Time until next Challenge: 10 days, 12 hours, 18 minutes

  The trees weren’t close, but our speedsters still could have made it across the fields to safety in a matter of seconds. Instead, they had moved to engage the second speedy Titan. We’d been lucky that it had gotten so confused by the road-destroying snake, but that streak of luck had ended, the barbed tail slapping one defender after another as it dodged attacks from my husband and a handful of others.

  Seeing the line of fallen bodies made my heart sink, even as I flagged them with holograms and directed someone with Cure Poison over to help. We handled dozens of those Titans on the road yesterday, with far fewer casualties!

  I knew the comparison was unfair. We’d gotten good at dealing with two or three Titans at a time. People had familiarized themselves with others traveling in the same vehicle or working the same duties, and some level of trust had developed. The composition of our group had shifted as we traveled, true, but it had been slow enough that we’d maintained cohesion.

  That cohesion had been lost. Attacks were still ongoing from all angles, and groups had been scattered and separated. Only Analyze let me make any sense at all of the confusing mess our forces had become.

  I spotted a twotwo begin to stoop, aiming for someone near me.

  Down! I Announced, and everyone near me flattened themselves against the ground. Six Force Shields popped into place around its chosen target, a man wearing modified hockey goalie gear. The shields shattered instantly, but the impact made the big monster’s flight wobble. Its talons still smashed into the man, sending him rolling across the ground, but the twotwo lifted away carrying nothing.

  I climbed to my feet and began jogging forward again, gritting my teeth as I sent another warning to a group ahead of me and to my left. I’d hoped to use my abilities judiciously, but I knew I’d been putting in more effort than intended, as I spotted opportunity after opportunity to change the course of the fight.

  I wondered how long I could keep this up before collapsing, and Analyze was quick with an answer: four minutes, 13 seconds.

  Shit. We need to get under cover. We’re not far…

  We were already moving as fast as we could, unfortunately. Yeah, individuals could have streaked ahead, but isolating ourselves was a poor plan, especially as we should be seeing a third speedster Titan bursting out of the trees ahead any second… ah, there we were. And, hell, Vince and the Quick Crew were way out of position, still trading blows with the previous speedster. I could try Paralyzing this one, but I’d only be able to hold it for a moment, and the effort would probably knock me out.

  If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  I flagged it with a hologram and blasted out one more Announcement:

  Full attack! Kill or immobilize ASAP!

  Most people had used their Specialties already, but hopefully most people weren’t as tired as I was and could burn their energy to take this thing down before it hurt the rest of us. The words “full attack” was a phrase we’d discussed. Everyone knew it meant to do just that.

  The air around the speedy Titan suddenly glittered like an Independence Day finale, as over a hundred people unleashed everything they had. The monster ought to have been fast enough to dodge the attacks, but the density of the sudden onslaught had left it nowhere safe to shelter. The skin and fur on the side closest to us was blasted, burned, or torn away almost instantly, exposing its softer tissue. Priya was near the front of the group and she practically tackled the monster, driving her sword hilt-deep into its side, then falling to the ground as it vanished beneath her.

  I spotted another Titan begin an attack run behind me, but didn’t lean on Announcement, pulling my gas mask down from my face and relying on lungpower: “Twotwo!”

  The first among our group had reached the trees, and I was only a dozen feet away.

  Stupid as it might have been, however, I didn’t run forward. The yellow Titan was sinuous, but some of the trees had been densely packed, and I could see a trail of broken limbs, branches, and fallen trees where it had forced its way through. One tree in particular had caught my eye, the gray corpse of a long-dead 60-foot pine. It had snapped off just above the roots and fallen forward onto the hillside.

  Dropping everything else I mentally held, I grabbed the tree. Analyze had given me good odds of being able to lift it, but if it was too rotten and waterlogged…

  It wasn’t, and my mouth stretched in a savage smile as I swept it forward, bracing it against the ground like a massive pike, tilting the end upward just as the twotwo got near. It tried to wheel aside, but it didn’t succeed fully, and my improvised spear slammed into its left wing. The dead wood wasn’t a great weapon against the tough skin of a Titan, of course, and the first fifteen feet of its length exploded into splintered to powder, even against the relatively fragile wing… but the Titan had been moving fast, and eventually the tree tore through the wing, leaving it impaled like the world’s worst shish kebab.

  If I’d been physically holding my “pike,” the twotwo would have slammed into me, but I was twenty feet to the side and the twotwo was grounded, in easy reach of all our melee specialists.

  It was toast.

  I backed into the trees, trusting my allies to handle the present I’d giftwrapped for them as I checked over the battlefield. I could see my kids already behind me, in the relative safety of the woods. Vince was… Oh, thank God, safe, successful and on his way back. It looked like the Quick Crew was splitting up to scoop up injured stragglers who’d been left behind, but they were strong and fast enough that they’d be here in mere moments. Another twotwo was starting its dive toward us, but three of my allies had already chopped down or uprooted trees to make their own oversized spears.

  I could see ten more holograms in the distance, but we’d made it to the forest ahead of the main wave of attackers and I couldn’t honestly conceive of the twotwos threatening us while we were under such thick cover. Even if all forty remaining got here at once, what were they gonna do? Land and try to chase us through the trees like big angry geese? Destroy the woods giving us cover? They were welcome to try. There was a lot of forest.

  We’d lost… I winced… at least eleven people, assuming everyone who was injured recovered. But…

  I raised my middle finger to the sky as I swayed woozily. “Screw you, Hamlet. This round’s ours.”