Sam

  "Your defense is impressive," Sheriff Tawney admitted. His stance was low and sprawled, ready to dodge left or right if his opponent decided to return fire. "But if you thought that'd be enough to scare me, think again."

  "Oh, good," Mags replied. She had removed one of her clogs and was wobbling on one foot while trying to pluck a pebble or something off the sole of her foot. "Go on then, sheriff—hit me with that big-dick shit."

  The sheriff obliged. He raised his heavy revolver, took aim at the woman's head. "Here's the thing," he said. "I've fought defensive types like you before. And the key to a strong defense is focus."

  "If you say so." Having cleared whatever lint that had been annoying her, Mags dropped her leg back down and kicked her foot back into its loose wooden shoe.

  "Of course," he went on, "focusing on one thing means neglecting another. Bubbles (Four)."

  With the last words spoken, the bullets caught in Mags's invisible shield began to seethe and exude a thick froth whose countless minuscule bubbles rapidly expanded and detached into a floating cloud. Myriad wobbly, shiny spheres obscured the immediate area around the woman, forming a strange sort of smokescreen.

  Sam had to imagine that Mags wouldn't be able to see much of anything in there.

  Tawney's revolver sounded twice, and the shroud of bubbles whirled as it was upset by two racing projectiles, though they were of course too quick for Sam to catch with the naked eye.

  "You catch that?" the first Builder said in Sam's ear. "Sheriff just curved the bullets."

  "Yeup," the second one agreed, nodding along.

  "The thing is," Tawney continued, "you focus on strengthening the front of your shield, which leaves the sides exposed."

  The bubbles gradually popped or drifted away, the concealment they offered thinning until, after several excruciating seconds, Mags was visible once again. Drifts of foam still flitted about the ground in little eddies, but ended abruptly in a perfect circle around the woman as her shield did not allow them through.

  Two new bullets were lodged in the air at about ear height, one on her left and one on her right, still spinning wildly as they struggled in vain to break through whatever skill magic was holding them in place.

  If they had gotten any closer than the first three attempts, Sam could not see it.

  The beginnings of a general cheer from the crowd died almost instantly, replaced by a perturbed silence.

  "Huh…" Tawney grunted in numb puzzlement. He flipped open the cylinder of his gun, dumped the spent casings, and began thumbing in new bullets plucked from his bandolier. Calmly, but Sam thought it looked like a studied calm, strictly enforced as to not give in to a creeping doubt.

  Mags gave a lazy applause, her limp claps cutting through the silence of the airborne town. "Good one!" she laughed. "You're tricky, sheriff. I like that."

  "Take this seriously!" Tawney barked in reply, losing his cool for a moment. "You're on trial for murder. At least try to act like that means something to you."

  "Right you are, sheriff. Hold on, let me just—" Mags trailed off as her lips parted in a wide yawn. She put her knuckles to her mouth to cover it, and once she was done she raised her hands in a frantically apologetic gesture. "Oh my god, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to make it seem like I was bored, I swear. Gosh, that's so embarrassing, just ignore me." Then she yawned again. "Shit man, I'm sooo sorry. Please just do your thing, I'll be good, I promise."

  Tawney flicked shut the cylinder of his revolver, then aimed down the sights. "Amp (Four): Accelerate," he growled, followed by, "Repel." His gun began to shake and a terrible whine filled the air from what Sam guessed was the chambered bullet spinning in place, building up speed until smoke was escaping the gaps in the metal assembly and the barrel was glowing orange with heat.

  Pulling the trigger, he was sent stumbling back even though he had braced himself firmly, the butt of the gun nearly knocked up into his chin before he could control the recoil. A molten streak crossed Sam's vision for an instant, leaving a bright line on her retina, and tore right into Mags.

  Or not.

  The red-hot slug spun angrily in front of Mags's face, a firework throwing off sparks that were themselves caught up in her shield and settled into slow-moving whorls spreading out in hypnotic spiral patterns. This bullet had gotten maybe half a foot further than the previous attempts, but was still nowhere close to finding its mark.

  "Geez," Mags said as she scratched at her big black-and-white mane, then reached out and stopped the racing bullet between two fingers, the thing skidding to a stop in her light grip and slowly darkening from red to brown as the heat began to dissipate. "I'm starting to feel a little bit bad here. Do you want me to, like, turn it down or something? Because I could do that if you want. Maybe make things a little bit more…" She flicked away the compacted slug, sent it plink plink plink bouncing across the platform before disappearing over the edge. "...fair."

  If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

  The sheriff was down to 7 AP. Meanwhile, a full fifteen crystals sparkled cheerily on Mags's arm. She hadn't spent a single AP through all this. How could that be possible? What was she doing?

  Tawney's calm was beginning to crack. He stood speechless for a moment, then looked down at his gun, as though unsure what to do next. Then he appeared to find some resolve within himself, and raised Justice high, opening the cylinder and letting it spin rapidly.

  "Amp (Six): Accelerate," he said, and the last of his AP crystals went dark. Then, he continued…

  "Semblance Art: Death by Disco."

