The ground split open, and Brookearella flew toward the screaming before she finished counting the dead. She was a demigod, and the whole city called her a hero, but tonight the worship meant nothing. Below her, a downtown district had cracked apart. A crowd stood trapped on a slab of broken concrete, tilting over a widening pit. Steam hissed from the wound in the street. She had maybe minutes. She wore the same denim jacket she always wore, cape snapping behind her, and she pushed her body faster than she ever had. She landed hard on the slab. The concrete groaned under her boots. Forty people, maybe more, clung to each other. A child cried. A man reached for her jacket. "Don't move," she said. "Any weight shift and this drops." She drew her two blades. Pink light hummed along the edges, warping the air. The blades bent gravity. If she cut deep into the slab's base, she could lighten it, hold it, buy time. She stabbed both blades into the concrete. The tilt slowed. Her arms shook. It wasn't enough. The pit kept widening. The slab cracked again, and one edge dropped a foot. People screamed. She could hold the weight or she could carry them out, but not both. Choosing meant letting go of one. Then a shape poured down from the dark. Long and graceful, it moved like water pulled by a string. A dragon, scales blue and cream, wings small but beating fast. It answered a woman who dropped beside Brookearella, feet touching down soft on the tilting slab. The woman wore a red and blue suit, and she flew without wings. "Anthony's holding the truck up top," she said. "We can't lift the whole slab. But we can pull them." The dragon's green eyes fixed on the woman, matching her every breath, bonded to her like a heartbeat. Brookearella made the call. "You take the people. I hold the ground." She twisted her blades deeper. Gravity folded around her, and the slab steadied. The flying woman lifted people two at a time. The dragon coiled beneath the child and rose gentle, carrying her clear. Above, an unseen man braced a concrete truck across the gap as a bridge. One by one, the crowd crossed to solid street. The last man scrambled off. Brookearella ripped her blades free and leaped. The slab fell. It struck the pit floor and threw dust into the sky. The crowd stood safe, coughing, alive. They looked at her, then at the flying woman, then at the dragon. Cameras flashed. But the flying woman did not smile for them. She caught Brookearella's arm. "That tremor wasn't natural," she said. "Something down there caused it. And it's still there." Below, deep in the pit, a red glow pulsed once and went dark.