I spin back around in my chair. Pulling the sheets tight around me for warmth as I bunch my hands around an already damp towel. Trying to wipe away the clammy sweat that has broken out all across my skin after Saurian’s roar. Whole body shaking with something deeper than just cold as I look back to where the woman herself is climbing up to the top of the pillar the two are hiding behind. Her claws digging deep into the stone to help hold her in place after she leaves the range of Stig’s Power. The boy villain having actually walked lowerdown the pillar’s side to stand only barely above the water line. The rapids he’s created splashing dirty water up into his face as he turns the underground river into a waterfall around him.

  I try not to flinch as I realise his helmet is pointed directly at the camera that I’m watching him through. His hands waving with increasing annoyance as he must have been trying to get my attention for, from the way he’s blinking his torch directly into the lens, a while now. Mentally, I make a note to add some kind of secure com system to this future mask idea. Or perhaps just Pocket some high-powered ear-pieces and hope they won’t be intercepted. Then, holding myself back from turning around to just try and shout over the sound of rushing water, I lean in close to the screen to get a better look at what Stig’s trying to tell me.

  ‘I hate charades…’

  A frown pulls my lips down as I watch his hands repeat the same motions over and over again. Tapping the second of the narrow tubes on his helmet, dusting his gloves, making a movement like he’s throwing and catching something and then there’s a familiar, almost lazy, motion. One I’ve already seen before tonight. It’s with a sinking sensation in my stomach that I turn to look back over towards the hole in the wall. Eyes shifting to its right where the abandoned but certainly not empty crate is still filled with the small silvery canisters of mundane plastic explosive.

  ‘Simple courier job my ass!’

  I stand from my chair and throw off the coverings with a shiver before I can think too much about what I need to do. Or what’s about to happen. The crate is on the opposite side of the hole to Schiz, the same side of the room as me, and so it’s too dangerous for her to do this in case Ictus manages to get a grip on her. Given what Saurian said about how his Power works when he’s touching people directly, her hallucinations are our best chance to shut him down safely.

  “Jacket? You good?” I wave the girl in question down with a quick gesture to stay in place. Her voice prompting me to pull my eyes away from the crate as I remember that I can’t just walk around the room blindly. Not when there’s a hole in the floor and a stretch of no-man’s land through the middle. A quick glance at the floor leaves me scowling harder when I realise that I’ve covered the sewer pit with the thrown off curtains. It’s not like I’m going to forget where it is but knowing a fall is there and hidden is somehow worse than just seeing it directly.

  ‘Just don’t think about it.’

  I move quickly to the crate while staying as close to the wall as I can. Debating spitting out my massive wad of mint gum before a whiff of the disturbed air convinces me otherwise. Chewing harder instead as scoop up the discarded detonator, and carefully securing the trigger guard, before I lean over the foam filled box. Inside are the twelve canisters that Stig peeled open to get at the meta-material he actually wanted. The lights on the side of the explosives blinking intermittently as they search for a connection. Hoping I’m doing it right, I tap the detonator against each to pair and hopefully arm them. Breathing out in relief as I see the lights going solid after a brief wait where I question the accuracy of knowledge gained from a show. Exactly how and even ifthey’ll still work with the powder removed not something I can guess at.

  ‘I really hope this is what he wanted.’

  Not like they’ll be a chance for a do-over if I guessed the answer wrong.

  “Jacket! What are you doing?!” Schiz’ furious whisper-shout has me glancing up at where she’s gotten as close to the tunnel’s edge as she can without risking being seen. A slightly hysteric smile twitching at my lips as I wonder why she’s bothering to be quiet. Not like there’s any chance of Ictus hearing us over this distance even ignoring the constant roar of rushing water outside.

  “Stink- ha-ha! Stig wants me to throw these to him! …I think!”

  “You think?!”

  “You’re the one who said we needed to be ready to adapt! If I’m wrong, he’ll just have to adapt!” I shrug and feel my smile splitting wider at the incredulous look on her face. Looking away to gather up the now linked detonator and canisters with more than a touch of mania before she can reply. My lips twitching again as I use some of the det cord to tie the lot together into a bundle. Then, pushing myself to keep moving before the danger of the next bit can get to me, I step out into the hole and rush forward the few paces needed to reach the tunnel’s end. Pulling my arm back for a throw as soon as I’m able and then launching the package towards where Stig is standing sideways on a pillar not too far away.

  His helmet snaps around to look up at me the moment I step into the hole. Legs already bunched and ready as he jumps up from his sideways perch while reaching out for the bundle of semi-deconstructed explosives that I throw towards him. Unfortunately, I don’t get to see if he makes the catch before my wrist touches against a dangling stone hand on wall beside me. The fingers twitching to instantly wrap themselves around my arm as they attempt to pull me out onto the walkway.

