I watched Lung, my eyes burning with contact on the air, no doubt more red than white after all the trace contact with smoke. The air was relatively clear here, and my vision was still bleary, my eyes like sandpaper. My mouth hung open, so dry and layered with films of smoke that I didn’t dare swallow, for fear of choking.

I saw his head turn. Then he dove.

I pursued. I had to.

One hundred and ten percent. Giving my all.

All of the Wretch—the moment his focus wasn’t entirely on me, I flew after. He flew with wings and power. I flew with something freer, impulse, something from within me.

The moment I was about to close, driving my spear-points into his wing, he tucked his wing in, rolling through the air. Eyes, mouth, and the cracks between the segments of his body glowed red.

Fire exploded through the air around him as he continued to plummet.

The Wretch heaved the spears at him. One hit him, the other two were duds.

It was frustrating but I accepted the frustration. Tears streaked my face from the smoke-stained eyes.

His wings unfolded, their breadth catching his weight, arresting his descent.

I plummeted past him.

One hundred and ten percent of the Warrior Monk.

I used my aura. Calculated, watching for the danger, where the purple fire was.

I provoked him, because I knew he was easily provoked, even in this state. As mighty as he could be, this got past scale and muscle and it bothered him.

He sent out another cascade of flame. I changed direction to avoid it, realized it was too wide in scope to escape, and let the Wretch absorb the blow instead.

Except the fire kept coming. I accelerated my downward plummet, heading toward the building where, in another situation, I could have hoped to use that building for cover.

Here, I did the opposite.

The fire chased me, filling the air around me and to either side of me. I headed away, headed down, the lip of the building’s roof so near to me that my breastplate periodically scraped against it. He cut off the fire.

I looked back, and I saw him maneuvering. He turned his attention to the others, to my team.

He wanted to stay near the purple flame. It secured him against most of the powers that could stop him. And… I had to let him.

He was a brute, and brutes had a way of forcing you to deal with them.

The thought made me think of Dean.

There was a strength in that, a part of that one hundred and ten percent. The Victoria Dallon part of me.