Fighting with severely weakened powers

As I fell I could see Paris lurch forward, catching one of the reeling Harbingers. I saw Swansong fall, reaching out to use her power to counter-balance and not finding it.


I saw Sveta go utterly limp, too close to the enemy.


And I fell. It was only a few seconds, but a few seconds of falling made for a hard landing, especially when that landing was on hard earth. The air went out of me.


None of us here were in a position to trigger for the first time.


Couldn't be a second trigger. Too brief, no excuse for it, at the opening of a fight.


No. It felt heavier and weaker. Like the crackle of thunder as lightning struck a long distance away.


Already, I could feel my power start to creep back in, but it was a hundredth of what it was supposed to be.

***

My power was still just not there. Flight that couldn't actually hold me up. An aura that felt like a memory of a feeling. The Wretch- a forcefield so small that it didn't extend any further than my clothes. So fragile that my attempt at moving scraped it across the ground and destroyed it.

***

I shifted my weight, leaned back, then threw myself forward, getting to my feet. My flight did about five percent of the work. My boots skidded on the side of the road, putting me further into the ditch, while reminding me I had a row of stitches on the underside of my foot. As my boots hit the lowest point of the ditch, a red light appeared, joined by others, further away. I stumbled away as they crackled to life.

***

Not aimed at me, but at another purpose. A barrier of the high-pressure blurs cut me off from getting to either Swansong or Sveta.


I kicked the ground, hard, and sent a spray of crud directly at them.


"Kicking dirt?" Etna asked. "Really? That's what you heroes have sunk to?"


I kicked again, aiming at her, the kick aimed for a mound with a rounder shape within it. Dirt and ice flew, and a flat stone six inches across flew past the barrier, clipping her on the hip.


Paris hurled darts my way. One hit the forcefield and was destroyed on impact, but the other missed, and that one was an issue.


Another barrier, a geyser of pellets flying like tiny bullets.

- Heavens 12.2