With a glance before him, Abel looked from the four dangerous people ahead of him, and Dawn, who confidently strode past him. It was clear to him that everyone understood what was to come next. Especially Dawn, who he noticed was smirking despite the tenseness within this concrete box of a room.

  Suddenly, the breakroom around him felt tighter and more cramped than it had before.

  Still waiting to think out his next move, he watched Dawn crash into the Werewolf with an arching overhand punch. Despite him being bigger than her in mass, her scaly fist sent him stumbling back as the brass knuckles slipped from his grip. In the same motion, though, he sprang back onto her and grabbed her arms. Gripping as well, Dawn gripped onto his biceps as they wrestled for control.

  Almost within the same moment of Dawn’s attack, the sound of creaking wood came from behind Abel. Trusting his friend, he unflinchingly faced forward as a small cabinet soared through the small room. Following its trajectory, Spriggan dashed past Abel on light feet.

  Under the cabinet in a smooth motion, the fiend-blooded Dimidiae slid past it. At the same time, Dawn and the werewolf got hold of each other, the fiend-blood dashed toward Spriggan with a dagger of blood in a flurry of cuts with each hand. But Spriggan weaved around and dodged back, his body hard to hit or predict, evidently.

  Luckily, his friends just did as he’d expected, and it was the same from their foes' reactions. Now seems like the time. Abel slipped out his sketchbook with a whistle. It called upon the static body of the Swarm that dove through the nearest wall, where it darted through the air into his journal. Then, as Abel grasped the flat page, he squeezed it tightly with his fingertips around the art with his mana as he pulled and freed his art.

  From its small and limited page, an outpouring of black snakes of mana-infused ink came from it in a torrent. In only a single breath, a tall and wide interlocking mass of their squirming bodies sat before Abel. Shifting into shape, they slithered around to make their round body, and provided him a temporary cover with their mass.

  Then a series of loud bangs echoed in the contained area — the sound of a gun. One Abel was familiar with, along with the smell of burnt sulfur in its smoky trajectory.

  Carefully, he peeked over his cover and saw a scuffing and chipping of scales on one side of Dawn’s arms. Though there was no real damage considering she just got shot, Abel knew that she was still. And tracing back the trajectory to the shooter, he saw something unexpected.

  Oddly, there was a near-invisible presence that lurked over the shooters’ shoulders.

  It was a swaying mess of string that grasped outward with a spiritual touch - A single long thread made up its twisted body of knots and patterns. Forever creating an unfinishable pattern, it turned inwards on itself in an obsessive hysteria. Obsession. A spirit he’d seen before and dealt with once or twice. That’ll need to wait until I get closer.

  With Dawn getting shot by what sounded like an automatic gun and a new glow of light from her foe, her grip looked to wane. In that opening, her weight was lifted and thrown away from the werewolf. Abel could only watch as Dawn’s fall was broken by the hollow fridge.

  It crumbled under her weight and molded to her fall with the nasty noise of awkwardly bending metal, which held her in place momentarily.

  Shit, she needs help first. He was worried about her, so he pointed toward the big Werewolf. His swarm of snakes rolled toward him at Abel’s command.

  “I’m going to beat your bitch ass for that.” Actually, she can handle herself. Forcefully tearing his gaze away from her, he glanced back toward the far end of the room. The area where the gunshots had come from. Back there was the buzz-cutted lady in her middle ages, and the pale skinned, nervous looking younger guy, who half-heartedly held his wooden staff out toward the clash of strength.

  The shooter swiftly and efficiently reloaded her revolver. One she moved between her fingers with a comfortable efficiency, though Abel could see the stringy grasp of a spirit over her shoulder. The Spirit of Obsession’s grasp tied itself around her bullets as she worked to refill the chamber.

  Interrupting his analysis, Abel had to duck under Spriggan’s body, which flipped over him in a graceful twist. Behind him, a launched sliver of blood soared above him and under Spriggan.

  Only narrowly did it avoid both of them. Adding to the chaos at Abel’s own command, his seven-foot-tall knotted mess of serpentines dragged on the hairy werewolves in a slithery grip as they struggled for control. Not knowing Dawn as someone to waste an opportunity, she started low with a crushing hook to his ribs before launching upwards to crash her fist into his jaw.

  Abel watched as his big frame stumbled a step back. But with little to show for it in visible damage, he appeared to tank the damage as his heavy-set body continued to glow.

  “Abel, Behind-” Unable to finish his sentence, Spriggan was interrupted as he forcefully threw a snaking vine through the air at the unseen foe. While he couldn’t get the final words out, Abel got the message.

  Snapping his finger, the enrapturing mass of summoned snakes bounced back toward Abel with unexpected speed. Then, before whatever blade-infused attack was coming to end him, the Swarm encompassed him in a suffocating protection.

