I heard the roar of Damsel’s power, located her, and watched as she used the recoil of her blast to direct her descent. She’d been atop Oberon, apparently, and in the wake of his attack, she was crossing over to a new target.

She fell past Titan Eve’s head, raking the side of her ‘face’ with a singular blast.

Gas reached up, forming spikes, dissolving, forming more spikes, dissolving further. Filling the air like she was building a forest around herself, only the appendages couldn’t decide if they were bare branches stabbing toward the sky or if they were loose clouds of greenery.

I pulled Foil back, and I flew toward the plummeting Damsel, who was trying to both stay back from the gas and to slow down her fall.

“Stop blasting, let me in close!” I shouted, as I pulled Foil behind me.

She kept blasting, claws whipping around herself, using her annihilation blasts intermittently, when it wasn’t clear she had a good sense of when she was facing down.

“Trust me!” I shouted.

The blasting stopped.

We continued to fall, and I was forced to find a speed where I wouldn’t pull Foil’s arm out of the socket, but would still catch up to Damsel and have room to control her fall.

Gas was expanding all around us.

I placed a hand around her bladed fingers, pulled her closer, then did it two more times. Phantasmal hands gripping blades, still trying to find that gentle balance where I wouldn’t squeeze so hard the blades cut through my forcefield, but where I wouldn’t lose my grip on her either.

I focused more on keeping Foil from getting whiplash than I did in saving Damsel’s arm from being ripped out of the socket. I knew her shoulders were strong, she’d been augmented, and her Manton protections no doubt covered some of the damage that constant recoil might have done to her.

I pulled both of the women into the air, up and away from the wounded Fume Hood.

My borrowed phone blared, its warning given.

We’d hampered them enough, we’d slowed them down. Now Dragon’s ship, mounted on a rooftop, was preparing its shot.

Everyone out of the blast zone.

Down there on the road, wobbling, a frantic Torso was trying to get the hell away, wobbling precariously. I flew after him, thinking I could pick him up, but another cape was already on the scene, doing a sweep. They picked him up, lifting him into the air.

Come on, I thought. I turned my attention to the Dragon-craft, and the line of heroes at the edge of the damage.

Come on.

A blue light flared at the top of the Dragon-craft.

A shadow fell over the battlefield.