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The sheer force of it was enough to knock Dimas back, a shock wave that sent the man toppling through the air, and a hundred smaller worms spiraled after him like heat-seeking rockets.

Hector and the others intervened, and a storm of projectiles came to the man’s rescue. A cluster of explosions was the result, and smoke clouded the aftermath.

Worms began dropping like rain, splattering on the ground in blackened piles.

More and more fighters were coming out of the wreckage of the train now, and Hector could hear Asad shouting again.

“Hurry!” the Sandlord was saying, as entire cabins were being lifted up and realigned via platforms of quartz or other material that Hector didn’t immediately recognize. “To the tracks! Keep everyone in the train!”

And Hector saw what the man was doing, what he had pointed at before. The train tracks that they’d strayed so very far away from. Asad meant to get them back there, to get the train moving again.

Hector didn’t know how feasible that plan really was. The train was in pretty bad shape. But for the moment, he was more concerned with making sure that the worm really was dead. He rushed closer, only to see Dimas smashing the many worm husks into dust with gravitic pulses.

Yeah, they looked pretty dead, Hector decided. They? It? He still wasn’t sure what to think of everything he’d just witnessed, but he figured he should worry about it later and go help everyone with the train.

“Dimas!” Hector shouted over the noise of the man’s work.

And Dimas apparently heard him, because he stopped.

Hector was about to tell him that he should help with the train, too, since his power would potentially be more helpful than anyone else’s in that regard, but he didn’t get to. Because even though Dimas wasn’t stomping the worms into paste anymore, the accompanying tremors had not ceased.