The warrior angel with the glowing sword pointed the weapon at me. I flew down and away, using pipes for cover—

And it reversed its hold on the sword, gripping pommel with one hand and handle with the other, sword pointing backward and past its own hip. The beam tore into the water filtration structure, taking out a good chunk of it.

A feint.

I hated this. Hated feeling paralyzed. I was in a position to observe and problem solve, but the gas hadn’t worked.

I could see where the halo’s systems were sucking in gas, spitting it back out.

“Keep hitting them!”

The sword had taken out a good quarter of the filtration structure to the right, and the amount of water was startling as it sprayed out at high pressure and massive volume. The group that had climbed further up the same structure, Ashley and Capricorn included, were having to fight to keep their positions as pipes dipped and previously horizontal sections became precarious slopes. On the ground, capes were running through the water or even dropping low to let themselves get carried by the flow, where the geyser banked off the wall to the floor.

In the midst of all of that, Capricorn had switched over to Byron, and Byron had been drawing out a constellation. While I adjusted, steering clear of the halo and looking for new cover or any people in need, Byron blasted the mechs with a more focused bit of water.

The halo countered. A single beam down the center of the geyser. Water was superheated into steam, and the expansion of steam disrupted the geyser’s course. What had been a focused stream of water became a splatter, a dump truck’s worth of water thrown casually across three suits that could have taken ten times the amount.

He blurred, turning water to rock. Splatter became a light rock coating, half of that coating crumbling away in a matter of seconds as plates shifted and parts moved. Ventilation systems ejected stone as a plume of dust.

The halo drifted closer to me, and I was forced to abandon my position. As it got close enough to the structure, it zapped it.

And in the background, the wing mech had been quiet, but was now doing something else. Something protruded from its back, as if it were laying an egg. A cartridge. Electricity crackled around the cylindrical protrusion, and the entire craft seemed to go a bit dim.

I flew, diving, being aware of the halo’s apparent range, which was very visible with the way it zapped everything that was close enough. Close to the ground, until I was skimming the water that layered over the floor, breastplate scraping tile.

Come on, my horrible partner. Work with me. Don’t kill us.

The cartridge dropped. It was the size of a fridge and likely the same weight. It toppled end over end.