The data readouts warped.  The electricity was its own distortion, its own interruption.

Defiant hit the button for the manual instruction to fire, but the timing was wrong.

Titan Skadi was there too, her blade-hand at the Simurgh’s back.  Digital readouts read that the Custodian Titan was active in the area.

All dogpiling the Simurgh, who struggled to make contact with Titan Fortuna.

Dauntless’s spear moved again, and this time, Defiant simply held the button down.  When the spear’s disruption overrode the Simurgh’s signal, the signal got through.

Simurgh, Titan Skadi, Custodian, and Dauntless were all flung back.  The Marduk ripped in half from the strain of firing-
And Defiant leaped, ninety feet between himself and the rubble below.

It was his old halberd that he used to catch himself.  His old halberd that fired out a grappling hook, catching Titan Fortuna by the side.

Skadi had been there.

He lowered himself to the ground by stages.  When he landed, dust was kicked up by his boots scuffing the ground.
The Simurgh lay prone within the storm that was the Sleeper.  Unmoving.  That hadn’t been him.  That had been Dauntless, acting with the benefit of Titan Fortuna’s sight, guiding the direction of the blast.

Last 20.a