Darina watched, fists clenched, almost ready to see Liliana and the other girl who came in with them get crushed underneath Rock Hammer’s bulk. There wasn’t anything she could do, anyway. Rock Hammer’s din rattled and boomed in her ears no matter how hard she pressed her hands against them to block out the sound. Just as she had expected the inevitable, she heard the whistle of bolas through the air before her eyes caught up to the sight, and with the same violence she had expected to see crash into Liliana, the giant tripped. The shockwave of his fall travelled up Dar’s legs and rattled her to her bones.<br/><br/>It wasn’t over, though. “What are you doing?” she yelled, more out of horror than genuine inquiry, as Rock Hammer began to hit the floor with his head repeatedly. Nope, no way she could handle this, or at least not by herself. She doubted that her gun would do much—especially since she had left it in the room with Liliana previously—and even then she felt some reluctance to trying to harm him. Rooted to the spot, her eyes followed the stranger that had latched itself around his neck, but what he did next made her step back in fear.<br/><br/>The cold was nothing like the cold of the world aboveground. Nobody else seemed to notice it, and it only lasted for a few short moments, but that one breath the man took in felt like a vortex of—of<span style="font-style: italic">nothing</span>. It was like<span style="font-style: italic">she</span>was being drawn into that breath, until the man paused, and Rock Hammer lay dead or unconscious. Darina tentatively stepped closer, the better to get a scent from him. There was Rock Hammer’s unmistakable putrid air, the human odors around her, fear, anger, anxiety seeping out of pores and quickening breaths, but there was also him, and another. A girl spoke to the guards, and she, too, had that faint trace in her scent, same as the man, who had just coughed up blood, same, too, as Rock Hammer, as herself. Flesh but not flesh, like the scent of a newborn gone bad. Mutant. Darina was wary of the woman, but the man terrified her. What manner of mutant could knock<span style="font-style: italic">Rock Hammer</span>unconscious with a simple drawing of breath?<br/><br/>Despite her better judgment, she walked as calmly as she could toward the fallen behemoth to check on him, unmindful of her traveling companions, or these two new mutants, or even of the guards who looked ready to shoot. If she was hearing it right, he was still breathing, his heart, beneath those formidable layers, still beating. She knelt beside Rock—did he like his name being shortened? she mused—her lips pressed thin. “This isn’t permanent, is it?” she asked the Ice Man, crossing her arms.