“Shoot the one in red first!” she ordered.

The man could undo powers. Given a moment’s opportunity, he could undo hers, and her power wouldn’t be the same again.

There was a small measure of satisfaction as she watched the man die, the top of his head removed as it poked over cover. She avoided collecting him, leaving his power where it lay.

As others died, one by one, her own side holding firm while the enemy dwindled, she inhaled and exhaled steadily. Calm in the storm, in the endless thunder of more than thirty weapons going off. Then twenty weapons.

Her hand was steady, her aim true.

She had her rifle in one hand and a shield in the other, and she held her ground, shield out in front. When there was a pause, she brought her rifle around, firing off a series of shots. A bullet came close enough to touch her costume, though it left her untouched.

One of her shadows was being cheeky, letting them get that close. She felt no fear. Her flock protected her, and her shadows warded off the harm.

One power remained on the enemy’s side. She saw the glimmer, and she drew out her power, bringing her shadows closer, raising them into the air as floating images, fully clear.

If he aimed at me and shot me in the heart, if the shadows I’ve instructed to protect me move too slowly, I could die right here.

The glimmer proved to be truth when the man raised himself up, surrounded by a storm of black sand. Painfully bright slices of light lunged out of the ground and closed around him, with more sprouting out of the ground to make approaching him difficult.

Of the sixteen powered individuals with her, none seemed able to break or disrupt the shell. The prism slowly rotated, its pointed tip aimed at the horizon. As it moved to the side, the ground under it was made jagged with razor slices of light.

If he got away with this message, it could mean the local warlord was alerted about what he was up against. Not disaster, but it could mean that the captives in the warlord’s possession could become hostages or negotiation fodder. Better that he didn’t know what was taking out his forces and forcing him to keep his armies closer and closer to home.

He can’t get away.

I want to fly, she thought. A shadow lurking within her responded, and it lifted her up.

The crystal jolted into motion, going from zero to two hundred miles an hour in an instant. She only barely intercepted it, her fingers grazing the surface, bending painfully and burning at the brush with the light.

But she made contact with something. She held onto that something with her power.

He flew away, and a part of him stayed behind. He made it a few hundred feet before the power quit on him.