It could have been down to a restriction in the power they had. It could have been that the gas wasn’t air and it needed air to cool efficiently, or to perform certain processes. Capricorn’s power was forcing it to arrest all internal airflow and vent out the foreign material.

Rain threw a blade, and the blade caught the warrior angel in the chest. A silver line, five feet across.

I flew toward it, and the halo zapped me, firing between the warrior angel’s arm and armpit. It pulled its weapon from the structure, and the entire thing sagged.

I dove, accelerating, always keeping the warrior angel between myself and the halo, but the halo was large enough to be overhead for both the warrior angel and myself. The beam came down, striking the Wretch. By the time I could get away from that, a wing extended, protected by hard light, walling off my path.

The silver line was already gone.

The next two shots from Precipice were shot out of the air by the halo.

“Victoria!” Ashley called out.

She was pointing.

Fuck. I knew what she was planning.

I saw her start to run, straight for the warrior angel. I flew to intercept.

She used her power to augment her approach, twin blasts straight behind herself, a violent, flickering darkness that screamed like nails on a chalkboard. Rocketing herself out and toward the warrior angel.

But the blast wasn’t quite enough. Forward momentum died out, and she was falling faster than she moved forward.

I flew to her, and she stopped firing her blast so she wouldn’t hit me. I caught her wrist as she caught mine, my normal Victoria strength boosted by flight alone, and then used a burst of Wretch-strength to hurl her back up and forward.

Plumes of darkness shot behind her to accelerate her approach.

But the haloed angel was rising, and I wasn’t in a position to help.

The beam came down, raking Ashley’s front. She used her power to blast up and into the beam, but it sent her tumbling down and off course.

She blasted again, aiming for the warrior’s chest, but it was a glancing hit. The blast extended out fifteen feet, and the warrior angel was roughly fifteen feet away. Surface damage.

I flew toward her. To catch her out of the air. The wing extended between us. A wall of hard light wrapped around whatever tinker alloys the mechanical parts of the wings were made of. I hit it, hard. I didn’t penetrate. Ashley was left to fall.

“Be ready!” Capricorn called out.

I wasn’t sure what he meant, but I remained ready.

The gas was heavy enough in the air to irritate my nostrils and leave my throat dry and scratchy, despite the humidity. I coughed, and I worried.