  From his protected position, he could feel the snakes that made up the mass were knocked free from the rear, but he was guarded from any injury whatsoever. However, as he feared most right now, from his own safe spot, Abel could hear the unrealistically fast gunfire, though it was muffled from his position.

  Terrified that he’d see Spriggan filled with bullet holes as he bled out, or Dawn getting beaten to death after a maiming shot, Abel had to force the Swarm from his body in a rush forward.

  Luckily, he hadn’t been subjected to such a fate. Not yet, at least.

  Still in her exchange of strong, nearly firearm loud, meaty punches, Abel twisted his head up toward Spriggan, who still held his position in the air. With the grip of his vine, he rooted himself into the concrete ceiling and created a cover for himself with a viney grip around a table.

  Despite being grateful in the moment, he didn’t take a breath just yet.

  Spriggan, from upside down on the roof, threw himself feet-first, blood-user behind Abel. Ducking under his hurdling friend, Abel dashed forward toward their backlines that held position against the room’s rear wall. The crash from it came from behind him, and another followed one short after. But he continued on past Dawn, who seemed to enjoy this moment of intensity with her bloodied smirk.

  Damn it, this better not be a costing mistake. Frustrated and concerned, Abel questioned himself as he ran past her. Much as he wanted to help her directly, he believed that there was something greater for her to be done.

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  He rushed past her and the chaotic clash of fists. Neither Dawn nor the glowing werewolf dodged the others' blows. Instead, they only blocked and returned with their own combos. On his heel, his snakes rolled with him. Ready, Abel knew that the Swarm wouldn’t fail his upcoming task.

  Then, as expected with the stringy guidance over her shoulder, they raised their revolver upwards toward him. And with the familiar look of a dark, empty barrel aimed toward Abel, he had the trailing Swarm spring onto him. The snakes wrapped around him and protected him in the near-suffocating embrace of his Swarm companion.

  Not a second too soon. Abel felt the shake and muffled shots from his armored position, and he luckily hadn’t felt them pierce through his slithery shell. The bullets sank into the Swarm’s accumulation of snakes to harmlessly fall into its own mess of a body. Still slithering forward, it and Abel continued toward the room’s rear. After all, he couldn’t allow someone to shoot at him or his friends and get away with it unscathed.

  Trusting the Swarm to guide him forward, he waited to push free from the impromptu armor until it got him there. Again, he felt a second series of bullets try to stop them. Only whittling the snakes away from the unanimous mass, they failed to stop him or the Swarm.

  A bit more. Nervous yet patient, Abel waited for what felt like an eternity. Then light broke through the darkness and fresh air cooled his skin, as the Swarm opened for Abel.

  Immediately, Abel acted as he’d already thought out. Pushing his hand out, he grabbed hold of the shooter by their wrist and pushed their arm upward. In a panic that set over their face, they fruitlessly tried to tug away from him. And with a tight grip on her wrist, he took hold of the pivoting point of her arm with his spare hand.

  Mericilessly, he pulled her wrist toward him as he pushed on her flattened elbow in the opposite direction.

  It loudly snapped at the joint. Abel felt the moment it broke in half from his cold fingertips, and everyone seemed to flinch at the harrowing crack that echoed through the room. Releasing it, he caught the quickest glimpse of its unhinged swinging, not too dissimilar from when Baron got horribly injured.

  She dropped the revolver and cried out against the loud fighting. Its metal clanged onto the concrete before he stepped out of the Swarm to finish the job. Free to move, Abel swung out the baton from his waist toward her tearful face. It shattered her nose and displaced her jaw in a spray of blood, which got into the horrified younger guy’s gapped mouth. In an expression of disgust and fear that filled his eyes, Abel watched as he dropped his staff.

  Again, Abel ruthlessly acted. Coldly pointing at the helpless combatant, he directed the withering snakes toward him. The Swarm pounced onto him and pressed its writhing weight of ink against his meaty body and the wall of concrete. Trusting his summoned companion to handle them and the muffled struggling inside of it, he peered over his shoulder to see the ongoing fight.

  Going on unseen to him while he followed through on his plan, he immediately saw the werewolf had lost its glow. Likely tied to that, Dawn had taken over the momentum of their clash. Landing more often than before, her heavy hands caused him to falter back a step with an uppercut she threw. It snapped his head back before she rolled inwards, with her bloodied nose, to throw a looping overhand punch.

  Her bigger opponent’s chin loudly popped before his body crumbled in on itself. It fell hard, almost lifelessly, against the floor.

  Behind her, at the same time as Dawn knocked out another variable, Spriggan dodged and weaved. Appearing untouchable and always out of reach, Spriggan avoided getting hit. But it seemed that he’d barely gotten the chance to go on the offense himself.

  It appeared that he noticed the neutralized threat of gunfire. Abel watched as Spriggan ducked under a flurry of swipes from blood dagger and danced into closer range. In his combatant’s range, Spriggan threw out a quick jab before he pushed him away with a forward kick.

