Love Lost fast

Bugs didn’t splat against her face like they did against car windshields, even when she was pushing eighty miles an hour.

- Interlude 2

_______

When the other train came, traveling the opposite direction, I followed it.  I had a pit in my stomach, doing it, but I had a gut feeling that this was part of why Jessica had reached out to me, and why she had been relieved that I was keeping an eye on things.

*

There was a chance, though, that when Rain got off the train, he would be followed by fellow passengers until he was in a place where he could be attacked.  I could watch out for that.

I could watch out for any unexpected stops, and I could keep an eye out for the old staples of railway robberies and ambushes – trains moved slowest when they went around corners, so I could keep an eye out for ambushes and unexpected boardings that took place in those locations.

With my thoughts caught up in things as they were, I nearly missed it.

The train was old-fashioned in look, cars linked by couplings, and passengers could move between cars, with the space between each car being open to the air.  Periodically passengers would step out to smoke or get fresh air.  Most were parents with kids.

At the caboose, a figure had stepped out onto the back.  Rain.

He climbed over the railing and jumped, while the train was going well over a hundred miles an hour.

-Glare 3.5

_______

"Heads up!" Capricorn shouted.

I saw it too, the distortion. Wall, wall, ceiling, floor, all rippled, as if a wave was traveling down it.

The Custodian? Something else.

I flew over the ripple, grabbing the nearest people. Capricorn, Rain.

My grab of Rain's arm hadn't been perfect. He'd swung in my grip as I pulled, and one arm grazed the ripple. Metal and tech was torn up like it had been thrust into a wood chipper.

The ripple was only a foot high, one or two feet long. Ashley used her power to blast it. Others had jumped. If it was hard to clear the jump, it was only because many were starting from a standing position, having stopped when the lights started going out.

"Sorry," I told Precipice

I closed my eye to bring up the map, while keeping the other open to check that everyone was okay.

"It's coming again!"

The corridor we were in was twelve hundred meters long. There was a security office at the eight hundred meter mark. Past the corridor was one part of what Cinereal had called 'the gallery'. The massive area where they'd staged the character assassination work from.

"Cameras. Can we get any view on the attacker or tech that's doing this?" I asked.

-No-. The word appeared in the midst of the map that obscured my vision.

We split up. I flew forward. Withdrawal and Sveta followed, with the harpoon guy and Love Lost chasing after. Ashley remained.

*****

I twisted in the air to watch the ripple. I could see more of Kenzie's message appearing in my vision. My focus was on the others, though. Ashley blasted the ripple as it raced to her, like a car speeding down the highway. Caryatid took it head-on, breaker form active. A spike of it slipped through, but it didn't look like anyone got clipped.

*****

Another ripple, but this one was a pillar that ran down the center of the corridor. Where it touched floor and ceiling tiles, it pushed them into disarray, and then placed them neatly back where they belonged.

Sveta, Love Lost, and I moved to the left of the hallway, as Withdrawal and the harpoon guy fired out a harpoon and reeled himself into the air to the right.

Mixing it up. Attacking from afar with a shaker effect. Another ring now. The danger wasn't that it was so hard to avoid, but that it took effort and energy to avoid. A leap, an expenditure of power and attention. Mistakes would happen. Legs would get tired.

I flew, and trusted the others to keep up. Sveta didn't have a lot of great handholds, except for me, and I didn't begrudge her. A little added wind resistance aside, it didn't impact how hard I could fly.

The others kept up okay. Harpoon managed with some struggle. Withdrawal and Love Lost had tech augmenting how fast they could run.

*****

I could see them. A group of people running away from us. The connecting corridor we were in was long and straight, and even though they were distant, I could count out six or seven.

Love Lost jumped up, pushing me to one side, and then screamed.

The scream travelled far enough to catch two of the guys with guns. They stopped, shifted position, agitated. One held their chunky gun over their head with both hands, like they intended to use it as a club. The other took aim, then seemed to remember he needed to reload.

I flew over them. Sveta pulled the gun away from one, while Withdrawal pounced on another, smashing him into the floor.

I tried to make up for time lost when I'd been pushed.

The one at the rear put his hand back.

More ripples. Easy to fly past. Easy for Sveta, Withdrawal, Love Lost and the Harpoon guy to manage.

I closed the distance, my little mover squad close behind.

*****

He threw out the power, and it webbed out to every nearby surface before lunging forward. Before, it had been rings, a pillar. Always with a way through.

This time, a wall, impassable.

*****

I didn't want to drop the field, not when I needed it, not when it had eben damaged before and taken a minute to come back up, after being hit with Rain's silver blade. When Cradle had hit it and knocked it out for a bit of time. I threw myself into the ceiling tiles, into lighting and wiring, carving a furrow.

The others must have seen an opportunity, because they went for it. Into the ceiling, then down, to appear on the far side.

*****

He'd baited us in close with an effect that was apparently easy to dodge, only to drop the full effect when I was so close I shouldn't have been able to escape. Maybe there was a buildup, or he'd been conservative and tricky because he didn't know what powers we had. Fast-moving capes weren't likely to be capes with the ability to handle a death wall coming at them like a train down a tunnel.

I caught up to the others, and found them amid the downed group. Love Lost had blood dripping from the claws of one hand, while Withdrawal crouched like a frog ready to leap on another injured molten gunner.

*****

The shaker had one arm out in front of him, a harpoon impaling his forearm, a meaty cord trailing to Harpoon's abdomen. In his other hand, he managed his power.

Sveta didn't have to bend down to grab one of the chunky magma guns, tendrils in her leg dissolving to grab it, lift it up, and pass it to her hand.

The shaker, like most of our group, panted for breath.

Love Lost moved first. Ready to scream. The shaker responded, using his power. Not at us, but sending the power rippling down the hallway as another pillar, behind him. Opposite direction.

A signal?

Didn't matter. Love Lost screamed at the same time Sveta whipped the gun at the guy. Stricken with the scream's effect, he didn't have the ability to dodge. The gun clocked him.

- Dying 15.2