Jack's powers were impossible to deal with when the bearer had more than just a knife to play with. We'd made it to the first floor, but Dipshit...and I was really reconsidering how great a name that was now...he was picking us apart.

There was plenty of water around still, not enough for an elaborate crystalline deathtrap like before, but enough for him to make ice appear under our feet, or pull an icy weapon from the damp ground and then reappear right next to us with the weapon in our guts.

Tem was down in exactly such a way, facing the sky with a shocked expression and a blade through her stomach and another hanging out of her shoulder, breathing rapid and shallow. Tower was down, unconscious and pinned to the ground by a frozen spear. His powers could only deflect incoming force, not stop something from appearing inside him. Steffie was already useless at the start of the fight, and had remained so. Jack was down, obviously, and Mage was down, and dying fast.

And that just left me. Me and my shattered body against this multi-Exhuman lunatic. I hoped, prayed that we'd seen everything he had by now. Ice, regeneration, and teleportation were already plenty to deal with. But there was no way to say if he had more, until he decided to unload them on me.

I was always one who did best against Jack in sparring. My powers were almost as quick as he was, and covered a large area with very immediate danger. I'd been slow-playing my defense against Dipshit, and as a consequence of him not pressing me very hard, I was currently holding twenty-four lightning blades around me, slashing and swirling everything at about 3/4ths of my maximum range. If he made the mistake of thinking they were fully extended, he wouldn't live to regret it.

But he stayed far away. He was setting up ice traps like he'd done before he showed himself. With a touch, the ground in a place turned to ice and began to slowly accumulate. Under some condition, or maybe even flexing his powers, I wasn't quite sure how, it exploded outwards into razor icicles. It basically kept me immobile, since I couldn't pass the traps without risking them going off, and he just gradually saturated the area with them.

I didn't realize why until he advanced on the unconscious Tem and placed a hand in front of her face.

He would steal her powers while I was stuck on the other side of the ice. If I moved, I'd expose myself to the traps and possibly die, and if I didn't, he'd laser me down and I was completely doomed. Well, between the two of those, I knew which gave me better odds.

"Sorry, Tem," I muttered, and grabbed a fistful of lightning, but paused. He looked confused. I felt a triumphant smile creep onto my face as he touched Tem's forehead and his fingers passed right through the illusion. With no reason to be sorry, I threw the fist-sized bulb at him, and it passed right through where he'd been moments ago, to spark and arc spectacularly on a fence at the edge of the construction.

He was back on Tem's 'body' again, reaching through it, not getting the trick. I almost laughed, but instead slowly closed the distance between me and the other wounded, hacking down the ice traps as I went, making very slow progress. I needed to protect the others before he took their powers and I was in the same situation again.

But they were so spread out. Why'd Tower have to get himself impaled while he was charging away on the other side of the yard? I had to choose between him, Mage, and Steffie.

Disregarding my feelings, I worked towards Steffie. She was the only one unhurt here and needed my protection, and while I wanted more than anything to protect Mage, who was hurt the worst of any of us, or Tower, who was my best friend here, Steffie's was the only powerset here I wasn't sure I could deal with.

Well, and Mage of course, but every time we'd sparred she just surrendered, so I hoped that was a win for me.

"Sorry about all this," I said to Steffie, standing over her body. I couldn't pick her up or I would have, and carried her towards one of the others to protect both. Both of my arms were totally shot.

"I'm sorry for not believing you," she said bitterly. She seemed remarkably composed given the situation. Angry. Scared. But not blind with terror or screaming her head off like I might expect.

"Believing me how?" I asked, and slashed a new icy growth to death near my feet.

"If you were just going to kill me...you wouldn't have done all this. I'm sorry."

"If I let you go, think you can get free from here?"

"No. Not with his powers."

"I don't know that I can cut you free without melting the cuffs anyway."

"Well, thanks for trying, I guess."

"Are you done chatting?" asked Dipshit. He'd been stalking around the battlefield while we spoke, staying out of my reach and flickering here and there.