  A bush of thick foliage came to life on him; the unseen seed likely from his earlier punch. The Demon-blood stabbed out and hacked out the expanding bush. But before they could cut themself free, Spriggan whipped out a vine to a shelf behind them. Nearly free from the natural restraints, the tall piece of wooden furniture tumbled down onto them. It shattered into loose pieces of wood with a painful crash. The pieces were added to the growing prison and reinforced the bindings until it looked like he'd been securely restrained.

  Then there was an empty quietness, as the Swarm finished off the muffled efforts inside its shifty mass. Abel and the other two looked at each other, and they stared at the destroyed, nearly unrecognizable breakroom for an extended period of seconds.

  “Break into the final room! Quick!” Abel yelled out. He understood they only had a few moments of freedom, where they could gather their breath and investigate the area. At his word, Dawn nodded before jogging toward the door they came from.

  Moving quickly, he lowered to grab the dropped gun and rose with its heavy and still warm steel grip in hand. He saw the spirit of Obsession that refused to release its grip from the weapon. No reason to keep you around. Not thinking twice, he squeezed his hand as he surged his mana’s grip into the spirit. He used it to send a painful shock of dominance through it. But Abel had little purpose in keeping it around, so he simply subjugated it to this painful fate until its ethereal form evaporated into nothingness.

  Not much emotion of note after, he made sure the revolver was on safety before slipping it into his belt.

  “What the hell was that? Not that I’m complaining. I just thought we were trying to be sneaky!" Dawn, no longer whispering, questioned him as he ran out of the destroyed room after them.

  “How else were we going to get out without getting caught?” Abel himself couldn’t think of how. And he doubted she could either while she kicked the remaining door down.

  “Yeah, that part makes sense, but…” Spriggan added with a nervousness to his distorted voice, as they flooded inside when the door nearly swung off the hinges. “But maybe, we could be a little more gentle?” he tried to lightly suggest.

  “Huh?” What the hell are you talking about? “They were going to kill us, dude.” With a clear conscience himself, Abel was the last into the smaller, compact room. Like the others, it was another colorless concrete box, except that this one was considerably smaller and had a desk with a radio on its other end.

  “I know. It’s just…” As Spriggan spoke to them, Abel scanned the room and glanced at him to see the discomfort across his partially covered face. “Maybe we should avoid maiming or crippling anyone.”

  “Again. It's them or us. And…” They were lucky we didn’t kill them all when given the chance in the end there. But Abel cut himself off. The last thing he wanted was to make Spriggan more uncomfortable. “Okay, fine. Let’s just focus on getting out of here right now.” Abel compromised to keep them focused. Or at least he told himself that.

  In reality, and while not admitting it to himself in those words, he didn’t want Baron or Spriggan to look at him differently.

  Back to their objective, as Spriggan began searching through the crates, he looked over to see that Dawn had already opened one of the large wooden boxes. One of many that were pushed against the grey walls. Over her shoulder, his eyes went wide at the sight of tightly secured drugs.

  “God damn…” Dawn mumbled as they looked over it. There were your typical street drugs of every kind, bricks of wrapped white and brown powders, bottles of multicolored pills, bagged pieces of clear crystals, and small vials of white powder. But to catch his attention, and Dawn’s, he assumed, was a large ounce of green weed.

  With a shared glance and subtle smirks, they opened it up to grab some for themselves. After he watched her put it in a baggie and the skunky smell filled the room, Abel turned away toward the chattering radio. Indistinguishable, Abel couldn’t make anything out until it was turned up, and while he was familiar with recording equipment, he had to search for the volume button or scale.

  He fiddled with the large box and noticed a series of vials in a small case behind it. In each glass tube was a clear, semi-yellow-looking liquid. Driven by curiosity, he slipped two of them into his pockets before finding the button to turn up the Radio. The static-filled noise from it grew louder until he could finally make it out.

  “Stay vigilant, everyone. The fire user has been spotted near Bosco’s in the Haven by one of our scouts. And remember, we’re under orders not do anything rash until we apprehend him.” While trying to listen closely, a loud siren rang from above, and a strobing flash of red flashed in the room. Upwards toward the ringing, Abel looked to see the triggered alarm. “Cut the damn comms! An alarm is coming from that fucking laundromat again!”

  “Shit!” He could have sworn they took all of them out. But that wasn’t the issue currently. “Let's get out of here!” Abel called out as he made his way toward the exit. Ahead of him, both of his friends began their sprint up the stairs. With heavier breath, a sweaty brow, and strained legs, Abel could feel his weight as they fled up the steps.

  In their swift escape out of the bunker, they made it up to the laundromat. And with little regard for the window, Dawn leapt through it shoulder-first. In a crash of glass, she firmly landed in the rainy, spirit-filled alley. Behind her, Spriggan dove out with Abel not far behind him, before they fled to the rooftops until they could head home later.