It did give her pause, but she was a tiny figure in the dark, in an unfamiliar environment, so it was hard for us to take advantage of her being delayed.

Sveta reached out, then drew back just as fast as the woman reacted, screaming with surprising volume despite her small size, the laser flashing out in the dark to cut tendrils.

Flying toward me, going by the scale of the laser.

I took flight, putting myself between the screaming laser pixie and the rest of my team. I couldn’t risk that the laser would knock out my forcefield, so I waited, letting the Fragile One disappear, held in reserve.

A flash of red, a flash of pain, and I was the terminus of one end of the laser. I brought my forcefield back, twisted, and reached out, grabbing her around the upper body, her wrists held between two fingers. I twisted her body to one side, pointing her hands off to the side.

She grew to full size, and I adjusted the forcefield to match. She screamed in my face. The laser was weaker, if anything, while she was larger.

“You’re bleeding,” Rain said.

I looked. Byron was holding one hand at his wrist, and blood was pouring out.

Sveta reached out, and bound the wound closed with her tendrils. Blood welled out from the gaps, and she tightened her grip.

The woman kept screaming, and as she did, the lighting flickered, matching the scream. I was pretty sure it wasn’t her, nor was it the lasers she fired intermittently.

I walked her further up the stairs, and then used my aura, keeping the range contained to a matter of feet, the effect the closest thing I could approximate to calm.

“Using my aura, keep your distance for a sec,” I said.

“Your powers changed, again,” Sveta said, behind me. “Your forcefield held your gun with you nowhere near it. You just did something else. Your aura…”

“Flavors of ‘rah rah’ and ‘fuck off’ in the fight earlier,” Rain interpreted. “Then just now it was a big slap in the face of ‘holy shit’.”

“Courage, righteousness, and just now it was a feeling of realization. I hoped it would wake her up.”

The woman screamed, thrashing. The screaming played off of the other screams I heard, including some in the background.

I could feel wetness at my neck, along with pain that throbbed with my heartbeat. I kept my grip on the woman with my forcefield and brought my hand to my neck.

I’d been cut, and flesh had parted, from collarbone to where my shoulder met my neck. The laser didn’t cauterize what it hit.

“Does it matter?” I asked. “It’s a long explanation. Byron and I need medical care. Come on.”

“You said you’re at an eight,” Cryptid growled the words, his tone wary.

“An eight is good.”