Béla shielded her eyes against the incredible brightness in the viewscreen as a tiny sun rose up out of the earth far below. She squinted and watched the shadow of a tall pillar of cloud stretch across the land. Another bright pinprick of nuclear energy occurred seemingly right next to the first one – then another, and yet, another, each blast creating an unsurpassable barrier to the approaching Confederate army.

‘How are you doing, Baby,’ Béla called out to her daughter. ‘Are you holding up all right?’

‘Fine, Mom,’ Lisa, a hundred miles below, replied.

Lisa’s wings were extended fully and although she was several miles up and above the nuclear explosions she was creating, she reveled in the heat and the massive energy of each blast that seared her seemingly fragile body as the air boiled and churned around her. The amount of damage she’d done below wasn’t readily visible because of the massive, roiling, debris clouds.

She banked and soared toward the next section they’d mapped out and moments later, another searing blast of pure energy rose up from the ground to cook her again. When she was finished with this little chore, a trench the size of the Grand Canyon would separate the nasties and Solar City. It would take their army weeks to go around it.

She felt excitement dance through her body, giving her goosebumps. She felt so free, not having to constantly battle that seething, angry mass of energy in her mind anymore. She could pull energy from the blasts she was creating far below to protect her body even as the heat and the pressure from each blast did its best to vaporize her.

She radiated a great burst of love at Macario for suggesting that she could just cast all that hateful energy out of her mind the same way she’d absorbed it so many years ago on that terrible day when she’d destroyed an entire city.

She had exuberantly shoved it all out into the sky, even using some of her own personal mass to make sure she expelled it all. The skyburst had nearly killed them both, but she’d managed to teleport Macario and herself to safety before she collapsed, completely drained of energy for the first time in her young life.

When she’d awakened from her two-day coma, she found that she could create energy anytime she needed it by simply teleporting a few grains of whatever she was looking at into any solid object or surface.

Presto and Boom! Instant nuclear power! With the added advantage that – it wasn’t continually exploding inside her head!

Soaring high over the ground to the northeast of the intruding army, she mentally sought for scouts who might be checking the terrain for troop advancement toward her home in the mountains. There were several. She teleported them out of the area she wanted to blow, then picked up a piece of sandstone with her mind and teleported it into the rocks below the surface, closing her eyes against the blinding brightness that resulted from her action.

Sixteen more sandstone rocks and sixteen nuclear blasts later, the flatlands preceding the magnificent Rocky Mountains ended abruptly with an impressive, impassable mile-wide, mile-deep canyon that arched around from Angel Fire to the Spanish Peaks.

Satisfied with the job she did, Lisa teleported up to the ship.

“Nobody’s going to get past that,” Lisa smirked, viewing the damage from the new viewscreens on the orbiting ship.

“You think they’d give up,” Tabatha sighed, “but the army’s started around the back, heading west, now.”

“I can put a canyon from Wheeler Peak all the way across the San Luis Valley,” Lisa suggested. “Then they couldn’t come in the back way, either.”

“You have that much power?” Tabatha asked, really impressed with the amount of pure energy this dark-haired, fifty-kilo girl could generate.

“Piece ’o cake!” Lisa said, grinning. “I could do this indefinitely!”

It was true. She loved blowing things up! Carving new topography across the face of the planet was something she’d never thought of. And besides that, it was loads of fun!

“You sure are easygoing, lately,” Tabatha observed. “You’re don’t even smart-mouth your mom anymore. I’ve never seen you so relaxed and cheerful. You and Mac find a new way to fuck or something?”

Lisa chuckled. “Something… Maybe I’ll tell you some day. Right now, I’m enjoying myself too much to share!”

“They should be at the canyon mouth in another day,” Tabatha said, looking at the viewscreen again.

“Tomorrow night, then,” Lisa chirped, then vanished.

‘We’ll give them a fireworks display they won’t soon forget!’

Mac was home, for a change. Lisa popped in right next to him.

“Boo!” she said, then laughed as he jumped. “Hi, lover! I’m home…”

They kissed for a few seconds.

“You act like you have been having a ball all day,” Macario said, hugging her tightly.

“Who, me?” Lisa asked, her voice strained by her strong arms around her ribs. “Yeah, I have!”

Mac set her down. “Naked, as usual, I see.”

“I can’t fly with clothes on,” Lisa explained.

“I felt the quakes,” Mac said, changing the subject. “How did it go? Did you have any problems now that you…”

“Nope!” Lisa interrupted. “If anything, handling power is easier now! I don’t have to concern myself with letting too much out at one time. I never really knew how much concentration it took to hold all that inside me.”

“Can you still flame?” he asked.

Lisa’s shoulders slumped just a little. “No, and I don’t have my energy shield anymore, either. I can create a shield by grabbing energy if there is any nearby, but mostly I’ll have to rely on mental agility and teleportation from now on. That’s one thing I miss. I could out-power anybody. Now, I’m no stronger than any of the others.”

She sat down at the table and started to pick at a stale chunk of bread and sighed, “I’m human, now – just another typical vampire girl – just like Mom.”

Mac saw a gleam in her eye and realized that his darling Lisa was hiding something. They had both agreed not to disclose the fact that she wasn’t a phoenix anymore, but Lisa was hiding something else.

“Okay, Babe,” Macario said, dropping to his knees and leaning his elbows into her bare thighs. “What is it you’re so smirky about?”

“Huh?” Lisa asked, pretending complete innocence.

Mac dug his fingers into her soft tummy as she sat there.