I saw the shift in their bodies as Roman used his power. A burst of raw emotion, rage and hostility flowing through them and making veins momentarily bulge. It came, apparently, with strength. Enough for them to leap toward the nearest building face.

‘Leap’. They had no traction on the slimy roof. They tumbled forward with some velocity, enough to briefly meet the building face. Roman slammed his hand against a window frame to adjust his fall, crashing through a window. Juliette grabbed on with sheer strength, fingertips hooking around holes in the windowsill, and displacing any slime on the rim or on her fingers by sheer strength.

Oberon produced a shockwave before hitting the ground. Slime everywhere rippled out and away from the point below him.

Moving it aside so he had more room to land. He crashed down, and even that crash was dampened.

But the shockwave was as immense as the one that had leveled a city block.

I hauled on the cloth that had Parian and Foil, lifting them up and away. Off to the side, Chastity was whipping at a bit of storm drain, taking two tries before she had a hold she felt secure enough about.

I saw falling bodies, and realized a moment later they were stuffed animals. Juliette held on with one hand, her body still but her legs swaying in the wind.

Chastity yelled something that was lost in the rush of wind. The blast of wind from Oberon’s impact washed past her, and she yelled something again, swinging in the wind, feet trying and failing to find something but slime.

Then Chastity dropped a good foot toward the ground.

The whip didn’t have enough of a grip on the drain pipe, and the drain pipe itself was flimsy. She slipped down, and the force of her body weight coming down made the pipe bend, to the point it almost came free of the wall.

I could feel the lurch in her stomach through the Syndicate connection.

“Can’t—” Foil muttered. She reached down to her boot, scraping through slime. “Cleats. Swing me, Vic!”

I felt her legs move, and I swung the dangling pair to work with that movement.

The crossbow fell, abandoned. She threw two darts at Chastity, impaling her clothes to the wall, then very intentionally slipped free of the cloth, falling.

A dart in each hands, she staked herself to the wall of a building that was already starting to crumble.

She leaped from there, to another building that was in the midst of falling down.

I knew her intention.

I flew, swinging Parian out. Chastity’s whip had fallen from the drain pipe and now dangled limp from one hand. Her other hand gripped in a futile way at her coat. It was now only tearing cloth that pinned her in place, and her hold on the cloth wasn’t enough to stem the tearing.