A grenade here—Snag used his power to change direction in mid-air. The grenade exploded, and the people near the epicenter were thrown away in fast-motion, their falls as they landed outside the bubble slower but harder for the lack of equilibrium. Each one moved as it exploded, then exploded again.

There were others, some decoys, some traps, others laying groundwork or sowing chaos, so the crowd of allies were a detriment to Snag. Holograms appeared, repeated, forming clusters of two, three, four.

He saw the boomerangs and shielded himself with his arms pressed together.

He kept them there, as matching boomerangs time-looped to strike his arms over and over.

“Focus!” Cradle shouted. A mechanical hand pointed. Secondhand was already across the battlefield, unloading his charge. “Switch with me!”

He’d leave the Speedrunner traitors to Cradle.

He had someone else to go after. The boy had been sent flying by Secondhand’s trickery. The blast would have hit him hard. He’d be reeling.

Snag used his power to hurl himself back, nearly colliding with Nursery.

The fight was turning the wrong way, now. There was more gunfire, more chaos that served the Fallen’s ends.

Snag let himself fall straight up, zooming up and away from the battlefield. Rain pattered lightly against the side of his neck and his ear. The exaggerated tactile responses of his gloves fed him details on each raindrop, more clear and real than his own body’s senses.

The anger was crystal clear, and everything else was muted and cold. A part of him had died in that shopping center, as a little girl slipped from his grasp, a doll he shouldn’t have bought from a couple for the amount he did burned, and everything stopped making sense.

It hadn’t been a quick death, but the killing blow had been struck, and he’d gone hollow in the ensuing months.

In the gloom, the Fallen shithole and the battlefield were small below, lit by tiny points of light.

He controlled his descent, falling, but not at a velocity that would hurt him, not if his arms took the landing.

Which wasn’t to say Snag intended to land gently.

He dropped out of the sky, and he struck the ground with an overhead swing of both fists. He narrowly missed making contact, as the boy threw himself back. He thrust a fist forward, and the boy ceased moving back in mid-air, then resumed moving, to the side, instead. The punch grazed him.

The boy created curved silver blades in his hands, and swung. Snag pulled back before they could reach.

“It’s really you,” Snag said.

“Offer stands,” the boy said. “Help. Look at them. We can’t let the Fallen win.”

“I don’t intend to,” Snag growled. He took a step forward, and the boy threw one of the silver blades. It crossed Snag’s mechanical forearm.