She extended her arms out, reaching out with tendrils that had the arms at the ends to hamper them and weigh them down, then pulled herself away with less noise than Chris made as he packed up his stuff.

The Fallen settlement was wedged in between a ‘v’ of forest, with the road cutting in from the east. The settlement proper was a denser cluster of rustic buildings, and houses dispersed out into the wider area, thinning out the further they were from this settlement.

I had the impression that this was the city center. The main road cut through the cluster of buildings, about two houses down from where I was, and it seemed to do so with a weird angled turn in it. It made me think these buildings had been some of the first, and the road had been an afterthought.

The hostages, from what I’d seen from my bird’s eye view, were being made to sit in the road, corralled by a group of people with powers. Valefor among them.

I ventured further along, checking the coast was clear, then skip-flying over to the next vantage point by pushing off the ground with my foot and flying from there once airborne. The buildings remained dense between myself and the Fallen.

Sveta dropped down from above me, scuffing the wall as she did. It seemed intentional, to keep me from startling too much or lashing out in anticipation of an attack.

She pressed her fingers to my mouth. Leaning in close, she murmured in my ear, “Two to your left. Two to our right. They were told where we are. About twenty feet away.”

I nodded.

She pulled away and turned to one side. I turned to the other, so my back was almost touching hers.

My instinct was to go up. I flew, and at roughly the same moment, Sveta went low, torso almost flat against the ground, and she pulled herself in the direction of Capricorn and Chris.

I brought myself up to the roof level, and navigated the rooftops while using them as cover from anyone on the street.

Gunfire in the distance was met with more gunfire. Prancer, Velvet, Moose, Narwhal, Weld, and Vista, with some of the Undersiders.

My heart pounded. I moved with only light contact using toes and fingertips to guide myself as I stayed as close as I could to the rooftop while not putting any weight on it.

I saw them. A man and a woman. He was wearing a costume with ragged black leather enveloping most of him, and a round metal mask surrounded by leather that obscured the shape of his head. The skin of his arms was tanned with arm-hairs sun-bleached. His visible skin was dripping with sweat. It wasn’t that hot a day out, with the sun hidden behind the clouds but that much leather had to be intense.