Pounce

Focus. Three enemies. One leader.

You’d handled worse. Or maybe not, but being a superhero meant a time like this had to come eventually.

You exhaled once, muscles coiling.

Then you pounced.

A blur of black and gleaming energy claws, you vaulted high, arcing toward Siren. For just half a second, you thought you’d caught them off guard. Her expression froze mid-smirk. Seraphina’s wings flared in alarm. Lilith’s whip-handle twitched.

But before you could reach the leader and knock them all off balance, Seraphina’s wings snapped forward and slammed into you like a truck. You felt your head swim and even your spine hurt from the impact before you tumbled to the ground.

Lilith followed up. She lunged forward and cracked her whip down at you. Each crack stung your skin and ears, but you got to your feet before she could ensnare you in it.

You took a fighting stance, but Seraphina raised her spear to your side. Now you were in a proverbial crossfire. A literal one, in an enclosed, flammable space if Lilith started using her pyrokenesis.

But then Siren spoke again.

“That was bold. Stupid, but bold.”

“Stay back!” you shouted, raising your claws, and trying again to put at least some fear in them.

“You’re scared,” Siren said before you could follow up. “And you should be.”

“Yeah. Of what my claws will do to your pretty skin. It scares me.”

You were pretty sure you were stealing a line from The Walking Dead. But it actually seemed to work on Siren, at leas the tinniest bit, since her expression changed.

Lilith cracked her whip, which made you flinch. “We gonna keep talking, or can I roast him?

You shifted one foot, ready to spring back or forward to avoid another pounding or fiery ****.

Lilith moved instantly, circling to your left. Seraphina mirrored her on the right, wings spreading to cut off your escape path toward the door.

Golden Siren smiled gently. “Don’t do anything stupid. Again.”

You feigned shrinking back, then exploded into motion once more.