A hundred feet away, Ashley, Capricorn, and Caryatid were at another fence, with Gong and Prong’s squad and the remainder of the Heartbroken. Balk’s squad was split between their fence and the next.

Past that, I could see Withdrawal with Balk’s squad and some members of the Advance Guard. It was a contrast, and it worried me, because I knew he was more evasive than aggressive, and that group was aggressive.

Sveta grabbed my wrist and pulled me in closer, distorting in shape to give me room. Rain didn’t have a lot of cover to himself, and hunkered down. His recently repaired arm looked pretty ramshackle, with one of Love Lost’s claws bent and turned into a panel across the back of the hand.

I looked up, and I saw the filtration system nearest us. A juggernaut of thick pipes and tanks.

“Harpoon guy, your name?”

“Grapnel.”

Worked.

“We might need to go up. Can you give us your harpoons to hang on to?”

“Can’t leave ’em limp and dangling, if that’s what you mean.”

“Can you shoot at something higher up, and let people climb?”

“I—”

“Incoming!” someone called out. “Scramble!”

It took a fraction of a second to locate the voice, another fraction of a second to realize they were talking to us.

I gripped the concrete fence, glancing over, my hair getting in my way as it momentarily floated like I was underwater. I could see the robed suit orienting, a sword as long as two eighteen wheelers stuck end to end pointing our way. Before, it had glowed like it was metal fresh out of the forge. Now it was white.

My heart did something between a flip-flop and dropping out of my chest. Sveta, Rain. Even Fume Hood.

Impulsive, I flew over, and the act of flying in this environment was like moving while underwater. I activated the Wretch a hair before it was safe to do so, and felt it hit the concrete barrier.

The sword became a beam, as wide as the aforementioned trucks. The Wretch took the hit, and my forward flight was arrested, stopped.

Hold strong! I thought, as the Wretch absorbed and deflected the incoming fire. It wasn’t large enough to block everything, and some of the beam scattered, hitting the filtration system.

Hold, damn it!

When the world had ended, the mind-controlling entity that had seized us all and coordinated us for one phase of the attack had used me for this purpose. To take a hit from Scion. It had been almost absentminded.

The beam from the mech suit’s sword tapered off in the same instant my instincts told me to get the fuck away. I rolled off to the side, and the Wretch flickered out and died a moment later.

It had always been better against sustained pressure than the single blows.