My hand was a claw, fingernails scratching my cheek with the force I brought it to my face, like I was about to throw up from guilt and shame alone. Hating myself for that guilt and shame because fuck her. Fuck no, on every level.

For long seconds, I didn’t move.

Then I resumed the work I’d paused as I sat awash in freshly unlocked memory. Bend this bit of metal, grab this, grab that…

Heave. Lift. Without my flight factoring in, the weight of it drove the few points of contact that were my forcefield into the ground. Two sets of feet, one hand. Less than I’d once had.

Gun. Safe and new, clean metal and violence far removed from that, unlikely to trip any mental landmines or spark any memories. Good gun.

I flew, and with the flight, the way I was lifting shifted, and the modifications I’d made held. I was almost glad it was all fucked up, because that fucked-up state demanded my attention, my focus.

Didn’t want to think about it. Didn’t want to go back there, or risk another flashback.

Some doors were best left closed.

I steered clear of Engel, and looked for Tristan. Looked for orange motes in the air.

I found red motes. Red sparks that danced through the air and left lines behind them. Tristan was on the offensive against Titan Ophion, who was slowest to recover. Someone had hit the Titan rather hard.

The red lines solidified, becoming the edges of ruins, destroyed building and a bit of metal fencing, like a damaged building that didn’t have any inherent logic to it, sitting at a forty-five degree slant, a hundred feet tall. It came in waves, the second surge of building thrusting up through the first, destroying it while extending just a bit further. The third wave extended further still, maybe two hundred feet long, punching through the second construction with enough force to send chunks soaring into the Titan.

Stronger?

No, not quite. The construction sagged, and then crumbled, leaving little more than ten feet standing out. Tristan ran up and through the rubble.

Spikes began to appear from the ground. Capes took evasive action, and Aunt Sarah was one of the capes who produced forcefields and other impediments for the spikes, flat and level to the ground so people could run on them.

That wouldn’t have been possible before.

Just what did blowing that up do, even?

I landed in a clear spot beside Tristan, the edge of the gun scraping along road that was seventy-five percent ice before finding traction in the other twenty-five percent.

Then I pulled the trigger.