"Why would we be? I think we're at an impasse here, so I just have to wait until the rest of the XPCA shows up. Might as well enjoy a little chat with my good friend Steffie here."

"Oh, you think they're coming? How very unfortunate for you."

He reached down and pulled one of the comms from Mage's body. She didn't even stir when he touched her. He threw it at me, and it exploded on my shield.

"Fascinating," he said. Fuck him for finding out one of my tricks before I could use it. He took the one from Jack and threw it on the ground next to me. Carefully, without leaving Steffie, I cradled it in my skinless rope-burned hand.

"Cosette? Where's that extraction team?" I asked, managing to get the comms working using my chin.

"P-force two? Where have you been?"

"Where is it, Cosette?"

"I told you...tried to tell you. There's walls of fire everywhere. We can't get anywhere close. VTOLs were scrambled, but the walls just reach higher. It's making a dome all around you, we can't get in."

I spun around, looking for anything resembling a building-sized wall of fire, but found nothing.

"They look like this," Dipshit said, and with a snap of his fingers, a pillar of flame sprouted up between us. I could feel the heat from here.

"At that range?" I gasped. If he was holding them so far off I couldn't even see...the range on that power had to be several blocks or more. And tall enough to deter VTOLs?

"It is one of my favorites," he said, staring hungrily into the fire.

"But if you could just make fire under our feet this whole time, why wouldn't you?"

"I guess I'm just sporting like that," he said with a grin. "Still confident your friends are coming to save you?"

"Or you're full of shit," I said. I bent down and kicked up a piece of ice, thankfully having it not explode into a starburst of icicles until it wasn't going to impale my foot anymore. I used the distraction to hurl another bulb of lightning at him, which unfortunately was only a tiny one, because it actually clipped him, giving me a great view of him seizing and jolting for half a moment before he vanished.

I kicked the ice crystal I'd pulled up into the fire and nothing happened. Didn't melt, didn't crack, nothing. From the heat pouring off the flames and how my sword melted the ice, I knew something was up. This fucking guy.

I took two more steps and stood right in the fire. It was hot. Unbearably hot, and my frozen arm throbbed, prompting me to get back to Steffie sooner than I'd wanted, but I didn't burn at all.

"Cosette, the fire is an illusion only. You can walk through it. It feels hot but it doesn't burn."

"What?"

"I just stood in some."

"You little shit," said Dipshit from behind me.

I turned, he was back at the foot of the stairs, spear made of ice in-hand, face still twitching a little from the shock I gave him.

"Cosette, send them. Over and out." I put the comms back in my pocket and sneered at him. "You don't actually know my real powers, do you?" I asked him, posturing with arms out, as my blades spun around me and Steffie ominously.

"I will when I take them from you."

"If. And that's a big if."

"So you can throw a little lightning."

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

"No. I am lightning. Don't you wonder how I see through your tricks so fast?" I tapped my head with a crippled finger. "Lightning intellect. Or how I reacted so fast to your little water hazard so we'd all be dry? Lightning reflexes."

I hoped he hadn't seen Mage doing her noisy setup work before combat, and from the almost-pained look on Dipshit's face, it seemed like he hadn't.

"Well, lightning won't save them," he said, raising a spear over Mage's prone form.

"Of course it will!" I blurted. He looked up at me. I had to think fast, and channeled my inner Lia. "I mean, haven't you ever heard of lightning speed? I can run at the speed of light and move these injured so fast...it will look like they all just...disappeared."

"You're full of shit. If you had that kind of power, you'd have used it a long time ago."

"I don't like using it when my friends are around," I lied. "They see me using it, next thing I know, it's 'hey, Chariot, can you pick me up some fast food?'"

"That's the most idiotic thing I've ever heard."

"Also, didn't you ever wonder why they called me Chariot? Duh."

"I'm going to stab this girl in the face and then if she's not dead, let's say I'll consider believing you."

He raised the spear.

"No, wait!" I shouted.

He looked at me with a superior grin, and then confusion at the grin creeping over my face. He looked down where Mage's body had disappeared, and then where Jack's was, and then at Tower. It was just him, me and Steffie, from the looks of it.

