By the connections we’d observed, all three appeared to be linked to Titan Fortuna. They were minutes away, distance and predicted time of arrival marked out in thin gold lines and golden, sans-serif digital font. The same program that Kenzie had used to track when Breakthrough members would arrive, in a different color.

There were other details marked out, but they were subtle. Trackers for my team members, faint unless I refocused my eyes to look for them. A digitized red slash stabbing skyward from the horizon, a beacon marked ‘Class SS’, with no instructions that we were supposed to go handle it.

With everything on the line right here, I wasn’t sure I wanted the distraction of knowing. I’d do what I could here, at least until the civilians were evacuated and safe.

I had little doubt that a label like that would be something I would be having to help with sooner than later.

There was an immense kind of pressure to that. Titan Skadi was terrifying in her relentlessness. Like being on the ground, no flight, and having a building start to collapse nearby, tipping in your direction. Huge, immensely lethal, no guarantees, countless lives on the line.

Over and over and fucking over again.

Every second, she was doing something.

For right now, she was engaging multiple capes. Weld was too small to play the brute, and Titan Skadi hit hard enough that a man made of solid metal wouldn’t necessarily survive what she did, so he’d ‘welded’ limb extensions on, metal arms and legs that he could use to move faster and scoop up anyone in danger. One of them had been badly bent.

Gibbet was using her power to create large metal cranes, while fliers flew the crane’s hooks into gaps in Skadi’s armor plating. Mostly, though, it seemed aimed at slowing down Skadi’s attacks, snagging at her arms and limiting her range of movement, caging her in. It was a coordinated assault that included some shaker powers, Tristan’s among them. Protecting the convoy that was making its way into the crack.

I floated, waiting, one eye on the numbers that showed incoming Titans, another eye on Titan Skadi and the capes around her. I floated this way and that, ensuring my view of her was clear of obstacles.

I saw the crimson in her fade out, and I hauled back on the trigger.

The beam speared out, the machinery of the gun shuddering violently enough it almost canceled my forcefield. The beam raked her from axe-hand to elbow. I was ready for her to appear beside me, but she carried through on her plan. The building didn’t fall on me this time.