Unconsciously, to reduce the strain on Ixnay’s reservoir of power, their March drops her head, eyes closed.

The ship passes over. It doesn’t open fire. It passes over their destination, then begins to circle around.

The location is fresher in their Foil’s memories than in their March. She has patrolled here. She has visited. There is no way for March to know, but she guesses.

All camouflaged, they approach the scene. They will not be seen if they are not directly looked at by camera or eye.

A bubble sits suspended in the sky. Some earth still clings to it, but the ground dropped and the bubble remained fixed to this point in space. Off to the side, a scarab beetle is cast in bronze, the pedestal broken, the statue sitting askew on broken road.

March reaches into a pocket. The second of her devices. Courtesy of Cradle and Cradle’s back and forth with the Khonsu Fallen, who are led by time manipulators.

“Stand back.”

The device makes the bubble fragile, and March’s blade cuts into the skin of it. It distorts, and it breaks.

Dauntless, Alabaster, and Jotun. Heroes lost in the Leviathan battle.

March is quick to move, helped by the three faces. She lunges—

And a broadcast drowns everything out. The three faces hurry to gather and check, to prepare for responses and to organize information. Everything they intended to do in their March’s sleep is now done in a hurry, taking in a vast, loud signal. Simulations for the time tracking are forced to be updated, simulations for space and aim adjustment are double-checked. They dig through the assorted realities, to make sure their reference is clear.

But this—this is a big signal, and in it, there is more life than there was before. If they were coals, then this is a slice of sun, stabbing skyward. Others respond, even from other versions of this Earth. Responses mandate adjustment—

It will take time before their March or their Foil have their full abilities back.

Two at once. No safeguards, no protections, the walls fall down, and the maximum ability of each facet, face, and shard is brought to bear. Maximum ability.

Dauntless has a power that adds incremental power, but something is wrong, because his helmet and the things he wears is altering as though four years have passed, with power added every day. He grows, he stands taller than many buildings, and—

And it is what the humans call a second trigger. It is what humans call a broken trigger, though this is wrong.

It is a failure to support. A desperate clutching at a well too intense and dangerous, collecting waste and fragments, extrapolating out wildly, without program or logic.

The one with pure white skin, Alabaster, also second-triggers.

And the third—March’s blade impales his head, stabbing into a precise location of the brain.

The three faces can only observe, as they hurry to adapt.