Chris, legs embedded in spiky rock, was using both hands to haul what looked like a long, thin rod out of his throat. He’d swallowed the length of the dead tree like a sword-swallower swallowed a blade, and now he was drawing it back out, changed.

Narrower, thinner, smoother, and slick with fluids.

Chris, it seemed, wasn’t just the kind of changer who could adapt his form. He was the kind of changer who gained new sorts of powers while in an alternate form.

He hauled the last of the tree free of his mouth. Fifteen feet long, thicker at the end he had just removed than at the end he held, now that he was turning it around to get it in a position he could wield it. Too long to be a proper club, not quite a rod either.

Kenzie had her flash gun out. Tristan had thrown up a short wall, just tall and wide enough that he could hide behind it. Kenzie’s eyehook extended from her belt, through one of her hands, and out to Tristan, with a grip on his leg. She was simultaneously trying to circle around to get at an angle where she could shoot and blind Tristan and she was using the claw at the end of the prehensile arm to try and drag him out of the cover, helped by tugs with her hand.

Kenzie’s efforts left Chris entirely unmolested as he brought his weapon down, shattering Tristan’s created ground, freeing his legs.

“Leave her!” Tristan ordered. “We’ll let her get the flag, deal with these two, and catch her on her return trip!”

I flew a little further away.

Sveta—I looked off in the direction of the enemy’s camp.

Little blue flags decorated the landscape on their side of the playing field. They were situated on every rock, in every crevice, on every flat expanse of ground, on every tree branch. Sveta was perched on a rock in the midst of it all.

I looked at Kenzie’s cube. One face of it was glowing. The projector.

That would be why they had been smiling, then.

I started my flight toward Tristan.

“You’ll regret ignoring me,” Ashley said, behind me.

Pride, respect, they were key factors here. I could remember the meeting, the narrowing of the eyes. I knew Tristan was in a tough spot, but I paused, turning around in the air. I had to raise my voice to be heard with the distance between Ashley and me, as I said, “We’re not ignoring you. We’re dealing with you two against one.”

I left her to limp toward the wall while I flew to Tristan’s side. I landed beside Kenzie, hard, pushing out with my aura.

She twisted around, gun in hand, and I caught the gun, snatching it out of her hand.