The cascade of chunks of ceiling began to pick up, became more aimless. I couldn’t shake that each stumble to avoid the stuff was someone moving as she’d wanted.

I took aim, and I fired. Chunks that were falling stopped, disintegrating beneath the beam, giving me a tantalizing second or two of contact before the next chunk blocked the continued beam.

I heard people shriek. Withdrawal had a crumpled leg, struck by a stone. Finale was shouting for him. There were a good dozen people like him. People who were close enough to get hurt.

Every instinct I had told me to get in there, to dive in and save him.

Logic told me that this was one of our last shots. We had to hurt her, take her down a peg so she couldn’t win that tug of war against Titan Fortuna and take over the entire system.

The screaming was a roar in my ears, like the adrenaline in my ears when I’d been trapped. The endless loop of trying to logic my way through emotional issues and emotion my way through logic, when neither would serve. Being caught by Ophion.

She’s fucking with us.

Putting us in a lose-lose, demoralizing, psychologically assaulting us.

Because it served her goal.

Because she needed to, I told myself. If we could push through this, it’d inconvenience her.

Fuck you! I willed. I pushed again. Tried to feed courage and outrage out to the crowd on a level that would serve the people who needed it.

I’m not who I was when Ophion got me.

I’m changed.

The words rambled through my brain, pushing through a fog of noise and screaming. Change. Metamorphosis. Cocoon.

Cocoon.

The scream latched onto the memory. Me, wrapped in a cocoon of stray dogs, cats, bugs. The cocoon had become a coffin, encapsulating me, after Crawler had eaten into me with acid.

But that coffin had opened. Ribs with flesh strung between them had parted, revealing me within.

I held onto that image, pushing out, trying to capture it.

Holding it firm in my mind, I dove for Withdrawal. I snatched him up. I had a fleeting glance of Finale.

Rather than carry him to safety, I used momentum and flung him across the floor, relying on the metal rig and its propensity to skid.

He stopped himself against the wall, using the springs, then twisted around, aiming his pill popper.

I saved others, grabbing them.

The Fragile One fired the gun, placing the shots only when I was willing it, only when I was keeping an eye on things, to make sure nobody flew into the way.

Pressing the attack.

Staying low to the ground, watching the environment, I saved three people.

Others jumped in. Helping. When I saw people losing courage, I gave pulses of courage. When I saw them succumbing to the fear and head-fuckery, I gave them a taste of righteous ‘fuck you’.