  The one remaining gem on Tawney's arm, the orange SP one, went out with a bright electric snarl. Bubbles began to emerge from the top of the six-way cylinder as though blown from a bubble wand, but they were nothing like the ones he had produced before. These were metallic and reflective and perfectly spherical, multiplying in their hundreds. As they grew to somewhere around basketball size, it felt unnatural to see them still floating around and bumping into each other. It felt as though they ought to be heavy, immovable things, not soaring gracefully like helium balloons.

  As the metal spheres spread outward, so did a clear, barely perceptible ripple in the air, a dome that expanded from Tawney in all directions. It grew and grew until at last it settled right up against the inside of the spherical Barrier that surrounded the fighting area. This second layer was similar to the bluish glass of the Barrier, except it was somewhat less distinguishable.

  Sam had only heard Will briefly explain the point of semblances—this was her first time actually seeing one. Watching the area between and around the two fighters slowly fill up with glittering 'disco balls' until they were bumping off each other like an odd 4D game of pool and partially obscuring the fighters from each other, she wasn't quite sure what to think.

  Mags clapped her hands and laughed with delight as she looked this way and that to take in the whole spectacle. "There we go, sheriff! All in—that's more like it!"

  "Shut your mouth," Tawney barked, and punctuated his statement by snapping the revolver cylinder shut. Then he shut his eyes, and took a deep breath to still himself, and gently touched the eight-pointed star on his chest. Almost too quietly to be heard, he murmured: "Goddess, guide my aim."

  Mags seemed to find that unreasonably funny, her snort of laughter coming so sudden that she nearly snotted on herself.

  Tawney abruptly turned his aim away from his target, pointing his revolver off to the side at a random angle, and fired. A series of warm metallic pings followed, like a wind chime briefly stirred by a breeze except much, much louder, and one, two, three, four of the disco balls were knocked around, sent wobbling through the air in different trajectories.

  At last, a bullet lodged itself in Mags's shield from up high. This one ended up less than two feet from her, and had a strange liquid mercury-like coating around it that made the spent projectile look bigger than it really was.

  "Ho-ho!" Mags exclaimed, eyeing the big gob of vibrating, semi-molten metal. "Nice one, sheriff. Your semblance is kinda funky. Honestly, all due respect? I was sorta expecting a guy like you to have something boring for a semblance."

  Tawney switched up his aim, taking several moments to line up another shot at a seemingly nonsensical angle, then fired. Again the disco balls went knocking around, and another great big molten slug ended up caught in the shield.

  "You're not going to be a gentleman and explain how this thing works?" Mags asked.

  Tawney said nothing.

  "I'll take a stab at it then. Let me know if I get close." She spoke as the sheriff continued to fire off shots, each one coming with a longer series of ringing before hitting, each one just an inch or two nearer to reaching its target. "Well, it's obviously a field semblance. You left a clear field boundary too, which is a nice touch—very considerate of our spectators and all. And, oh here we go," she held up a finger to track the trajectory of the next bullet fired, "ping, pong, ping, pong, ping, and…" She pointed just over her shoulder, and the same instant a slug was suddenly trying to drill its way through that exact spot.

  Having gone through another six, the sheriff popped open his gun to reload.

  "It looks to me like it's all about ricochets," Mags continued. "Your bullets will bounce off the bubbles and even the inside boundary of the semblance field, but instead of sapping away kinetic energy like you'd expect, each ricochet imparts extra power to that bullet, maybe even adds some sort of virtual mass to it.

  "So the name of the game is plotting out a trajectory that allows for as many bounces as possible before hitting me. That last one was five. Not bad, sheriff—I guess they weren't lying when they said you were a good shot."

  Tawney was breathing heavy now, hand shaking as he slowly inserted fresh rounds, sometimes needing multiple tries to get one in right. The skill fatigue was starting to build up on him. Maybe the strain of casting his semblance, too.

  "You haven't even seen me shoot, Magpie," he worked out through gritted teeth; then, without warning, snapped the cylinder shut and turned in a wide half-circle as he fanned out three shots from the hip, sending the rounds bouncing with a mad cacophony of orchestral tones. Their arcs seemed to frequently intersect as they ricocheted off the suspended spheres and skidded along the inside walls, shuffling over and over like a huckster's shell game.

  Sam could barely perceive, let alone track even one of the things. With three at once, she gave up any attempt at understanding their trajectories.

  Mags's eyes suddenly widened in surprise, and she lifted one foot off the platform with an undignified yelp. The first two bullets hit her shield from opposite sides, burying themselves less than a foot from each ear.

  [Five bounces x2]

  An instant later, the third one came up through the floor, punching a hole in the ancient wood the size of a dinner plate in the very spot where Mags's foot had just been. A nearly fist-sized clump of furious sizzling metal, it moved molasses-slow before coming to a stop near the center of the woman's sphere of safety, lodged fast in the air right between her breasts.

  [Seven bounces]

  "Woah," Mags breathed, teetering on one high-soled clog. She waved at the air and the huge slug went spinning over the edge of the platform without her touching it, allowing her to go back down on both feet again. "That was actually kinda close."