Sveta spoke up, “Antares and I have you. We’ll adapt if there’s any side effects from powers.”

I had the immediate impression that Sveta was here not so much because she was keeping them out of danger, but because she was keeping them from being at each other’s throats.

“Damsel of Distress, listen to me,” I said.

“Don’t talk to me like you’re my father, using my full name. You saw the dream. You should know what I did to him.”

“I know and right this second I don’t care! Fuck off! Listen, they aren’t going to care if you back off!” I told her. “You kicked ass, you hurt Oberon, you got your moments. But if you stay and you die, they’re going to pity you!”

I saw emotions cross her face.

I saw new emotions take over.

“If you die after getting a few feet of bladed fingers shoved in your ears and end up deaf and lobotomized, I think they’ll pity you more,” she said, snarling the last few words. “Not that I think a lobotomy would do much.”

Solarstare laughed. Damsel’s expression changed. Almost feral.

My forcefield caught her wrist before her clawed hand reached Solarstare. I saw the power dance from palm to the tip of the long claws. Sveta pulled Solarstare clear out of the way.

Damsel used her power, a slow-burning rumble of blackness in her clawed hands, just to my left. If I’d lowered my arm to my side, I would have touched it.

I caught her other claw. The power burned there too.

If one spark or flicker danced back toward her wrist, it’d hit my forcefield, and I’d lose that protection.

Damsel smiled. Her power intensified.

“Come with us and win later or stay here to lose now,” I told her. “And we are going to win later. I fucking hate that we’re backing off now—”

I gave hate every bit of emotion I was feeling, almost barking the word.

“—I just had an argument with Foil over it. The only way I’m making my peace with this is that I’m thinking we need to do it to win later. Need to.”

Titan Skadi drove Titan Eve into the row of buildings. The building that had lost all of its internals collapsed.

“Swansong would have gone with you.”

“Probably.”

“So I won’t,” Damsel said, staring me down. She didn’t flinch as the building fell.

Off to our right, Titan Oberon was rising to his feet. Gundeck opened fire on him.

“That makes you more of a slave to her legacy than if you were your own person,” Sveta said.

“Do you want to die when I’m done with her?”

“No, I don’t want to die,” Sveta told Damsel. “Neither do you.”

“What if I don’t give a shit about dying?” Damsel challenged her.