St. Paul sprinted along the top of the black iron gate, keeping pace with Sloan. She pointed her finger and three more discs detached from the ring around her to fly in Sloan's direction.

Oh god. Sloan thought she might actually have an idea.

Light nipping her heels, she jumped again—but not straight up. She leapt at the discs, hitting the smooth top of the first and bounding over the next two. She flipped through the air as she angled her body directly through the eye of the ring of discs, to where St. Paul's cloaked body stood undefended.

After a brief delay, St. Paul's face recognized the danger. St. Paul crossed her arms and the ring of discs closed in front of her, creating a solid and impenetrable shield. Sloan's reflection in the discs replaced St. Paul. Sloan's momentum had carried her too far to redirect. She hit the discs and bounced back into the snow.

All according to plan.

The Terminatrix's aim had followed Sloan's every movement. She raised her gun in tandem with Sloan's leap. Now, as Sloan dropped on her back in the snow, the spray of light passed over her and hit the reverberating discs.

The light, ignoring the laws of physics and instead obeying pretendland St. Paul laws of perfect reflection, sailed back toward the Terminatrix. Sloan stared upside-down as the light closed in. SURPRISE, she thought.

The Terminatrix dropped the gun and span the barrel of her revolver. Sloan's face switched to Delaney's face. Instants before the light struck her, a red bubble ballooned around the Terminatrix. The light hit it and bounced back the way it came.

ALL ACCORDING TO PLAN.

The light hit the discs. It bounced back and hit the bubble. It bounced back and hit the discs. An endless cycle of reflection and ricochet, the light gaining velocity, becoming almost a solid yellow bar between the barriers of both girls. The silver discs glowed orange, the bubble pulsed with pressure.

Sloan had always posited her light's power could break any barrier given enough sustained fire. The problem was that barriers tended to send light back the way it came. But now... but now...

Cracks spread across the discs. The bubble squeezed smaller and smaller.

Sloan tilted her head back in the snow and laughed. And laughed and laughed and laughed and laughed.

What is it, Sloan? What's going on...?

St. Paul's discs shattered in a spray of shards. The Terminatrix's bubble burst in a deluge of blood. Light shot out in both directions. St. Paul and the Terminatrix flew back as it pounded both of them. St. Paul dropped onto the other side of the fence, the Terminatrix dropped back in the snow.

(Chapter 25)