I aimed myself toward Jaclyn and Artemis, firing off six goobots as I did, aiming three at Artemis and the other three at Power Burst. Any distraction at all might help Izzy.

I wasn’t the only one with that thought.

As Power Burst dived toward the new crater created by Izzy hitting the ground, a beam from Cassie’s gun struck him. My HUD dimmed the light, but from the readouts, I could tell that she hadn’t been aiming to blind.

That beam could have brought down small buildings and even large ones with a well-placed shot.

This shot hit Power Burst in the middle of his chest, but did not leave him a charred corpse. We knew what happened when someone fired energy weapons at Izzy and had done it ourselves in training.

A silver shield appeared where the beam hit, shedding light in all directions, including at Izzy. A shadow of the same shield appeared around her—less obvious, hopefully, because there wasn’t as much to defend against as opposed to because she was getting tired.

As the glare of Cassie’s beam faded, I caught a glimpse of Power Burst’s dead-eyed stare and the sweat running down his face.

We’d hit Izzy with enough different things that we knew what energy weapons did—tired her. Though a homicidal maniac, Cassie’s gun had been well-designed when it came to throwing out a massive amount of energy. Even with a power-up, it made Power Burst think.

He opened his mouth and screamed in Cassie’s direction at a volume that had the potential to shatter the roof of whatever row house Cassie stood on.

Inattention in a combat situation is a bad thing, though. As he began, Izzy punched him in the side of the head, and all three of the goobots I’d aimed at him hit and exploded into grey goo.

Knowing that Izzy used her sonic abilities as sonar, I’d targeted Power Burst’s head, body, and legs. The theory went like this: hitting his head would blind his eyes, muffle his ears, and close his mouth; covering the rest of him with goo would fuzz out echolocation that didn’t use his ears. I was pretty sure Izzy used her entire body.

I didn’t think that the goo would stand up to Power Burst’s strength, and it didn’t.

He flexed and tore his legs and arms free enough to move, but not before Izzy, still covered with dirt and grass, landed a flurry of blows that knocked him to the ground.

Wrapped top to bottom in strands of goo, he didn’t seem to see the blows coming, which was a point in favor of my theory of how Izzy’s powers worked.

If you’re wondering why Izzy didn’t get stuck to him when she hit him, I’d included a patch for repelling goo when I updated the team’s suits.

That all happened in an instant. At practically the same time, I was also paying attention to Jaclyn’s and Artemis’ fight.

The two of them were still trading blows, Jaclyn’s hitting the golden glow around Artemis, but not her, even if the glow reacted to each blow.

The goobots didn’t do well either. Hitting her at almost the same time they hit Power Burst, they exploded into goo around her, and though they did try to constrict, they couldn’t stick to the golden glow and slid to the ground.

In the meantime, I’d dropped to the ground, let go of Amnesia Angel so that I had two hands free, and tried to bring up the sword again. I’d let it go while flying there. With the download of the fighting I’d missed, there had been too much to concentrate on.

It felt like I’d never done it before. I knew where the power was and I could feel it, but it was as if it were behind a curtain.

While I pulled what I could toward me, feeling an ache that came from a phantom limb I’d never had, Artemis turned toward me, taking a few blows from Jaclyn without notice, saying, “Are you one of us? If you are, it’s not working, is it?”

Her eyes dropped toward Amnesia Angel on the ground, “Hmmn.”

Then she disappeared and reappeared behind me. If she’d been expecting an easy shot at me, she didn’t get it. While I didn’t feel like I could stop pulling for power to make the sword, I could tap the rockets through my implant and shoot upward.

The blast of the rockets’ hot air would have hurt a normal person, but beyond causing flickers in her shield, they did nothing to Artemis. She pulled her bow up, and a glowing arrow appeared as she pulled the string back.

I could feel her pull on whatever energy Magnus had imbued her with, knowing that if I could feel it, she might be able to do the same thing to me that I’d done to Amnesia Angel.

I tried to push that worry out of my mind and pull deeper, hoping to pull enough energy in to deflect the arrow.

I couldn’t. I didn’t know it then, but in that moment, I had zero chance of pulling that deeply with the necessary speed, but I tried. Why? Because I felt the power I needed begin to flow.

The only reason I didn’t go down then was because you leave a speedster alone at your peril.

Jaclyn had never stopped moving. When Artemis reappeared next to me, she started running. She’d begun aiming to my left, but when I lifted off, she adjusted and charged straight at Artemis, throwing a punch as Artemis lifted her bow.

She’d passed the speed of sound when her punch hit Artemis, the punch making its own sonic boom.