Once the gargantuan body of the beast prying the elevator doors open was cleared, and the fuzz gathering in their brains following the explosion had cleared, Pop and Scratch snaked along the office walls. The collective within the room still stood dazed by whatever just happened. Even Chip, who up to that point had used his engine blade’s unique quirk almost as many times as he’d breathed, was surprised by how much power it could deliver from a cramped elevator doorway. Only Pop and Scratch had the initiative to move when they did, the rest were still captured by the visage of the shock wave.

  They felt along the wall, still keeping a keen eye on the figures in front of them, until Scratch found a groove that marked a corner. He made a quick glance, making sure his senses weren’t deceiving him, and retreated down the hallway it led to. Pop felt the worn fabric of his cape whip past and followed, making sure to stay alongside Scratch if not in front of him.

  “Okay,” Scratch said under a hushed yet hurried breath to himself, “Where are you?”

  “There’s an elevator, I think” Pop pointed, “Just at the end of this hallway.”

  She reached into her coat pocket and shuffled around, before pulling out a small square of paper, “I swiped a map at the reception desk”.

  Scratch didn’t care in the first place; the moment she mentioned an elevator he trusted her completely. Even still he turned his head to see the map that was so brazenly stuffed inside her coat.

  It was small, about the size of something folded three or four, maybe even five times in on itself and didn’t look anything particularly map like. But then again he couldn’t think of one that could still look like a map when it was folded as many times as this one.

  The ground beneath them shook slightly and she slammed the paper back into her pocket, turning her head to see where it came from. In the distance, far at the beginning of the hallway that led to the elevator they left from, the huge beast of a man was sprinting at full speed. She could see Chip’s sword embedded in his body and the glistening strands of red still trailing from the open wound. The most terrifying part, to her at least, was that he was still gaining speed.

  She fixed her head forward again and tried moving her legs just a fraction faster, Scratch did the same with an almost possessed level of fear and paranoia. The end of the hallway was closing in on them faster and faster, yet with every step they took they felt the earthquake behind them grow stronger and louder. It grew so great that Scratch, in a moment of sheer disbelief, figured that they were running away from a train and contemplated whether or not he would get ran over before Pop.

  The two of them reached the end of the corridor and banked left almost immediately, not long after the hulking mass of inhuman proportion barrelled past, slamming into the wall like an animal blinded and untethered by human sensibilities. He was at least twice the size of Pop, and just a single arm on his body probably contained more toned muscle than her entire body.

  Scratch questioned whether he was even real.

  In a cacophony of gasps and heaving, laboured breaths the creature began to speak.

  “You,” his voice sounded coarse. It was as if the brawn in his throat was so intense that it actively crushed and minced any words that escaped into the speech of a vulture. “Did you think you could escape me?”

  Pop and Scratch looked at each other, genuinely shocked that this thing could even speak. Swallowing their fear, and grabbing at the handles of their blades, they turned back towards the man who’d already had his sword at the ready. Their answer was silent, unspoken, but just as understandable regardless.

  Scratch scattered himself to the giants right side, as Pop swung low to duck under his log sized arm. He swiped wildly at Scratch, tearing at the air with fury ignoring the pale pink blur slipping beside him. She tensed her hand, twisting and pushing the tip of her rapier into the soldiers side with surgical precision.

  Pop was swift, retrieving her blade and slicing at the man’s flesh another two times before fully passing beyond him.

  None of the wounds were fatal, nor were they intended to be. The first incision threw the soldier off kilter enough for his wide swing to slow down, allowing Scratch to deflect it’s power with ease, and the other two strikes acted as sadistic yet calculated bloodletting. His colossal body stumbled, barely registering the lesions between its ribs nor his leaking life as he slowly turned to face the children once more.

  They were joined at the hip, stopping each other’s momentum in unison and charging forward with each step being matched by the other.

  Scratch clenched Caliburn tightly and clicked the button on his handle to spin the blades again. Instead of configuring themselves in opposite directions, like before, they both moved to overlap each other at one end, defying logic and giving an appearance of two swords plastered together like layers of paper. A puff of steam escaped the cracks of its chassis as he raised it high above him, gunning for the soldiers gaping chest wound. At the same time, Pop pressed the base of her palm at the flat pommel end of her rapier, keeping it hovered there as she eyed what move the giant would make next.

  The clicking and whirring of Scratches blade, along with the buzzing arrogance that seeped from their coordinated movements, drilled into the man’s skull and infuriated him. His lungs attempted a deep growl of frustration but were cut short by the blood still trickling into them from Chip’s blade, the result was a hideous mess of a noise that trembled through Scratch’s bones.

  Lugging the chunk of meat that was his arm, the soldier swung once more. His wounds were betraying him now, movements becoming pained and slow, even still he threw his fist with enough force that within seconds the small boy’s head would be taken clean off his shoulders.

  More steam sounded. This time however, it wasn’t just the relieving breaths from a weapon’s labour, it was a hissing that grew and grew until it whistled with gale like force.

