I saw what she was pulling way. An attempt at grabbing Cradle. Failed—he repositioned. At two capes. She threw them into the air, then let them fall. The bed of orange motes and the associated floating effect kept it from being terminal.

And Tattletale, plucked from Cradle’s craft. Head, shoulder, and a bit of chest, hair pale and costume in disarray.

Her other focus seemed to be on trying to do something about the craft, to try to mess with its aim, but she may not have been strong enough. I saw a bit of it moving through the gap, then through the upper windows. It was twisting around, rotating, the fingers out, and lashes swinging through the exterior wall of the building.

Aiming for Rain.

“Jump!” I shouted.

I wasn’t sure he could hear. But he threw himself back and away from the wall.

The now-invisible cable sliced through wall, cleaving a line through the surface, and by the course it painted, it seemed oriented perfectly to intersect the falling Rain.

He stopped himself in the air, freezing in place. His costume rustled with the force of the cable moving through the space beneath him.

One second, two—

He dropped again.

“Help,” I said, as I flew Foil and I into Rain.

I got a bad grip on the costume at his midsection. Foil, even with the awkward way I held her, managed a firm grip on his wrist.

We descended, my flying angle too steep for a stop or swift turn-around.

Metallic crunching and grinding marked the new complication of Red’s power. She used it even though she couldn’t see what she was using it on. Splashes of piston, gear, and belts rose up and out of the ground, bright with the white hot machinery and molten iron that was thrown out and around it, each splash larger than the last, one, two—

Three was a circular saw, big enough it could have risen up beneath an eighteen wheeler and cleaved the truck in two. The spinning saw kicked up a violent mess of molten particles.

Seeing the saw, Rain drew out a silver blade, now more of a silver shortsword, no longer something he could throw. It wasn’t something that was going to help.

Foil’s blade swatted several particles out of the air as they sailed our way, accurate even when I abruptly changed direction, so the blindly-aimed sawblade wouldn’t catch us if it bobbed any higher.

The rollercoaster feeling of flying became hard impact and gritty, cold, muddy reality as we hit ground. I couldn’t fly with two people, and because the direction and orientation of my flight didn’t really give me a chance to pull up or fly the direction we needed to go. It was a rougher landing than I would have liked, one that saw us tumble to land on our backs or fronts, but not one that risked breaking anything.

“Everyone okay?” I asked.

“Yes,” Foil said. “Thank you.”