Chunks of flesh came flying loose with a massive tide of blood. He reacted, bending over. I flew back and I caught the largest chunk, only for it to come apart in my hand. I’d hoped for a shard of bone or something hard.

Gas-crafted spikes sank into him, and I could feel Rachel riding. Her dog leaping from the building. Other people capitalizing on the weakness.

It was a bad combination, one that left me no time to stop, rest, or figure out if I could capitalize on this.

Rachel carried a three-pronged hook on a chain. It wasn’t Hookline’s, but it was a similar idea. She rode and she dragged that hook dragged behind her as she rode across the hunched-over Titan’s shoulders.

I flew around. “Sveta! Be ready to catch them!”

“Ah!” was her reply.

The fresh new spikes exploded into more gas. I knew I had to keep the gas away from Rachel and the dog, especially when it could put that many holes in anything. Same principle as before, fanning it away.

The hook was touched with Foil’s power, and it carved a furrow a foot deep and thirty feet long before Oberon reacted. He straightened, and she lost her footing, the dog finding a momentary foothold on one of the antler prongs.

Sveta was there a moment later, grabbing them and securing them. Holding on with one hand, Rachel swung the grappling hook head around, then let it drag against more of his back, before it no longer had anything to grip and fell within a foot of her.

“Don’t hit yourself with it!” Foil cried out.

The gas was putting a million holes in the flesh of Titan Oberon, some large enough to fit a basketball in, some only big enough to dig a finger into. And despite my efforts to spin and fan the gas away, it was creeping closer to my best friend and Rachel.

I saw it graze the dog’s foot, and I saw flesh turn red and raw, boils appearing and popping to reveal perfect cavities and deep channels where there had been flesh before.

“Fall!” I ordered.

Sveta fell for a moment, then stopped herself, her arms dividing up into ribbons to catch onto prongs. Rachel was staying put, stubborn.

“Fall!” I ordered.

Rachel began working with the grappling hook again.

“Rachel, damn it!”

Sveta decided to instead yank Rachel off of her handhold. Another tendril caught the rope of the grappling hook and hauled it off-course so it wouldn’t fall on or tear through the pair of them.

Diving, I had to avoid the hook. I caught them, and ensured my grip was secure without being bone-crushingly strong before pulling them away and toward a safe rooftop. I could feel Sveta under one arm, Rachel under another, the dog held uncomfortably by four more.