Team versus team is not as easy as you might think. The teams would probably break alliances and mash up as team v. person, because of the nature of my crew. But my writer thought it would be a fabulous idea.
Sometimes, I wondered if my writer was smoking something fierce.
"I'm on your team," Cole said to me. Naturally, Jack joined my team, and that left Robert and Jason on Aaron's team. Naturally, I had to force them there.
"But–" Jason protested. "I–"
"No. These are temporary," I convinced him.
"But death is permanent," Aaron said, eyeing me. He did seem different, but I couldn't put my finger on exactly what.
"Yeah, yeah. This is a friendly match," I explained. "No maiming, no killing, no almost killing."
"Or what?" Robert asked.
"You lose your powers," I said with the permission of my writer. It felt good to be able finally to say that.
"How?" Robert asked stubbornly. That was an issue of his.
"Can't you tell? Obviously, Claire's in charge!" Aaron shouted. Everyone shut up. They just stared at me, some of them in awe, and some in annoyance.
"Let's just start," I said. We got into our huddles to talk strategy.
"So what can I do?" Cole asked.
"A lot," I said. "You can change forces, right? Deflect Aaron's moves. Change Jason's direction."
"How do we counter Robert?" Jack asked.
I stopped to think. "I'm not sure. We'll just have to figure that one out on the fly."
Smiling, Jack then encased Cole in a liquid bubble. "That might work against Robert," Jack suggested.
Cole pressed against the foggy barrier and solid formed in that area. "Nice idea, Jack."
"Well, since my thing is to make stuff from the air and other things, I guess I'll make weapons."
"Awesome," Jack said. He released Cole's bubble. "We're all set."
We broke out of our tight triangle and took our stances. "Aaron, you idiots ready yet?" I shouted.
"We're just waiting for you," Jason smirked, though it was obvious we had abruptly cut off their probably nonexistent attack strategy.
"Okay, fight!" I screamed. Everyone stared, confused.
"Um, what?" Robert asked.
Jason slid up to me and removed friction from my shoes, attempting to knock me off balance. I grabbed his arm and attempted to break down his skin into something less. Something exothermic.
Jason shouted something close to "Shoot!" and he collapsed. I jumped away, speeding towards my next target.
Jack and Aaron faced one another in an estranged struggle. Aaron stood on a lab stool, hurtling things at Jack. From my angle, it appeared that Jack's body was exerting a curvature in space-time, courtesy of Aaron's powers.
Jack was behind a chair, throwing war liquid nitrogen and liquid carbon dioxide spheres at Aaron, mostly missing his targets because of Aaron's gravity influence.
I concentrated on the stool, and I made the carbon eject from the steel legs. The raw iron promptly rusted courtesy of my powers and it crumpled under Aaron's weight.
"Stop!" Cole screamed. I halted in my tracks. One by one, each one of us slowly turned and looked over at Cole and Robert, locked in battle. Literally locked. Upon closer inspection, Robert's right arm appeared to have materialized where Cole's left shoulder was. His arm was still inside Cole's shoulder.
"Get it out! Get! It! Out!" Cole screamed, clutching his bloody shoulder. Robert frantically pulled, but no space-time rift appeared. He was stuck.
He broke the rules. I revoked his powers, my writer said.
That doesn't help! I frantically thought. Give 'em back! Give 'em back!
Nope, my writer responded. You guys all have cool powers, too. If you can fix this among the five of you, I restore his powers.
"Why isn't this working?" Robert screamed.
I sighed. "I was serious about the maiming thing, guys," I said, taking responsibility. "We'll have to fix this one on our own."
"How're we going to do that?" Aaron asked.
I looked at my current crew of six. "We all have physics-defying powers, other than Robert. We'll think of something." At least, I hoped that was true. If we couldn't save Cole, the defining fight would never happen. We wouldn't be able to return. We wouldn't be able to reverse all the destruction and death we had left in our wake.
We wouldn't be able to end.
ns 15.158.61.8da2
