Staggering Titan Skadi

I saw the crimson in her fade out, and I hauled back on the trigger.

The beam speared out, the machinery of the gun shuddering violently enough it almost canceled my forcefield. The beam raked her from axe-hand to elbow. I was ready for her to appear beside me, but she carried through on her plan. The building didn't fall on me this time.

She reappeared, close to the helicopters, but the impact from the shot I'd just fired had shifted her balance imperceptibly, shifted the position of the one hand perceptibly, so it didn't come down with the speed or angle she'd intended.

One axe-hand punched into the back of a truck that was carrying people. The one I'd shot came down a second or two after, where Gibbet's cranes were already growing and criss-crossing. Metal creaked, bent, broke, and toppled.

I'd bought a second or two, which let Gibbet buy another two. That was time enough for someone to get a forcefield up, for vehicles to veer away, one truck's side scraping against another in its haste.

I'd been an Alexandria-Lite. Now I played the role of a faux Legend, counting my shots carefully, mindful of battery, taking in the whole battlefield and figuring out where I needed to deliver the heavy fire.

It required a different mindset. I couldn't identify the biggest problem, charge in with ninety-five percent of a plan in mind, and figure out what I was doing as I got between my target and the thing they were trying to accomplish. I had to line up my shots, make sure nobody was in the way, either in front of my target or behind her, and make every shot count.

I shot again, not because of what Titan Skadi was doing, but because others were mobilizing, using powers, and I was betting that she was going to respond. I placed the beam in the hollow of her neck, and flew down as she leaned back, to ensure I had the angle to keep the beam focused on one spot and keep her as unbalanced as possible, as long as I had her unbalanced and off-guard.

Having multiple hands gripping the gun made it easier to keep it steady, but I was finding some sympathy with Crystal's complaint that lasers were actually hard to aim. She'd given me a laser pointer at one point and asked me to keep it steady, and I'd thought I'd done okay then. I hadn't had adrenaline churning through my body to the point I had tremors in my actual hands. I hadn't been terrified then.

She started teleporting away as I did the damage. She reared back, pushed a bit by the beam, and was still rearing back as she appeared nearby. No attack on arrival this time. The axe that had plunged into the truck was abraded, and the abrasions collected blood and pieces of the people she'd guillotined.

I'd hoped for, wanted her to come after me. Lives had been lost or irrevocably changed by the attack earlier. This spot of anticipation had maybe saved others. But it wasn't enough.

***

I saw the colors change. Shadows shifting and disappearing- and I had to find them in the gloom. I fired a brief pulse of my laser at the side of her 'stomach', and the light of it provided enough of a clue to see where she was going. The bridge, where capes were helping people down through the cracks.

Where she'd disappeared, capes had already positioned themselves to land on Gibbet's crane or other constructions below. Sveta joined fliers and other movers caught some of the ones who weren't positioned so well, rescuing them from falls or getting them to perches or safe ground.

I fired a sustained shot directly into Titan Skadi's face. It was bright enough in the gloom that shadows chased my eye movements.

Fuck, come on! Flinch! Come for me!

She wasn't reacting enough, and the other capes who joined me in attacking her were slowing her down, but not enough to outright interrupt or stop her.

- Infared 19.1