It started without warning.
No stance. No announcement. Lila didn't even fully raise her hand.
Angel felt it first. The air around her changed, not a breeze, not temperature, just pressure, the room getting smaller without the walls moving, something bearing down on her shoulders like the gravity in her immediate vicinity had decided to have a stronger opinion about things.
The reinforced tiles under her boots cracked. Then spiderwebbed outward in a perfect circle from each foot, the pattern spreading fast, the floor registering something the ceiling hadn't been told about yet.
Angel looked down at the cracks.
Then she bit her thumb.
One drop of blood fell.
It didn't reach the floor. It hung there, trembling in the compressed air, and then it multiplied, threads pulling from the cut and rising like smoke, twisting around her body in slow orbit, the beginning of something that hadn't decided what it was yet.
Lila increased the pressure.
