The specter appeared.

“My phone,” she said.

“The Wardens,” Dialback said. “They said their thinkers read the situation here as critical, and want to know if there is any news.”

“What they want is good news. Let them know I’m busy, and that we’ll contact them shortly with that good news.”

“They’ve complained in the past about my use of my power to communicate. It reads as slightly corrupted, and trips flags.”

“Then ignore them,” she said. She waited for the rebuttal, then dismissed the shadow.

Mushroom, Leadletter, Esclavage, Knallen.

The four shadows appeared in a half circle behind her. Cleo, trailing behind, found herself right between Leadletter and Esclavage.

The burly Mushroom exhaled a dot of light, which flew forward. It traveled the quarter-mile to the base of the tower, hit the closest thing the base of the tower had to a door, and blew it wide open. Valkyrie could feel the rush of the wind from the blast. Leadletter opened fire, drawing her guns and shooting at the fragments of door and frame that still hung on, to exaggerated effect.

Esclavage couldn’t act until they were closer. The leather-bound villainess produced bands of metal from her wrists, each studded with spikes. She wrapped the bands around pieces of rubble, and then flung them to one side.

Turrets began to spring out of the side of the tower, while drones began to emerge from the hole in the front. Some of the drones set to repairing, while yet others advanced, weapons leveled at the group. There was laser fire.

She had a functional team working in concert. Voltrage’s electromagnetics caught the incoming fire, redistributing energy and stopping bullets. Edgeless simply tanked the shots, while providing some loose cover for Valkyrie and Cleo with his power.

“What am I doing?” Cleo asked. She tensed as weapon fire struck the dirt a foot and a half to her right.

“You’re here if I need you.”

There was a rolling explosion, as Knallen used her own power. Waves of the defensive and repair drones were obliterated, hot scrap metal scattered at the corner where the edge of the tower met flat ground, and along the interior floor, where they’d been sent flying back through the open door.

Inside, there was vacuum, which the group had to fight past, using handholds and powers. They reached the stairs and climbed up a floor before air was available again.

The interior was hollow, with complete floors at set, clearly planned intervals. A staircase ran up the side of the tower, while a vortex of airless void plunged down the middle, as if the lack of air was a force unto itself, filling the bottom floor as air was forced out.