He’s imperceptible to worms but they are not in a position that would attract worm attention in the first place so that isn’t helping keep pace with Flywheel at all. When she gets ahead of him he’s going inaudible to the team who would hear anything he needed to say over comms which he can’t affect, for tiny flecks of backlash when their esper hearing would have let them hear his boots scuff the ground or his breath through his dust gear.

Skybreaker brings Strike Team 1 closer to the ground, about fifteen meters above the giant worm and keeping pace with it. It's visible on their maps as a slowly-moving giant red dot and to their eyes and ears as faint perturbations of the ground below. Missable, if she didn't know what she was looking for.

She calls it in on the comms channel. "Strike Team 1, standing by in position."

Not time yet. She waits, silently in service of her future self.

Alert and waiting for go time.

A few minutes later, they get confirmation.

"Strike team 2, in position and ready to engage."

"Both teams, you are cleared to engage. Good luck out there."

June and Rhombus can be deposited on the ground about fifty meters in front of their target. (Skybreaker orbits them from above, keeping her charges in line of sight and making sure nothing sneaks up on them.)

Moving around while standing on the sand might attract a worm anyway. But to make it more definite and make sure it takes a conveniently obvious route, June turns her power on.

One thing in the world is definitely paying attention to her, but at least it's going to regret it.

The worm surfaces.

It's enormous. The mission briefing didn't do it justice.

It opens its mouth and screams.

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It charges at her.

She runs.

And behind her a thin rectangle appears across the worm's path.

(Rhombus doesn't have the range to completely bisect the thing, it's too big, it's going to be slit open down one side like a pepper to be deseeded.)

(Three other screams are audible in the distance, and approaching fast.)

They're too far away to make any difference for what happens next, though.

The giant worm runs into the cutting barrier like it isn't there - it's moving very fast, and the segments behind it keep propelling it forward, heedless of the danger. June will have to keep moving for a little while, because it's long.

But it's got enough momentum and little enough steering power that the entire thing gets split open like an overripe fruit, including the fake core at the end.

When it's clearly dead and not, like, thrashing around in its death throes or anything, she'll run up the side of it to run on its back instead of on the sand for easier footing and rejoin the, uh. Landmarks. Over there.

"Target 1 down," Skybreaker reports in over the comms. "Not the core. Moving on to target 3."

And she can scoop up Rhombus and June and fly off east. 

"Target 1 is down," Menhir confirms back with the sensors. "Targets 2 through 4 are..." She updates the map with their current locations and trajectories. 

Tim is elated about this development!  His partner is Contributing and being Competent and Useful and he is enabling his partner and this is great!!!  He is too Professional to say anything or punch the air, but he's visibly grinning and a little smug about Sara's contributions.

Also, after seeing what the worms have done to various espers and first responders?  He's ready to kill every worm.  He'd do it with his own two hands, if he could.  But since he can't, this is the next best thing.

Flywheel stopped tracking target 1 when the strike teams engaged.

She looks at the update from Menhir and reconfigures her domain in wide sweeps until she finds target 3, which she takes tracking control of.

"Target 2 destroyed! Flay, I'll be ri-"

Starfist's status goes from TALKING to OFFLINE.

"Team 2, report!"

Heads up displays light up with alerts marked "transmission from Flay:"

SOS SF DEAD

Tim's smile and optimism: gone.  He visibly tenses up, and the muscles in his jaw clench and unclench.  Then he forces himself to relax.  You can't do anything to help, you just have to stand by and guide Sara.  His power use drops off to a trickle, so that if any espers survive the contact with the Dunegeon, he can shunt everything into keeping them alive.

His fidgeting gets significantly more pronounced.