  On every surface, all along the rounded edges of Pop’s hilt, small holes thrust air out at rapid pace like a rockets engine. She kept her palm firmly on the button of her engine blade, anticipating the mounting energy until the steam flooding out of her weapon’s handle pushed her forward.

  She lunged, trying hard to not lose her arm from the torque, and let the engine blade push her strength beyond comprehension. Within an instant the whole length of her engine blade was imbedded in the monsters leather flesh, entering through his knuckle and lingering in his elbow’s edge.

  Letting the opportunity of the moment blind her, Pop failed to recognise just how strong the inhuman man was. Her blade still jittered with steam, and was practically up to the hilt in the soldier’s arm, but the momentum of his swing was still far too powerful. Her body flew backwards on impact being left gasping for air some way down the hall.

  It was, however, just enough of a delay for Scratch to close the distance. He leapt up and slammed an empty, bladeless, part of Caliburn into the chunk of Chip’s sword still present in the man’s chest. It fizzled as it fused onto the hilt, eventually humming the same mechanical tune the rest of the weapon did.

  Before the soldier had time to react Scratch span his blades once more, now including the embedded sword of chip. In an instant it became a blur of steel, a spinning buzz-saw drilling through the man’s body.

  A spray of blood escaped from the soldier’s mouth, turning into a mist as Scratch steadied his whirling sword. it continued to saw at his body until finally he noticed the man’s tensed body go limp and hastily switched it off, stepping back to analyse his work and make sure he actually was dead. The body didn’t fall to the ground, but the fight was surely over. The twitches of his dead eyes were clear indicators.

  Even still, as Scratch backed away he made sure to keep an extra eye on his “corpse”, after all he did just fight a man with a cavity for a chest. By the time he ran back down the hallway to check Pop’s condition and came back the body was still there, they had won.

  The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Now what?” Pop groaned, clutching her stomach to check if anything serious was broken inside.

  Scratch glanced around, then pointed unsure, “Elevator?”

  He made his way to the call panel but was quickly stopped by Pop grabbing him by the wrist, the pain in her stomach apparently gone.

  “Think about that for a second idiot, the soldiers we fought on the first floor came out of an elevator” she stepped in front of the doors, attempting to block him from using them “If you call the elevator there’s probably gonna be another fucking army!”

  Scratch thought for second, then drew Caliburn to point at the cracks in the elevators doors,

  He signalled for her to move, jostling the tip of his blade to the side and inching it closer. He couldn’t see her rolling her eyes, but he knew anyway and smiled as he plunged the sword in the tiny gap. Moving it up and down he tried to get it as wedged in as physically possible, and once he was certain it couldn’t possibly move any further, he began pulling to the side like his sword was a crowbar.

  The doors groaned and flexed weakly under the pressure, even if that pressure was coming from a small child, and within time the crack began to widen. Scratch pulled even harder, the small widened crack only making him more enthused to pry the doors fully open eventually pushing them apart enough to stick his leg inside and push with that too.

  Suddenly the doors gave way and slammed open, leaving Scratch to fall to the ground pathetically in full view of Pop’s disappointing stare. Beyond the elevators doorway was just an empty shaft, filled with only strained cables and the miserable grey gloom of cool stone walls.

  The wires were static, only hissing occasionally as they swayed.

  He dusted himself off and cursed under his breath, leaning over the side of the elevator shaft in an attempt to cool the rising red that was flooding his cheeks, even if she couldn’t see them anyway.

  It went down, the shaft, way farther down than he originally thought and when he glanced up he saw that the ceiling wasn’t that long away, at least by comparison. Whilst the lower floors seemed to go on for twenty or even thirty platforms, the upper ones only seemed to go up ten or so more before stopping completely. Luckily the elevator was stationary some way near the bottom, exactly what Scratch had hoped for.

  “Okay I have an idea,” Scratch gestured Pop over to the edge, “But we have to act fast, don’t question anything I do alright? Just go with it”

  Pop shook her head, “Fuck that! Whenever you say that it never ends well, whatever you’re thinking just stop and we can-“

  Scratch leaned further over the edge, checking to see if the elevator was still where it was before and stepped out to where two cables were locked to each other by a giant hunk of steel, most likely in place to prevent them from swaying too frantically. He wobbled, then balanced himself with an outstretched arm as his guide until he was steady enough to look back at his friend.

  “WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING!?” Pop screamed silently, worried that if she raised her voice too loud it’d throw Scratch off balance.

  “Relax!”

  “HOW THE FUCK AM I SUPPOSED TO RELAX?! GET BACK HERE MAN!”

  Caliburn suddenly hummed in his hands and spun wildly as Scratch raised it to meet the cables. Just as it did with Chips loose blade before, it stopped all of its swords on one edge revealing a vast empty space of hilt. Without hesitation he slammed it into the metallic wiring and a shower of sparks blanketed him as his weapon fused with the elevators pulley’s system, progressively becoming one.

  Pop knew immediately what he was trying to do.

