Maren took long, controlled sips of water. Despite every fiber of her being pleading for her to chug, she controlled herself. She wouldn’t be much use in a fight if she cramped up or choked all the water she drank out of her.
But this one glass wasn’t nearly enough to make her useful in a fight, either. She needed much, much more.
“I.” Mav roared as the monster’s tail dragged him away. “Defend.” The tail – with Mav inside it – slammed into the wall. A deep orange glow emanated from within the tail and hissing sounded as smoke rose to the ceiling. “The weak!”
An explosion ruptured the tail and sent Mav hurtling to a spot behind Maren. The middle-aged woman gasped as Mav’s body slammed into... was that the monster’s arm? Maren hadn’t noticed it creeping up on them. A second later, that arm the size of a tree trunk would have snagged the woman. Then...
Those man’s screams echoed in her head.
She ditched the glass and held her mouth beneath the faucet’s stream. The time for self-care was over.
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“Flashfire Bearhug!” Mav roared.
He squeezed the arm, clenching it close to him as he rolled from the civilians. The goopy exterior clung to his face, a rancid odor diving into his nostrils. His skin tingled where it touched him, then turned painful. But flames exploded from Mav’s core and inner arms, blasting the bulbous arm to pieces.
“Flame Puddle!”
Mav slapped the ground, a ripple of fire extending across the floor. It didn’t reach the civilians at the center table, but it spread over the chunks of monstrous arm, igniting them. Mav charged ahead before he could make sure they burned entirely: the monster, with barely a char along its massive body, lumbered toward Maren – drinking from the faucet – and the two cowering civilians.
“Hey!” Mav yelled. “Pick on someone your own size!”
The monster – a solid two feet taller than him – growled. Mav returned one of his own, expelling flames from the corners of his mouth for effect. Before Mav could attack again, something boomed from the adjacent room. The ground rumbled and he and the monster nearly lost their footing.
The room tremored again, then a door burst open. Five men fled toward the monster Mav was fighting. A sixth man appeared from the room, but something snapped from the dark room and latched onto the man’s legs. He hit the ground, then screamed and clawed at the floor as goopy tendrils dragged him into the darkness.
All the while, the monster turned away from Mav. It marched toward the dark room.
“Don’t ignore me, asshole!” Mav hit the monster’s back with a fire blast, but it didn’t even turn to regard him.
“Down!” Maren yelled from behind.
Without thought, Mav hit the ground. A thick spout of water sliced through the air. It slid along the monster’s back horizontally, slicing through half of its upper torso.
“Curse it!” Maren said.
Five smaller but louder spurts appeared, cutting through the monster’s body. Another ten pressurized streams flew from the floor to the ceiling, dicing the monster into much smaller pieces.
“Now!” Maren screamed.
“Fire Floor Spread!”
Mav slapped the ground again, his flames reaching forward over the ground. The chunks of monster – wriggling about and oozing dark tendrils – ignited.
“Intensify!”
The flames increased. Within a few seconds, the monster parts were gone.
“You forgot to yell an attack name before,” Maren said once the fire vanished.
“What do you mean?” Mav asked, standing up.
Maren smirked, her eyes lively and skin renourished. “Before I told you to get down.”
“What’re you talking about?” Mav scratched the back of his head. “The ‘Don’t-ignore-me-asshole!’ move is one of my most popular ones.”
Something crashed in the adjacent room with enough force to make Mav and Maren shake.
“Sounds like there’s a lot more of them,” Mav said.
“Or a few huge ones,” Maren said.
“I’ll deal with them.”
“Not alone. It’s easier for you to burn them when they’re in pieces, which I can make.”
“We can’t leave them alone.”
The wounded victims were mostly still in their cell. Thankfully, they were on the opposite end of the room where the tremors came from and – even better – they were close to the exit.
Maren, blessedly, understood. “I’ll get them out of here, but then I’m coming back.”
“Don’t leave all the fun to me.”
Maren smirked. “Wouldn’t dream of it.”
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Before Maren could do or say anything else, Mav rushed into the dark room. Another tremor shook the floor and an orange light shone from the darkness.
He’s really what a Peace Keeper should be.
Too bad those kinds never lasted in the corp.
“We need to go.” Maren took another sip of water. She was feeling much better, but she still felt drained – that last attack had been too small for her to feel this parched again. “Find everyone who can walk on their own. They’ll help everyone who can’t. I’ll secure the exit.”
The middle-aged woman and the man ran to the cell. Maren peered into the hallway that led out of there. With Mav and his fire gone, it was dark except for when the lights flickered on. The door he’d destroyed revealed an opening, but after that...
Oh no.
Maren ran into the hallway, which was blocked only ten feet after the opening. Maren found a screen along the wall, light by a dim red light: the panel that controlled these tunnels’ security defenses. In many tunnels like these, companies invested in extra-secure doorways that blocked paths in case of an emergency.
It seemed that those men who’d run past had activated it before escaping to safety.
Now Maren and those twenty-three civilians were trapped.
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