I hit the ground with a jarring thud, still holding part of my shield in my hand by one handle, the other half dangling from my arm like the world’s worst bracelet. Both slapped into me as I landed, the impact bringing a sharp pain to counterpoint the bruising force of my landing.

The wind was knocked out of me. I felt my lungs complain as I sucked in a breath. If it wasn’t for the aliens’ reinforcement of my body, I’d be in far worse shape... even as it was, I hurt everywhere. Even twitching made my body ache.

Suddenly, I felt a spike of fear. I threw myself to the side, not really realizing why. I wouldn’t have said I could move, but I’d suddenly known I needed to. What…?

Even as I wondered, I felt a breeze pass behind my neck and the pavement crack behind me.

It clicked: I’d sensed Chris’s charge on my Life Sense subconsciously. I’d reacted without fully processing it, my desperate adrenaline burst getting my just far enough to evade his ferocious sledgehammer swing.

I was still in bad shape, though. I was prone on the ground, hurting, and with a broken shield weighing me down. Plus, the pain in my arm worried me. I didn’t think it was broken, but something was obviously wrong with it.

Worse, Chris was only a few feet away. He had his sledgehammer, but even unarmed, he would have been a terror. Covered in spines, clawed fingers, fangs in his mouth, a prehensile tail whipping from side to side… The extent to which he’d enhanced himself physically was intimidating on multiple levels. He wouldn't have been out of place in a horror movie: mutated into something that bore only slight resemblance to humanity, freakishly strong, seemingly unstoppable.

I was dead if I held still, so I dug deep and forced myself to move, every part of my body complaining. I dropped half of my shield as I pushed myself to standing, letting the other half slide down my arm to grab it awkwardly in my hand. It wobbled in my grip, imbalanced with only one handle. It was better than nothing, probably?

As light as it was to me, it still hurt to lift it.

Chris swung his sledgehammer at me again. This time, I didn’t try to block, scrambling out of the way to avoid the strike.

He was fast, but he’d chosen a slow weapon. It let him commit all his strength to a strike, but each swing still included windup and followthrough. It didn’t make him easy to dodge, but it made it possible.

I kept moving backward, mouth dry as I kept my eyes on his weapon, trying to move as soon as he committed to an attack, trying to be somewhere he couldn’t hit with that swing. I succeeded for a few strikes, moving up onto the driveway of the house next to mine, edging back onto their grass, getting closer to safety.

If safety existed.

I was near the Shop now. People had noticed our fight. Some were trying to help, but Chris’s great speed let him dodge the vast majority of the attacks sent his way with contemptuous ease, and those he didn’t dodge didn’t seem to trouble him. A man with a baseball bat swung it at Chris’s back. I heard the clang as the bat connected, but I didn’t see Chris twitch. A Telekinetic dropped a net over his head, but it might as well have been made of tissue paper for all the Dragon noticed: the strings popped the second they would have restricted his motion. An Ice Bolt smashed against the side of his head and, while he grimaced, I saw no signs of damage.

I readied myself to dodge another blow from Chris, but as I stepped to the side this time, he smirked. His sledgehammer whistled harmlessly through the air, but I could tell he hadn’t put his full effort into it. I felt a moment’s confusion before searing pain wracked my leg.

I glanced downward, my heart sinking.

His tail. I’d forgotten Chris had a tail, too. As I’d focused on his more traditional weapon, he’d whipped it forward. It was now wrapped around my left leg, immobilizing me as the blades at its tip cut into my thigh. Chris was winding up his sledgehammer for another swing, and this time I couldn’t dodge.

Frantically, I activated Parry, getting my shield in between his weapon and my head. It would never hold! It-

A Force Shield appeared between his weapon and my scrap of shield. His hammer shattered it, but it absorbed enough of the force that my shield didn’t break further.

I wasn’t alone. I wasn’t alone!

The reminder reinvigorated me. “SHIELDS ON ME!” I shouted. “Go for his eyes! Hamper him! Surround him! He’s their leader. If we take him down, they’ll break!”

