I wanted to condemn her, to yell at her, to say that if she couldn’t keep people safe, she needed to let us know, because Oberon had just torn through twenty capes and we couldn’t afford to lose those capes. They were humans, most of them people fighting for humanity’s sake, with families, friends, teammates. They were people who could do some damage to Titans, and we had too few of those. And every person that died increased the chances that if and when the next breakdown came, cracks spreading, Titans rising, each and every death we’d suffered here could be the one that made the critical difference between someone turning into a Titan or not.

I didn’t make a call on exactly what to feel, because I had shit to do. With no resolution made, the feeling sat heavy on my chest, like all I had was the common element between the two contradictory impulses. Feeling disheartened. Profoundly sad.

All I could do was carry that feeling, like when hiking, tired as shit, and then being made to carry another ten pounds worth of stuff for the remainder of the way.

Our capes who weren’t annihilators or ‘survive most things’ were on the ground, some using powers, some providing others a chance to get around.

No end to this slog in sight.

That thought came with a panicky feeling, one I wasn’t willing to carry. I flew harder, focused more.

Damsel had leaped off of a building, blasting with her power to extend the leap, black dress and hair flapping behind her. Oberon brought up one hand, almost a ‘stop’ motion, except backhanded, and produced a delayed shockwave, if it could even be called that. A wall of force.

She had already stopped blasting, brought her hands forward, and blasted her way past that wall of force, one handed, knees pressed to her chest, head ducked down. As close to a cannonball one might hope to manage while putting out maximum-recoil, reality-shattering force at full blast.

A second later, she blasted behind herself again, to regain forward momentum.

Titan Oberon took a step backward. I flew after Damsel, anticipating that Oberon might attack, and when he chose to attack Foil, I instead shouted, “Hold!”

She stopped using her power.

My boots found the spot on her back between her shoulder blades and at her tailbone, steadying her rotation through the air. I flew, driving Damsel forward and toward Oberon.

I stopped, let her carry on forward. “Sveta! Damsel!”

Damsel swatted at his ‘face’ with a two-handed blast as she hurtled one direction and he lunged the opposite way, toward me. Sveta was airborne, tendrils out and ready to catch her.

I dodged Oberon and dodged the spray of blood that gushed from his new head wound.