And then his eyes fell on me. Wide eyes. Eyes of dawning terror. I couldn't flex or crack my knuckles or anything cool, so I settled for flourishing my swords a little bit.

"The hell are you? That's impossible."

"Funny thing about Exhuman powers, they don't have to be possible for them to exist."

I heard the distinctive sound of a missile launching and he vanished. In the next moment the ground under him exploded, right near where Mage was laying invisibile. I fumbled in my pocket for the comms.

"Hold your fire! Hold your damn fire!" I yelled.

"Athan?" I heard Karu over the roar of engines.

"Karu, hold your fire!" I yelled back.

"Athan, I'm coming in."

I looked around, but Dipshit hadn't rematerialized anywhere here. Was he gone? It was only a matter of moments before I heard and saw Karu. She took in the state of my body but didn't say a word. The tiny tremble in her lip as she remained stone-faced said everything.

"Karu, do not move or do anything. We need the rest of the XPCA here."

"They are on their way, but I do not understand. We must pursue him."

"No. Trust me. Stay here and wait."

"I cannot stand by while such a monster is free to roam!" she shouted at me. Irrational. Maybe even because of what he'd done to me. Her jetpack deployed its wings.

"Karu, this is a fucking order. Do. Not. Leave."

She glared at me and the wings folded back up. "You are not my superior," she said, icily.

"And you need to learn to trust me."

We waited for several more long minutes until I heard sirens in the distance.

"I meant, in general."

"Huh?" I turned to her, and found her looking at the ground, in thought.

"You are not my superior in general. You are on the strike team, I am a mere civilian in this case. I should respect that, even if it is not technically chain of command."

"Karu, I don't, can't care about this right now. We need to stay alert."

"Yes, sir." She said it without any anger or contempt, but her cold discipline stung more than either of those would. Right now, I was her commander and that was it.

It was another minute before the cavalry arrived. All around the construction site, armored vans screeched to a halt and men filed out, aligned behind shieldbearers, scanning for any threat.

"Thank you, Tem," I said, turning behind me to where she was standing invisible. "You really saved all of us there."

The air shimmered and she stepped out of it, looking unsure of herself as ever.

"I'm s-sorry!" she stammered. The first two words I had expected. "I just s-stood there while you held him off, I couldn't do anything, or think...think of anything. Even...even though I had every advantage...I couldn't...couldn't think of anything, until you did."

She took a faltering step towards me, and then to my surprise, hugged me around the torso, sparing my arms thankfully.

"I couldn't...couldn't do anything!" she muttered into my chest.

"Tem, you did everything. You saved everyone." I felt anxiety in my chest. I didn't know if it was from her on the verge of tears or being hugged or Karu watching another girl hug me.

All around us, bodies appeared from shimmering air. Mage and Jack, Tower had regained consciousness but thank God, had the prescience to stay down. Karu gasped.

"I almost shot him," Karu said, of Jack.

"You did. You scared the shit out of me."

"I...I apologize. Your operational command told me not to come and I did anyway. I unwittingly endangered all of these lives, and even still, was prepared to disregard your direct orders. You and all of these men almost all died because of me."

"Well...anything sounds bad when you say it like that," I said, giving her as much of a smile as I could.

"I require strict discipline," she said. "I believe a sixty day suspension of license, forfeiture of half pay for two months, and arrest for court-martial to be the minimum required, sir."

"Dude, Karu, I'm not even strike lead That's Mage. I can't court-martial anyone."

"But you can report me to your CO for such. I humbly request you do so, sir."

This was getting surreal as fuck, as, under the scrutiny of dozens of blank-faceplated exosuited XPCA, my friends were carefully loaded into the backs of military vans, Karu ever-increased her demands for punishment, and Tem just held me around the middle and cried.

A soldier brusquely grabbed Steffie by the arm and dragged her upright, only to find a pair of crossed lightning blades in his face.

"She stays with me," I growled.

