The red lights appeared. Swansong lashed at them as they came into her meager reach. It was a flirtation with danger, because her power’s range was so abysmal like this, the effect of that power random within the area. Sometimes a twist, sometimes a tear, sometimes annihilation, but not always in a straight line, aimed in the direction her hand extended. Sometimes it veered left, sometimes right.

How long until we got unlucky? If we had two seconds and her power struck out wildly with six lashes of power in that span of time, three lashes if we were slow to react or get her in position to reach out, how long and how many attempts until the power just… didn’t hit the trap?

Sveta’s tentacles were wrapping around the ‘rook’ Case Fifty-Three. They gripped shelled sections and they gripped the soft sections of actual flesh. There wasn’t much strength in them, but as she regained her strength, the rook seemed to regain his twice over.

Paris threw a dart toward the remaining, injured Harbinger, and the Harbinger leaned to one side to let it pass by. Every step the Harbinger took seemed labored, heavily favoring one leg. Actions were kept efficient, tight, and careful, as Etna found her footing and created a bubble of hot but not superheated glass and hurled it.

The Harbinger twisted around, striking at the orb with one gloved hand, then the other, deflecting it. It was pushed off course and shattered on impact with the ground. Red lights illuminated around the impact site.

Paris kicked out. The Harbinger avoided the worst of it, but still stumbled back, doing the half-step with the injured leg to minimize the time spent on it, and tumbled to the ground beside the glowing trap.

“Hit it!” I shouted.

Fingers found a glass shard from the orb, then, awkwardly, thrust out, heel of the hand pushing the shard into the glowing red light.

The crackle was muted, dancing around the Harbinger’s hand, but it didn’t swallow him up or completely disable him.

My shout had drawn attention. Etna created another globe of hot glass, then hurled it. It was barely on the cusp of being hot enough to change colors, and I could see the glow emanating as her power provided a little extra push to the throwing motion, staying with the globe as it flew. Like it was less a globe of hot glass and more like a rocket.

I shifted position, putting Damsel between myself and the globe, bracing her and holding her as she reached up with both hands.

The blast annihilated the shot.

Yeah. There were things that still caught me off guard, like that ‘help’, but I knew this much. She preferred to face danger head on and blast it out of existence than to run. Even before I’d fully braced and supported her, she’d been reaching up to blast.