My shouted command seemed to startle Chris. He took a moment to look up and around, realizing how far he’d gotten from his allies. We truly did have him surrounded.

A hydrokinetic, someone with Control Water, found the first crack in Chris’s defenses. A wobbling orb dropped down to envelop his head. He ducked down out of it, but he was coughing and spluttering.

Other attacks followed up the first. Ice crested Chris's face, causing him to scream briefly before he clawed it away. He seemed to be able to heal the damage - or at least, he didn't act blind - but flames flared, causing more damage and another pained yell.

When the hydrokinetic managed to get water around Chris's head a second time, he panicked. He bolted, only belatedly realizing he was dragging me along with his tail, then tossed me aside as he continued to flee.

I’d like to say that I made full use of the opportunity, but what actually happened is that I screamed in pain as I was dragged along by my sliced-open leg, then dropped my shield as I tried to catch my fall, causing further pain to my injured arm. I fell to the ground, panting heavily, trying to control my breathing and gather my strength to drag my bruised and mangled body to the Shop. Healers were waiting there, I knew. If I could just make it back…

As I lay there, I watched the Dragons’ army. I was frighteningly close to them, and I spent the first several seconds watching in terror, waiting for someone to decide to finish me off. Fortunately, they paid my prone form little mind. Without my shield, I suppose there was nothing in particular to mark me out as the one Chris had fought. In the darkness, my bicycle-helmet-and-puffer-vest-armor looked much the same as what dozens of other people wore. I was hardly the only defender here, nor the only one who had fallen; women with baseball bats and men with hockey sticks were laying into the assaulting forces.

It was… hell. I saw a man smash a baseball bat into the face of one of the normal-looking people with the Dragons, and then I saw a Dragon open his throat with a claw. Two people, two lives, potentially over in just as few seconds.

The Dragons had come far enough down our street that they were starting to get shot at from all sides. They were still moving, but their forward progress was now incredibly slow.

I started to hear an Announcement echoing through my mind as the main force of the attackers grew closer:

-the strange building. Kill the defenders. You will be rewarded. Your loved ones will be rewarded. Stay focused. We must capture or destroy the strange building. Kill-

The message repeated itself. It was loud in my mind, and made it hard to focus on any other sounds. Any actual sounds.

I tried to push myself to my feet, but failed, falling to the ground again.

While gathering strength, I kept my eyes on the battle. It wasn’t going all the Dragons’ way. I saw one surrounded by people beating on his scaly form, sunk up to his ankles in the concrete sidewalk. Another had been grabbed by a tree limb and was dangling off the ground, flailing arms and legs uselessly, unable to hit anything. Helen, I thought, and Matilda. We had strength too, even if we had to be creative to apply it.

I noticed something odd, though. While none of the other Dragons had sallied out alone, like Chris had, most were actively doing something. Blocking missiles, healing injured allies, slaughtering our forces. But there was one, a Dragon with pale blue scales, that was doing very little. He or she defended if attacked, but wasn't actively attacking anyone.

Their Announcer, I thought. Found you.

Chris slammed his hammer into the sidewalk, shattering the concrete that kept his fellow Dragon captive, and then the group withdrew around the corner of the house next to mine, driven under cover by our defenders’ barrage. I thought they had left several of their slave fighters behind, injured and prone on the ground, but their elite forces largely remained intact. Only the Dragon trapped in the tree limbs remained behind, still wriggling in a futile attempt to get free.

Shortly after they retreated, I heard footsteps pound up and a friendly voice interrupted, a gentle hand resting briefly on my throat.

“Gotcha! Still breathing. Let’s get you some healing.”

A man hefted my body off the ground and slung it over his shoulder like a beach towel. I could see others running forward, one toward each slumped body on the ground. My savior paid them no mind, just trotted back toward the Shop. Each step sent a fresh wave of pain through my body, but I bit back a moan. He was taking me exactly where I needed to go.

I think I knew how to end this fight.