I deposited them on the surface, huffing for breath. Both women had a sheen of sweat from their exertion on their faces, breath fogging around their mouths. Rachel had a grip around one hand, which had a hole in it, the skin around the hole scarred. A trace of the gas.

A flash of light nearly blinded me, and the moment came with a spike of fear, that Kenzie hadn’t left, that she was using her gun.

She wasn’t. The heroes who had been closest to Oberon were here. Some of them.

Injured by gas. One had a bandage wrapped around a stump of her arm, and the bandage was soaked through black.

Another had the holes riddling his face and neck, raw and red, with flesh pulsing deep within. I could see through to where his skull was, but whatever that gas was doing, it wasn’t letting him die. It was him that produced the beam of light that turned into a shackle where it hit.

Backup.

Oberon was taking something of a beating, but he wasn’t going down. Gas-induced rot had taken much of his face, hoof, and upper chest, but he still stood as tall as he ever had, not even breathing hard.

Which wasn’t to say we hadn’t made our small impact.

Titan Eve advanced toward him, moving through her barrier, and his movement was defensive, producing a shockwave, then a second. Hammering at her, to slow her approach.

When he took his own step, it was backwards, away.

We have to maintain a balance until we can find a chink in the armor we can exploit to maybe end this forever.

And that balance means we now have to deal with Titan Eve. My friend.

I saw Titan Oberon’s head turn. The wound at his wrist was slowly healing, as was the wound at his back.

He surveyed our group, studying us.

Titan Eve rose out of the smoke, standing tall, gas gathering and swirling around her.

“Stop her!” Tristan called out. “We fight the strongest one until they back off!”

Until they back off or we don’t have the strength to keep these steamrollers from steadily advancing on one another.

I was ready to start figuring out if I could do anything against Titan Eve when Tattletale held one hand out and back, as if to tell us to stop, to hold.

There was a pause, and I saw precious ground being lost as she moved forward, soaring toward the Titan Oberon, who backed up.

Titan Eve tipped backward all at once, with her full height collapsing back onto several city blocks worth of road, across cracks in reality, and onto the occasional small building. The impact was deafening, and the ensuing ruin and destruction created enough dust, smoke, and plumes of gas that it became impossible to see anything.