and pain, but she didn’t go down. She punched back even from the ground, but I wasn’t sure if I’d ever heard her sound hurt before.

When I started fighting Amnesia Angel, I’d lost track of the fight between Jaclyn and Artemis. Somewhere between then and now, that fight had dropped from the air to the ground with Jaclyn rushing in to punch Artemis and Artemis disappearing only to reappear ten feet away at the last moment. Artemis would then loose a glowing arrow at Jaclyn (which Jaclyn dodged), and then get punched or brushed by Jaclyn’s fist as she disappeared again.

The fact that she could take punches from Jaclyn and still walk afterward was worrisome by itself, but that was before Magnus’ sent a power-up. After the power-up, Artemis became a glowing blur that threw the bow over her back, rushed toward Jaclyn, and punched her, throwing Jaclyn backward more than 100 feet down Justice Fist’s lawn.

I missed what happened next in their fight because I’d also noticed Scream Eagle. As a guy who’d merely stolen the powered armor he wore, it might have been that he had no abilities to enhance. That wasn’t true.

When the energy hit him, sparks erupted from his armor, not destroying it, but instead surrounding it with a visible latticework of sparks in the air around him.

Not only did Sean’s ball bearings move within the latticework of sparks and fall, but then they floated back up into the air, circling Scream Eagle. To me, the circles appeared to be protective, not threatening.

If that weren’t disquieting enough, Camille’s gravity control should have been keeping Scream Eagle on the ground, but as the metal balls began to circle him, the powered armor began to rise into the air.

It wasn’t quick, but Scream Eagle was now lifting himself into the air. Camille couldn’t stop him anymore.

I could only hope that Haley, Daniel, Camille, Sydney, and Vaughn had a plan to handle him because I had my own problems.  Amnesia Angel glowed with a greater intensity than before the energy strike. The flaming sword in the angel’s hand thickened.

The angel’s wings left a trail of sparkles as their speed increased, aiming toward me, and shouting, “You don’t know what I am, do you?”

They laughed, but continued, “You won’t ever know, bastard Artificer.”

With that statement, I realized that my hypothetical questions for Amy about the previous Bloodmaidens’ experience with Amnesia Angel needed to be answered sooner rather than later.