"Understood," came the synthetic reply, and he let her go. Like Tem, she practically fell at my feet and leaned against me, but I think more out of mental exhaustion than...whatever drove Tem to continue holding me. Guilt? I was pretty sure that was all she was capable of.

I meant...emotionally. Obviously she was capable, she just saved my butt. Damn it.

Karu fell silent. Cosette was on approach.

"Are you okay?" She asked me, bending over to look me in the eyes. I expected a reprimand or demanding a status report or explanation or something.

"Do I look okay?" I raised the one arm towards her that I could raise, while the other hung frozen and limp.

"I don't mean your body. That will heal. I mean, are you okay."

I had to stop to actually think about the question. What did being okay even mean? With all my friends dying around me, my body in this shape, and us allegedly successful in our mission...did we win? Did winning even matter? We hadn't stopped the bad guy, had barely gotten away with our lives, it felt like the only thing we'd done is earn scars.

Tem shifted slightly, burying her head into my ribs and I looked down. I guess we saved Steffie. Of course, the XPCA just wanted her dead, so even that wasn't really a thing, but if that was all we accomplished here, that had to be enough. It had to be. The almost-deaths of all these people had to be for something.

"Yeah, I'm okay."

"Leadership is a terrible burden. I want you to know...I'm here for you, Chariot. I'd give you a hug, but it looks like you're covered. She smiled sadly at Tem who acted as though she couldn't hear or see anything."

"I'm not the leader. That's Mage. She's the most senior of us."

"Leadership isn't always assigned, Chariot. Your team looks up to you. Who cares what it says on paper when you're out in the field, fighting, right?"

I scrutinized her for a second. "You're not a normal military kind of person, are you?" I asked, and then realized that was probably really offensive, but Cosette just laughed.

"I can be if I have to be, but typically no, I do what I want. I'm lucky, if Blackett didn't take a liking to me, I'd probably be stuck arguing with a sergeant about dress violations all day every day."

She was still wearing her uniform with the top 3-4 inches zipped down so it made a lopsided V instead of a tall intimidating collar like the uniform was supposed to cut. And her hat, which I saw now in the sunlight was a black slightly floppy knit cap, which could almost pass as a beret if it was sitting to one side and the observer wasn't paying attention.

"I'm more concerned with keeping people happy and getting things done than the whole HOOAH thing. Think of me like big sis."

"Huh." I said, but that was as far as we got. A soldier approached and quietly informed her we were ready to pull out.

"Need a ride back?" Cosette asked me.

I looked at Karu. "You flying?" She nodded.

"I'll ride with Mage, if that's okay. And Steffie is coming with me. And can I get a key for these restraints?"

Cosette didn't argue and helped me and Steffie into the back of the van where Mage lay tied down to a stretcher on the floor with another soldier whose white-striped exosuit marked him as a medic, if that wasn't already apparent by the red IV bag he was holding aloft, pouring blood back into her.

We began moving. Mage looked really bad. She was pale and sunken, and there was still a huge hole in her chest, though the ice was gone, and some kind of machine had been stuck in her to keep her alive in some capacity. I wondered how Jack and Tower were doing, as I leaned back and closed my eyes, tired in my bones, just...not happy, not content, just observant of the fact that finally, today was over.

We rode in silence, watching the sun between the buildings flashing in and out of sight. Steffie seemed asleep again, curled up on the bench opposite me, and that seemed like a pretty solid idea to me.

When suddenly, the two of us were thrown forward as the vehicle swerved and braked, Steffie crashing into the medic without effect against his exosuit, while I had to catch myself with my feet on the railing under the bench to keep from falling on Mage.

"The hell?" asked Steffie, cradling her head where she'd crashed and been so rudely awakened.

I knew what I'd find outside before I even opened the door, kicking it open with a bang. My feet landed on the ground and my swords were out in an instant, spinning around me to keep him from appearing directly on me. Walls of fire surrounded us, cutting each car in the convoy off from every other.

"Drive!" I shouted. "It's just an illusion, move!"

I turned to slam the door shut behind me, but there in the doorway of the van was Dipshit, smiling at me with a maniac grin as he slid the van's door shut.