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Zach barely registered Starfire’s voice at first. His ears were still ringing from the impact, from Toyman’s shouting, the sight of Thor dropping out of the sky. For one second he just stood there, frozen. Then Starfire said his name. That did it.

[color=darkviolet]“Oh… yeah. Yep. I got him. Totally got him,”[/color] Zach blurted, already jogging toward the crater Thor had made. The bravado in his voice sounded fake even to him, but he kept talking anyway. Talking helped him not panic.

Thor looked… not dead. Which was a very low bar, but Zach was clinging to it. [color=darkviolet]“Okay, okay, step one, don’t panic. Step two, remember literally anything useful about magic beyond party tricks,”[/color] he muttered as he dropped to one knee beside him. Zach swallowed hard. [color=darkviolet]“You are absolutely not allowed to die on my first night doing hero-adjacent things,” he told Thor, voice quieter now. “That would be… phenomenally bad PR.”[/color]

He hovered a shaky hand over Thor’s chest, then pointed the wand carefully.

[color=darkviolet]“elbats...” A pause. Then more confidently: [color=darkviolet]“elbats yats...”[/color]

Violet light spilled from the tip. It settled over Thor like a faint aura, sinking into him in slow pulses. Zach didn’t fully know what the spell was doing. Stabilize, stay, hold together, that was the intent, and magic seemed to care a lot about intent.

Thor’s breathing evened slightly.

Zach exhaled a breath he didn’t realize he’d been holding. [color=darkviolet]“Okay. Good. That’s good. We like breathing. Breathing is festive.”[/color]

But there was still the matter of murder Santa to deal with. [color=darkviolet]“Still a supervillain with explosives. Forgot that part for half a second.”[/color] He stood, planted his feet, and aimed the wand skyward. [color=darkviolet]“Snoitcartsid etaerc!”[/color]

The air above the park fractured into flashes of violet lightning. Not real bolts, not Thor-level divine weather, but convincing enough. They crackled loudly, bending light so Toyman would see movement everywhere at once. At the same time, faint duplicates of Thor, glowing, upright, very much not cratered.. flickered into existence at the edges of the sky. Illusions again. Imperfect, slightly translucent, but in the chaos of night combat? Good enough to force hesitation.

Zach swayed when the spell locked in. [color=darkviolet]“Okay… wow… multitasking magic? Extremely overrated,”[/color] he panted, steadying himself with a hand on his knee.

He glanced back at Thor, making sure he was still ok. [color=darkviolet]“Alright,”[/color] Zach muttered. [color=darkviolet]“Everyone stay alive. Especially me. I am way too pretty to become a tragic origin story… Also my parents would kill me. Which feels redundant.”[/color]