  “Shit!” Already panicking from the memory of what happened to Saurian, I grab desperately at the wall of the tunnel to stop myself from being thrown into the blood covered hands ahead of me. Meta-strength and fear helping me dig my fingers into the side of the clean-cut concrete to resist the pull. A nail being torn away with a shot of pain that I barely feel as my free hand catches on a lucky outcropping where the stone didn’t break quite clean. The grip enough to save my skidding feet and let me tear my other arm free of the stone hands grip as I stumble back from the walkway. The gore-soaked arms there pawing towards me after a delay that I could almost take for surprise. If they’d been faster, the closest ones probably could have caught the edges of my shoes.

  “Get back here, you crazy bitch!” Schiz’s, this time, full-on shout knocks me from my shock at not being caught. Reminding me that I’m still standing in full view of a hero who can just make more of the terrifyingly strong arms. I jump backwards through the short tunnel without taking the time to turn around. Throwing myself to the floor and crawl-rolling to the side as I lash out blindly for fear of feeling more arms growing up around me.

  It takes me an embarrassing few seconds to realise that none have been created.

  “What the…?” I still finish getting out of sight of the tunnel before climbing to my feet. Using an arm braced against the wall to help me stand and so almost falling over when I realise it’s a little heavier than it should be. Confused, I blink at the half of a concrete arm still wrapped around my wrist. Clearly, I hadn’t so much torn myself out of its grasp as just torn everything past the stone arm’s elbow right from the wall it was attached to. Even as I watch, the rest of the chipped and moisture logged stone turns into a cloying mix of dust and water that puddles onto the floor.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  ‘Again, what the fuck?’

  “Schiz… Are-?”

  “Down!” My body reacts before conscious thought can catch up. The puddle at my feet helping me get back to the floor even faster as I slip more than duck under whatever it is that smacks hard into the wall just above my head. Gymnastic instinct taking over as I roll to the side and pop back up to my feet before whatever it is can fall on me. Drawing my axe with a flash of cold and slashing up at what turns out to be the apparently floating mass of curtains and sheets that had covered me just a few minutes earlier.

  The axe’s point stabs through the trailing covers without resistance before squelching against something soft but immovable. The jarring thump like a block of ice in my gut when I realise the curtains are not floating but hanging from whatever is beneath them as if on a drying line.

  No sooner has the axe tip smacked uselessly into my attacker than the sheets swipe sideways to slam into my chest. Crushing my arm against me and knocking the axe from my hand as they squeeze me up against the right wall. My free arm coming up automatically to save my skull from cracking against the concrete but not able to do anything for my chest as I feel an unfortunately familiar crack.

  ‘My fucking ribs! Again?!’

  “I can’t see it with the sheets!” Schiz’s desperate shout from the room’s other side knocks me out of the stunned thoughts. My attention pulled to where she’s rushing away from the hole while staring back over in the direction of the monitors. My eyes following her gaze along the curtains draped length to where the sheet’s edges are still brushing against the sewer hole. Face paling and annoyance over my re-fractured ribs forgotten as I just catch the bare length of a glassy bronze tentacle reaching out from the pit.

  The quickly tapering limb covered in the curtains and other sheets that I’d carelessly covered the hole with and which are now blocking Schiz from using her Power on the monster. Only the very edge of the tendril briefly visible from where it’s slowly crushing me against the wall before it shifts and the sheets cover it again. The thing’s surface resembling a thick layer of clear resin with a bronze wood-like texture several inches below it.

  “Stay on that side!” I use what little breath is left in my lungs to shout a warning to Schiz not to try and cross the area of Ictus’ sight to help me. Regretting it at once as the pain of speaking shifts my broken rib and the tentacle takes the emptying of my chest as a chance to try and crush me even further into the wall. A chance I seize instead to use the brief, and slight, slack created along with that already in the sheets to slip out and under its grip.

  The same towel I’d wiped my sweat on going taught as it just barely gives me enough leeway to escape to the floor. My crushed lungs not giving me a choice in sucking down a rattling breath as I again have to fight off the pain of moving with a broken rib. At least it only feels like one this time. The tentacle shakes the room as it smashes into the wall just above me with a sound like an explosion going off. This time though, I don’t waste time standing up. Sticking my hand up into the tangled sheets and reaching into my Pocket for the revolver I’d hoped not to need again.

  Nothing.

  No flash of cold runs up my arm and the only thing my hand touches is the viscous and gel-like edge of the tentacle’s covering before it slams down onto my chest. Again, I feel my broken rib cracking further as the breath is, again, shocked out of me in a wheeze. The pain leaving me gasping and stunned as the tentacle starts to drag me across the floor. A few seconds of black-spotted blinking passing before I realise it’s not just the thing’s weight that is stopping me from breathing but the mass of gum that I’ve accidentally swallowed and which is now stuck in my throat.

  The panic of growing breathlessness not having long to settle before I note how it’s not just holding me in place anymore but pulling me towards the hole it came from. Headfirst. The only reason it hasn’t dragged me down already being that the force it’s using to hold me against the floor is also causing the circuit board decorations in my jacket to catch on the concrete. The sound of metal dragging on stone filling the room with a scream not dissimilar to nails on a chalkboard.