  “Scratch,” her voice returned to an average tone but still held the same panic it had before, if not more. “We are not doing this…”

  He rolled his eyes, making sure to move his head similarly so Pop would know that’s what he was doing behind the mask, “Just step on here with me and grab my hand okay? You cut the wire below, the elevator falls killing anyone inside and we go flying up!” he glanced down and smiled, “Two birds with one stone.”

  “N-no Scratch I’m not doing-“

  “Hurry up!” he threw his hand out to her, keeping the other one firmly gripped on Caliburn as an anchor, “Eventually the elevator’s gonna go up and then we’re fucked either way so get on!”

  She looked around in frustration as if some new, much better, route would suddenly materialise behind her, all before grabbing hold of Scratch’s hand in conceited defeat.

  He smiled, then pointed at the cable below them, trying as best as he could to signal to her with only head movements to cut the wires. They held their breaths as Pop raised her engine blade reluctantly and brought it down on the metal rope, slicing it apart over and over again until the final threads finally snapped like Scratch had wanted.

  Ironically the first thing they noticed wasn’t their bodies suddenly being flung up the elevator shaft, but instead the tingling sensation that came when the small lock they were standing on gave way, allowing gravity to drop them. Then, just as they realised they were falling, the top half of the cable Caliburn was attached to snapped taut and sped away from them.

  The whiplash from falling one second, then rocketing towards the ceiling in the next almost killed them both with the amount of pressure put on their already strained arms.

  The wind whipped past them, tearing at their skin through the gaps in their clothes and causing them to flail wildly from left to right. It took any and all remaining strength from the both of them to keep from accidentally colliding with a wall or ledge and smearing themselves across three floors. Whilst this did work, keeping their bodies intact from the whiplash and the speeding walls around them, they didn’t have much strength left to hold on to each other.

  With each second of ascension Scratch’s grip on Pop’s hand slipped more, regardless of how tight he kept his fingers around hers.

  He fought against the invisible force slamming his head down to his chest, looking up ahead of them to detect how close the ceiling was. The speed was far too much though, making him barely able to see what was in front of him let alone above, and a mounting paranoia was starting to creep up on him.

  A cocktail of questions and calculations swirled in his mind buffered by the torrent of wind noise that blended with his thoughts, giving everything a cloud of static-y tumult making it impossible for him to think.

  Again, the paranoia crept. It had been some several seconds by this point so the ceiling must’ve been close, but there was no way for him to tell. Eventually anticipation of the roof potentially being right next to them got the better of Scratch, detaching Caliburn from the wires hoping the momentum would carry the two of them to a ledge by chance.

  The sword clicked, then fizzled as it untangled its case from the wild cables. Relief shot through Scratch’s arm as the force of the rope’s escape gave way and gravity appeared to slowly regain its dominance over the children. In the moment Scratch let go of the wire, his grip on Pop completely vanished too, sending them both into a strange, disconnected weightlessness.

  Scratch’s judgment was mostly correct, if they had kept holding on for a second more they’d have slammed into the roof, that much was certain by the wire colliding with the concrete above with a terrifying shriek.

  However, it wasn’t entirely perfect.

  They carried momentum for another floor, but by the time the final ledge was in sight both Scratch and Pop felt themselves get heavier. The tiny platform went from flying towards them to crawling, and then to slowly inching itself closer until it eventually refused to move altogether, leaving the two desperately scrambling to reach it before they began falling again.

  Scratch managed to plant a single leg on the piece of concrete that jutted out from the closed elevator door, using Caliburn to stick himself to the surface of the floor and holding on for dear life. However Pop, being just a fraction behind Scratch, didn’t get so lucky and could only barely get her head to poke above where Scratch’s feet were planted. She started to fall.

  She screamed his name, as well as a slew of other profanities, flailing her arms wildly for any anchor to latch onto. By sheer chance, she managed to grab the very edge of the place Scratch was perched on, if only by the bases of her tired fingers.

  Pop tried to swing the second arm up for support, but she sensed that any grip she still had from their stunt earlier would fade the moment she tried. The harsh concrete was too smooth for her fingers to stay there long too, and soon she began falling once more, horrifyingly aware of how helpless she was to stop it.

  Scratch strained himself to bend down, contorting his body towards Pop whilst still holding onto his sword for support until it was practically his only lifeline. He shot his hand down to meet hers, slamming his own body down onto the ledge hard.

  Desperately clawing for her hand Scratch pushed his body further down, disregarding the pain in his chest to push his hand out as fast as he possibly could before she fell too far away from him.

  He managed, barely, to reach her just as she started to pick up speed, grabbing at her wrist and yanking her up to his level. His arm was still torn slightly from the force of the cable, but he mustered enough strength for Pop to reach the ledge on her own where she helped herself up to meet him.

  They stood in silence staring at each other, breathing heavily.

  “Never do that again.” Pop eventually hissed, trying to calm the erratic beat of her heart which hadn’t quite realised she was still alive yet.

  Scratch didn’t respond, only nodding coldly and preparing Caliburn to wedge open the door so they could be on more stable ground. He would feel more comfortable talking without the lifeless pit next to them goading him to look back over its edge, to wonder about what could have been if they didn’t get so lucky.