Was I willing to take a wound to take the angel out? I had a bad feeling that the right blow might kill me. Fighting with swords that arguably attacked your “soul” seemed like it might have different rules, and I hadn’t learned them yet.

  That also meant that everything I’d learned about how to avoid killing my opponent also couldn’t be trusted.

  Right now, I’d have to go with whatever worked.

  Choosing to circle the tower while fighting the angel, I avoided having to pay attention to the whole fight. I boosted my speed with anti-gravity, yanking myself ten feet ahead of where I was, but not so far that Amnesia Angel would give up.

  The next stage depended on my understanding of how Rachel’s powers worked. She could exist out of phase with our reality, but still close enough to see and hear it, which meant that small amounts of her had to be in phase.

  When she did it, the world faded out just as she faded to outside eyes.

  The upshot? Attacks on the senses might still help, and I had a few, the best known being sound. I decided to start with that.

  I whipped around, inertial dampers in my suit allowing me to make a turn with too many Gs to be safe for humans, shooting sideways.

  As Amnesia Angel began to turn, I turned again, inertial dampers humming as I flew toward their weak side, the side with the dangling, paralyzed arm, so that striking me would require flipping over.

  I had a plan for that.

  Of course, so did they. Their plan, as they realized that I’d turned and aimed myself at them, involved flipping over so that I had to face their flaming sword.

  I countered their counterplan by dropping downward, figuring that it would be hard to fight the momentum of their spin. Then I opened up with the Rocket suit’s sonics at full volume. Amnesia Angel might be partially out of phase, but the part in phase might matter.

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  As ever, the initial blast tried a broad spectrum of frequencies, centering on the ones with the most resonance afterward. I didn’t need my HUD to list the resonant frequencies to know that the angel felt it. The way their hands flew up to their ears and the sword disappeared was enough of a hint.

  The way that there were suddenly no resonant frequencies might argue that I’d been too successful, but that would ignore that I’d made it into striking range with my sword in the meantime.

  Even though their sword was gone, I hadn’t let myself drift into range for one of their strikes. Instead, I’d aimed my sword at the wing extended below them as they flew sideways.

  Still reacting faster than I could strike, they tried gathering their wings in and diving out of my reach. They were mostly successful in that, but not completely. On my way under them, I did slash into the wing near the tip.

  I didn’t cut it off, but the glow disappeared where my sword hit, leaving a line of normal white feathers. Better than a mere visual, the angel wobbled in the air, experiencing pain or maybe even damage.

  Having passed them without receiving a return strike, I let myself turn in an arc, staying out of range, but flying parallel to Amnesia Angel, who spotted that I wasn’t on them and dove toward the Justice Fist tower.

  I couldn’t let that happen. If they made it, I’d have help, but so would they. I gave the rockets maximum fuel and assistance from anti-gravity and shot ahead of them.

  The angel banked left, away from the tower and toward the row houses, gaining height again as they flew. That height gave Cassie an angle where she didn’t risk hitting buildings on either side of the base’s property, the Justice Fist tower, or a member of our team, especially me.

  Despite the daytime sun, the blazing white beam was still visible and still forced my suit to darken the helmet’s display to prevent me from being blinded.

  The beam didn’t cut a hole through Amnesia Angel. They were out of phase, but turned their head to avoid the light, telling me what I suspected. They didn’t have a way to protect their eyes while also seeing where they were going.

  I decided I couldn’t miss this chance. While I didn’t fly into the beam, I aimed myself at the angel, sword out and waiting for the moment Cassie stopped firing, which she did, almost immediately. Whether it was because she’d realized it wasn’t hurting Amnesia Angel or didn’t want me to be caught in the beam didn’t matter.

  She stopped as I closed, saving me the trouble of training my laser on the angel’s face. Instead, I swung my sword at the angel’s body, doing no visible damage, but the angel’s glow winked out.