Daniel agreed with my first half-formed thought, I’ll take the two on the balcony. The rest are yours.

Awesome, I thought back. Taking on the Cabal one on one will be easy.

To everyone else, I spoke over the comm, “Mystic’s taking the ones on the balcony. Cypher, don’t let them touch you. You’ll die.”

Yoselin muttered, “Mierda.”

That’s all the planning we got because in the next second everything happened at once. Daniel let Master Martian sink toward the floor, landing in front of Haley and himself while simultaneously lifting the two Cabal soldiers on the balcony into the air above the balcony where they couldn’t push off anything.

At the same time, the Cabal soldier next to Yoselin and I jumped forward, diving toward Master Martian or maybe toward Daniel. Either way, it didn’t matter because Yoselin had aimed her arms and the bulbous attachments under them in the direction of the soldier.

As he jumped, something in her suit whined and the guy shot upward, creating a new hole in the ceiling in addition to the one he’d made on the way in. More bits of shattered plaster, wood, and shingles fell into the room, but at this point, it didn’t make the room look that much worse.

Plaster dust left a cloud of white on Master Martian’s suit, but nothing big hit him.

I wouldn’t have had time to do anything about it if it had because even though I saw all of that in my helmet’s HUD, I’d started moving sidewise toward the kitchen and dining room because the remaining two Cabal soldiers had chosen to fight smart. Recognizing that we’d cut their force into less than half, they went straight for the people immobilizing them—Daniel and Yoselin.

I’d moved in front of Yoselin when I saw them start to move, aimed my arms at them with more hope that the paralyzation rays would work than I had with Master Martian and also more disappointment—because they didn’t. They kept on running.

I had the sudden realization that they hadn’t been wearing uniforms the last time we’d fought them. Someone, probably The Nine, had put money into them and bought them stuff—including paralyzation ray resistant costumes.

In my peripheral vision, I saw Haley jump between the oncoming Cabal soldier and Daniel. I didn’t have time to help her. I was too busy switching up my weapons, aiming my lasers at the nearest soldier. As close to invulnerable as they might be to getting punched, lasers worked against them. Thus, the one good thing about fighting immortal, near invulnerable, regenerating powerhouses? There’s no reason to hold back. Also, there’s probably no other way to survive.

After a brief sparkling of light in which I worried that their costumes protected against lasers too, both lasers burned through the costume and into the nearest soldier’s legs. By nearest, I mean far too close. He was only ten feet away when he fell forward on his face, hands still reaching for me even as he screamed in pain.

I backed up, shooting his arms. On a gut level, it felt unfair, but my gut wasn’t accounting for the fact that the guy might be able to crush my armor and squeeze my leg off if he happened to reach me.

The smart choice would have been a head shot, but I didn’t. Cutting into his arms left the bones broken and the guy couldn’t even crawl.

I felt sick, but not sick enough to forget that he’d be healing sooner than I’d like to think.

As the guy spat out, “I’ll kill you, you bastard,” I pointed Yoselin toward the balcony as I scooped up Master Martian’s limp body, glancing toward Haley as I muttered, “You and the Black Knight.”

He gave no indication that he caught my Monty Python and the Holy Grail reference. To be fair, he was old enough that the Black Knight might have been a friend.

Haley stood over the soldier who’d been aiming for Daniel. He lay on the ground, but each of his feet lay a couple of uh… feet away. My implant gave me a quick replay. As I’d been firing the paralysis beams, she’d darted forward dodging the Cabal soldier’s punch and aiming a swipe of her claws at the soldier’s right Achilles tendon. Except she wasn’t using her real claws, she used the claws I’d built into her costume, the ones using the same technology as Cassie’s sword.

Those claws hit the back of the soldier’s leg and did not go through.

Grinning, the soldier turned and punched down at her, missing because she’d rolled away, pausing to look in my direction. The implant calculated where she’d looked—at the boots of the soldier I’d been fighting. Thinking back, I noticed something I hadn’t at the time. They wore different styles of boots—which meant boots weren’t part of the costume.

With that she’d grabbed the couch, using it to hit him from behind with enough strength to knock him forward, and then leaped in to cut across the middle of his boots with an outstretched claw, cutting off both feet even as the soldier threw the couch off of himself and toward Daniel—who batted it away with his telekinesis.

It landed in the kitchen, knocking a pile of dishes off the counter as it broke in two.

The soldier struggled to pull himself up onto his stumps as we ran for the balcony. Behind us came more thumping and crashing noises as more Cabal soldiers broke through the roof and into the apartment.