  Too scared to panic, I almost laugh at the similarity to when the Psycho tried to drown me just a few days ago. My body working on auto-pilot as the hand I’d tried to shoot the tentacle with slips up into my sleeve with more effort than expected. My arm already pushed through the layer of clear slime up to the wrist thanks to how it had slammed down onto me. My fingers now able to feel the wood-like, and surprisingly dry, ‘flesh’ underneath the layer of slimy gel. It takes a terrifying second before I can get into my Pocket and I have to slip my fingers higher up my sleeve than I’d expected. Which is just enough time for my other hand, tangled in-between the sheets and not finding any difficulty in entering my Pocket, to close around the handle of a revolver.

  I pull the barrel out of my slime covered sleeve. Pressing it almost directly up against the thing’s odd flesh. My vision growing darker and darker with each second as my lungs burn from lack of breath and I feel my kicking legs go weak. Although, a smile still finds its way onto my face as I pull the trigger.

  The gun kicks hard, harder than before, harder than it should. Ice flashing over me as I scream silently at the pain of feeling my trigger finger bent suddenly back to my wrist. The revolver jerking out of my hand and dropping away into the depthless cold of my Pocket before I can think to stop it.

  The room shakes again with the sound of another explosion, then another and another, that I soon realise is not being caused by the monster but instead coming from the drainage room outside. Not something I have any time to pay attention to as I feel the heat of the bullet stopped less than an inch away from where it left the barrel. The lump of lead still spinning where it’s been caught in the tiny amount of gel that separated the gun from the flesh beneath.

  ‘Idiot, if bullets worked the city council wouldn’t need Supes.’

  Finally starting to panic as I try to guess at how much more floor there is between me and the hole down into a living hell, I flit through everything I can think of in my Pocket in search of something that might save me.

  The likely broken fingers of my sheet covered hand brushing against mechanics tools, paint balls, pepper spray, the other revolver and even the jewellery safe and Verti-bird before I remember the one thing that might help me here. With strength fuelled by a heady mix of terror and growing rage, I close my hand around the handle of the meta-material sword that had pierced one of the Verti-bird’s engines. The weapon sliding free without a hint of resistance from where it had previously been stuck tight. My grip switching as I thrust it forward the moment it’s out of the engine block. The tip rising out from my crushed and goop covered sleeve and straight into the tentacles side.

  The reaction is immediate. A splitting pain appearing behind my eyes as I feel e reverberation pass through my bones and turn my darkening vision briefly white. The source a near tangible wave of noise so low I can feel it vibrating in my gut as it passes through me. A rolling tide of ever-falling burrs that drag themselves down from my head to my toes. The noise almost making me throw up when it reaches my stomach and then forcing me to fight not to ruin my jeans further when it passes lower. Nausea and pain only growing worse as the sword, too heavy for me to stop, tears its way out of my sleeve and continues to carve a line straight through the monster’s limb as it pulls away.

  Split almost in half, like a grass stalk ready for whistling, it sprays clear watery blood across the room as it tries to shake the blade off. The wounded monsters retreat finally letting me breathe and try to hack up the gum blocking my throat. Opening my mouth wide just in time to catch a bucket load of its sharply lemon and antiseptic tasting blood. The warmth of it almost scalding as it soaks the wool my mask and then rushes down my throat.

  All sensations that feel distant as, acting on impulse and perhaps a little adrenaline given the vicious grin I can feel peeling back my lips, I grab the sword’s hilt before it can finish being launched free of my sleeve.

  My added weight twists the blade where it’s caught inside the thrashing limb and causes it to carve cleanly through one side. The pain behind my eyes growing suddenly overwhelming as an even bigger spray of clear blood splashes down onto my face. The powerful scent of antiseptic stinging my nostrils as I blink and splutter while wriggling away from the spasming limb now half severed from its source. Blindly, I swipe out around me with the sword that is almost too big for me to grip. Cutting nothing but air as the ground shudders and quakes from first another explosion and then the sheet covered tentacle that slams down not a foot from my head. I try to swipe at the swishing sound of it passing above me but my instinctive flinch from the doubled cracks has me slicing only the trailing edge of a blood-soaked sheet.

  Gritting my teeth in annoyance at my own reaction, I go to force my eyes open only to realise they already are. The pain behind them now so great that the white spots have become near all covering. The little that is not white being covered instead by a crawling edge of suffocating darkness that pushes in from the corners of my vision. My lungs burning and throat convulsing as I find myself still unable to breathe past the mix of monster’s blood and well-lodged chewing gum. Again, I make another desperate swipe and feel only air. The strength starting to drain from my arms before suddenly my senses swim and my vision clears. Just in time to give me a perfect view of the tentacle which is descending directly at my head.

  I cut.

  A gurgling scream slips out of me as I swing the sword up without any style or technique. All but throwing it as I force myself to wait until the last moment to roll to the side. My eyesight collapsing back into white nothingness just as I feel the slightest pull of resistance on the handle. A grin slipping back onto my face in the moment before the deep burr of not quite audible noise becomes too much and darkness takes me.

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