Two shots, change direction, dropping down, account for the late shot from man number three by flying up and to the right. The laser beam fired, and it hit the Wretch. The Wretch was better at handling sustained damage than a single good hit. The beam burned out before the Wretch did.

I closed the distance, grabbing one of them by their hair. The movement of my arm reminded me that I’d been burned—my skin felt tight.

Fingers gripping hair and coverall-shoulder, the top of my foot hooking in between the man’s legs, I strained my entire body and used my flight to fly him into his buddy.

My aura was affecting others, as I was flying closer. They turned, ready to complicate what I was doing. Withdrawal bounded over their heads, moving as if in slow motion, while his fluid spurted out over them and their heads. Guns fizzed and popped, and people fell, sprawling messily in the luminescent bubblegum pink stuff. One or two people who fell in the thicker patches of the spurt spun in place by some invisible force, their legs failing to find traction.

Someone shot at the ground just below Withdrawal’s landing point. Arcs jumped up to his legs and out to nearby puddles. His suit failed to make the final movements that would secure his landing, and he landed hard, tumbling.

“Bam, blast, zap, bam, bam and fuck you!” I could hear Finale.

The peppering of shots saw the one who’d knocked Withdrawal out get knocked onto his own ass.

A brief appearance of blue motes and a splash of water that covered face and weapon saw the man convulse as his weapons’ energy discharged into his body.

“I have to go get Caryatid!” I called out, as I spotted Byron. “You good!?”

“Go!”

“Don’t try to put out any purple flames with your power!” I called out.

He responded, but I was already too high up and far away to hear.

Moving across was dangerous. Adding a healthy dose of up to my plane of movement let me see more of what was going on, kind of, and it let me complicate things for those wanting to shoot me. People were not generally that good at hitting human-sized targets a hundred or two hundred feet away from them in the heat of the moment. I had one bullet wound that told me that there were exceptions to the rule, but I also had years of experience telling me that being airborne, mobile, and far away made me pretty darn safe in a firefight.

I flew up, looked, and saw Caryatid still on the ground. A few houses down the way, there were people in white standing around a contraption—they were setting up a tinker device. The woman with the purple flame still glowing at one of her hands waited.