Simon finally did cry out, a clipped grunt as a hard booted foot connected with his ribcage while solid. The physical contact was the grounding impact he needed to focus on the meaty pain and phase out completely, falling straight through one floor, then another until he came to a hard stop and curled into a ball, unable to catch his breath.
Two pencil pushers who were complaining about office work around the water cooler saw him fall like his namesake, a phantom, as he phased through floors. Ernie, a bright pink skinned data analyst whose only mutation of note was his coloring and his extra nictitating eyelids did a double take when he caught Simon's form whisk down past the floor from above. "Did you see that?"
"Sure did," replied Carly, the IT guy. He looked like a perfectly common, rather plain, baseline human. His mutation allowed him to vibrate his whole body with about as much power as a handheld, battery operated massager. "Freaking showoffs," he said bitterly, wishing he had a cool power like that.
"I know. Stupid bastard, can't be bothered to take the elevator like the rest of us peons," Ernie whinged. His tone changed to interest as he resumed their conversation. "So, did you or did you not? I heard you went out with Claudia from accounting."
A floor or two below them, Phantom tried to activate his team communicator, but it appeared to have been fried by Sammanus' attack. He managed to get up on all fours, took a couple of steps towards the alarm button, and promptly collapsed, twitching and spasming with the aftershocks from the heavy electrical discharge he'd been hit with. He didn't even get close to the alarm.