I hit her a second later, literal flying kick to ribs. She bounced off of a tree before collapsing to the ground. I winced at the pain in my arm, as the impact from the vibration traveled through my body to the injury.

I flew to her side and checked her vitals. The plastic was melting into black ooze, breastplate included. I heard and felt her cough and saw her whole-body flinch in reaction.

“Ribs?” I asked, as I put my hand to her bodysuit-covered collarbone and felt the already wheezy vibration of her breath. She nodded, tight. I asked, “Do you have any fight left in you?”

She shook her head.

“You’re biker, right?”

A nod.

“Stay,” I said. She slumped back. I checked my directions and used Capricorn’s wall as a reference point, as the wrestling in the air had turned me around. I looked down at biker girl, “Nice descent, by the way.”

“Thank you,” she said, her voice soft but strangled, before she coughed hard, with more full-body flinches.

“You guys have got to stop fucking working with the Fallen,” I said.

“I—” she started.

Then I heard her try to scream, and I saw her try to move, as if to get away from something, only for both things to fail.

Mama Mathers.

Rain’s refresher—she watched, she heard, and she could pull something like this, to take any of her people out of commission or make them suffer for a perceived failure.

Or to mess with us. Like with the breaker. Also a biker, now that I thought about it. They were expendable in her eyes.

Nothing I could do except deal with Mama Mathers sooner, or pave the way for others to do the same.

I flew to the others, looking for Weld amid the dogs and Fallen, and finding him taking on four unpowered Fallen and one biker. The dogs kept their distance while Weld fought, barking and howling with a volume like cannons firing.

“Go down!” I called out. “Getting beat by Weld is better than somehow winning and the dogs coming after you!”

“Eat cocks, heathen!” a Fallen soldier shouted.

I approached at a walk, keeping the guy between Weld and I. I saw his agitation grow, as he tried to keep Weld in focus while not ignoring me. He couldn’t run out to one side either, with the dogs around.

A face in the corner of my eye made my head turn. Visual snow. The guy ran from Weld and came after me while I was distracted, machete held high.

I hit him with my aura, and I saw his expression change. His attack was delayed, thrown off by the surge of emotion, and I flew up a bit to put a foot on his chest, my hand down and ready to smack the blade with the Wretch out if it looked like he’d cut me.