Almost hidden because a building stood nearly as tall as she did, covering up most of her body, Titan Skadi stood behind the heroes’ lines, clad in red and black armor.

With a swipe, she destroyed the Dragon-craft. Whatever had been charging detonated, bright, white toward the center and blue at the edges of the explosion, in stark contrast with Titan Skadi’s armor, which ranged from red to black. Too bright to look at.

No.

With a second swipe, she took out three more Dragon-craft.

Come on, get out of there! Everyone—

Raising two bladed limbs above her head, she plunged those limbs down into the heroes’ lines.

Hitting no less than ten people in the process.

She straightened, moved like she was taking a step forward, and everything that wasn’t in deepest shadow disappeared. Those deep shadows disappeared a moment late.

She had reappeared next to Oberon. She didn’t attack him.

Auger beat her, and Titan Oberon had been connected to Auger.

We got our backup, and Titan Oberon just got his.

The connected ones are coordinating.

Radiation 18.6

There were capes with the sort of power where it didn’t matter what the fuck they were shooting, they’d put a hole in that something. Damsel’s power was like that. So was Foil’s. Over the course of the last fifty minutes, four more had joined my squad. All trying to do something—to find a weak point, slow a Titan down enough, get at a joint or incapacitate a limb.

There were capes where it didn’t matter what the fuck was coming at ’em, they’d take the hit and stay in the fight, or do something equivalent. I was one of those capes. Kind of. Our job was to protect the first group.

Titan Skadi’s blade came down from overhead, slamming into the woman who was protecting our artillery line. Skadi’s massive axe-hand cleaved into her from forehead to pelvis, but didn’t make it further, as the woman’s hands pressed in on the flat sides of the blade, her whole body trembling with the exertion. Skadi pulled the weapon away with a jerk, and the woman’s two halves fell to either side, a fresh version of her partially naked, blood-streaked upper body lunging out of the massive wound like a person coming out of the water. Bigger, stronger, with a wreath of molted, wounded versions of herself draping one side of her chest, hips, and forming a skirt down to the ground.