Titans of Chaos

The particle beam radiating from Victor traveled at roughly 7.5 billion meters per second. Thekinetic energy released as heat by the motion of those particles created a flash of flame brighterthan the surface of a blue-white star...

It all happened at once.

Colin stepped in front of me, using that same impossible speed he had used before. He had hishand on my wrist, and did... something... to me.

The space-collapsing shell passed through me at faster-than-light speeds. In my paradigm, thatmeant it was outside of my frame of reference. It was traveling too quickly to affect or be affectedby anything in my light-cone. Colin did something to the damn bullet so that it obeyed myparadigm. It turned into tachyons and vanished forever from our perceptual sets.

Victor had deflected the anti-psychic shell, so that the grapeshot merely bounced off Colin's armorof arrogant self-confidence. Impatiently he brushed away red ink that, to anyone else, would havebeen deadly wounds.

All at once...

Quentin must have been warned by his friends that our hour of death had come. Before the rifleeven fired, he waved the white wand in the air and whispered a command. A glowing circle ofdancing firefly lights appeared around the glade, embracing all of us, and lesser lights ofblue-green formed a star shape inside the circle. Latin words written in cursive trails of smokewove themselves into existence around the group.

Quentin really has the coolest special effects of any of the five of us. I mean, the fourth dimensionis big and impressive, and being able to shoot blue light out of one's face to make deadlymolecular machines is very useful. Also, being able to find a secret door in any blank wall had adefinite utility, and it was darn convenient to be able to wipe any wounds or scars away.

But little firefly sparks of gold and green and twilight blue, shining and dancing, inscribing crypticLatin pentagrams on command? That was just too damn cool for words.

The rush of terrible flame roared up to the edge of the circle, and the solar plasma touched theteeny tiny fireflies of Quentin's demonstration and...