Jelo went still.
Unusual for him. Coolbot watched carefully, the blue shimmer pulsing steadily.
He's thinking, Coolbot realized. That's the dangerous part.
Jelo's enhanced vision was tracking the field. The shimmer had a rhythm — faint, almost imperceptible. A pulse tied to Coolbot's breathing. Not constant. It breathed.
Jelo fired a Dragon Claw — deliberately slow. Aimed carefully.
Coolbot delayed it. Three-second window, waiting for it to pass—
Jelo Wing Bursted around the side and hit Coolbot from behind in the same window — arriving at his spine at the exact moment the Dragon Claw's delay expired on his chest.
Two simultaneous inputs. The field screamed.
Dragon Claw detonated through his front. The heel kick hammered his back. Coolbot's body couldn't process both directional forces at once. He was twisted violently sideways and hit the ground face-first with a sound like a car accident — the delayed echo arriving a full second later, a horrible double-boom.
He lay there.
