Charles didn't slow down.
He tore through the air like a silver comet, wings tucked in tight, velocity stacking second by second. The air around him screamed with pressure. But now—now came the rocks.
**THNK—KRSH—THMP**
Stone began to hammer into him from all angles. Small fragments first—then larger, jagged ones, broken loose from the crumbling ceiling.
It was like flying through a storm of thrown bricks. He didn't flinch. Didn't deviate. His path remained steady, eyes locked on the figure below.
Don watched from below, breathing heavy, eyes sharp.
Charles's speed hadn't changed.
But something else had.
Don could see it—the wings.
Feathers were peeling off, one by one, not scattered, but falling in exact lines like expelled shrapnel. The structure held, but the surface was thinning. Each feather that fell cut the air like a thrown blade—fsh-fsh-fsh—vanishing into the chaos around him.
Then Don saw it.
The rock.
