"I can't." His voice was very small. "The sensor array maxed out. It just says ERROR and then a skull emoji, which I did not program into the firmware."
"Helpful."
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be sorry. Be somewhere else." I stepped off the B-Rank's chest and walked toward the thing filling my intersection. "All of you. Fall back to secondary positions. Nat, hold the barriers from maximum range. Skylar, you too. Soomin, Emi, Jacob, south. Now."
"No," Natalia said.
"Nat."
"I said no." Her voice was iron. "I can see the energy signature from here and it's reading A-Rank High. You are not fighting that alone."
"I'm not fighting it alone. I have a bat and no self-preservation instinct. That's basically a tag team."
The creature took a step. The ground flexed under its weight. A fire hydrant burst somewhere to the left, spraying water in an arc that caught the dawn light and turned gold.
"Soomin," I said. "Tell the Fox I have a job for her."
