"Stay together," Mrs Eceer insisted, taking a few long strides out of the shop and facing towards the empty street. She stared at the nothingness with certainty.

Tanya still couldn't hear anything, and from the others' glances, they couldn't either, except Fifi.

Fifi was still growling, growing more and more restless by the second. Boris began winding the metal leash around his arm again and again. It strained against his forearm, leaving deep grooves. If Fifi pulled much harder, it would start to damage skin. He clenched his teeth.

"You got this?" Tanya asked, readying herself.

Boris stayed where he was, digging his heels into the tarmac and clenching his jaw. "I have trained for this," he insisted through gritted teeth. "You stay on back there with the others. Keep them safe."

Fifi tugged harder and Boris' eyes bulged. He morphed his grimace into a smile as Tanya backed up.

Olena passed her in the middle, planting herself beside Mrs Eceer. "This is what I waiting for!" Olena declared. She dumped her backpack on the floor and grabbed multiple stacked modules from it, pulling open her cannon arm into pieces as easily as lego bricks. Instead of replacing the one she had like Tanya had seen her do when they were preparing, she began stacking them. "You say upgrade are waste of time Boris. You say I practise 'aiming' and 'honing each specific Ability? Pshhhht. I have UPGRADES!"

"Less speaking… more proving your… point please Olena," Boris said as he strained.

Tanya glanced over her shoulder, then turned back again. Ishita held the fencepost ready to swing and Fahad stood behind her, squatting like spiderman to fall into the shadow she cast at a moments notice. His lantern was in his hand, lit but further away on its chain to not disturb the shade he was in.

Tanya braced herself, but she wasn't even sure what she was bracing for.

"Are you ready?" Tanya asked. It was a stupid question. She glanced over her shoulder again, seeing how pale Ishita was and the bead of sweat on her forehead.

"No," Ishita said at the same time as Fahad said "Absolutely!"

"Thattaboy!" Olena yelled from in front.

Mrs Eceer and Olena backed up slightly, moving towards the left to allow Fifi space to howl and spit and lurch like some kind of carnivorous wilderbeest.

They formed a group, clustered just outside the kebab shop, flanked by overturned bins and the sludge of dead monsters. The street was still, choked with silence like a breath held too long. A low mist clung to the concrete, thin at first, but thickening fast—like something exhaling from deep underground.

Tanya's pace quickened.

This is like some horror movie shit.

Tanya could just about see Mrs Eceer around Boris' straining body and the new crazed cannon that used to be Olena's arm. Boris had begun to wrap the chain around himself in practised motions, rolling himself in closer to the more and more monstrous mix of monstrous blade and sinew. Her growl was so low and loud it sat in Tanya's ribs. Olena's cannon now took up her entire arm, layer after layer of strangely car-like sections mashed up with household appliances. But even with this wild sight before her, Tanya couldn't look away from Mrs Eceer.

Mrs Eceer stood front and centre, sigils shimmering faintly across her knuckles as she buttoned up the dress-length teal coat. She turned to face them and began to draw shape after shape in the air before all of them with the skill of a conductor before an orchestra. In her eyes, Tanya could see the glow of the shapes but when she looked away, there was nothing there at all. Olena and Boris were powerful, but Mrs Eceer was resolute. She'd survived with just her flat and willpower before she'd even gotten a Class. After hours of all of her spare time with her head stuck in her System, Tanya realised not only how much she respected her, but how much she needed to grow if she survived this fight.

It was coming. They could all feel it now.

A vibration. Faint at first, like distant thunder, or a train several streets over. It grew. Then they heard it.

A rhythmic thud, slow but deliberate. Each step came with a pause as if the world had to gather its nerve before it allowed the next one.

And then it emerged from the far end of the street, wreathed in fog and shadow.

Tanya's breath hitched in her throat.

She knew it.

It moved like a marionette with strings tangled by a cruel hand. Its arms flopped, impossibly long, barely attached at the joints. Its legs were too slender, too long, the knees bending the wrong way before snapping back. Each step looked like it might snap the thing in half, yet it advanced.

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Its mask-like face was a blank oval of white, smeared like clay. No features. Just a single eyehole carved too deep, too wide, leaking thick strands of black rot that slithered across its chest. Behind the mask, the skin was loose, bulging like something struggled just beneath it. Every movement sent waves through its body—black oil sloshing in a sack of skin.

It looked just like the monster she'd seen on the news that first day.

It twitched its head sharply—toward them.

"Bloody hell," Tanya whispered.

"Stay calm," Mrs. Eceer said without opening her eyes. "If we lose our calmness, we lose. Do not feed it with your fear."

"I want to feed it something else," Olena muttered. She stepped forward. "Everyone move."

Mrs. Eceer dropped her hand.

Olena lifted the cannon.

A boom split the air like thunder trapped in a bottle. Tanya's vision turned white and then what she saw looked like a silhouette. For a moment the monster and Olena and Mrs Eceer before her were shadows in the light, then with a blink, they were bright lights in the darkness as the contrast between the pulse and the real world around her was so different.

The shell caught the creature's centre mass, blowing open its torso. Shards of bone and plant matter flew outward in a grotesque fountain, striking the pavement like wet branches. The monster screeched—a noise like a TV dropped down a stairwell. It reeled back but didn't fall.

It slumped.

Falling forward onto all fours, its limbs cracked and rearranged with a sick, wet crunch. The mask split slightly, and something thick and black poured out of the new seam.

"Well that not good," Olena declared.

From the gaping hole in its chest, something pulsed. Not a heart, but a mass of rotting root stuff that spasmed with life. Black vines surged forward, plugging the wound in rapid jerks, like a time-lapse of weeds devouring a garden. They knit together, the hole closing, but not cleanly. It bulged outward in a fleshy mound, pulsing visibly.

The monster didn't roar. It gurgled.

And then it charged. Not upright. It galloped like a man forced to crawl on hands made of broken wood, its mask dragging, scraping sparks from the concrete.

"SHIELDS!" Mrs Eceer snapped, both arms flaring.

Golden barriers flashed into place in front of them—hexagonal, transparent panes that shimmered like stained glass. The monster slammed into one, cracking it instantly. Olena rolled aside and fired another shot into its back. This time it flinched, but didn't fall.

Behind them, Fahad screamed.

Tanya spun and made an executive decision. "Back in the shop—go! Now!"

"No," Ishita said, but she was walking into the shop and pulling her son behind her. "Not without you!"

"We'll be right behind—go!"

A crack echoed—the barrier broke.

The creature writhed forward, mouth splitting beneath the mask. Dozens of vine-like tongues lashed forward, dragging along the ground and pulling debris toward it.

Tanya stepped forward and her hand instinctively flew to her leg. The sword pulsed with such force her leg quivered. It was so intense she was surprised she could still stand at all. It formed in her grip, the tendrils coiling and flailing, gripping her jacket and denim shorts and skin everywhere it could reach. She gripped the spectral hilt and her eyes darted for anything she could use to combine it.

The car.

As Tanya sprinted towards Asad's car she saw Fifi let loose in her peripheral. She turned to look for a moment before she reached the car. Boris didn't unchain her, he simply dropped it and she convulsed towards the beast with a fraction of its size but the same alien disgust. They both undulated towards each other and as Fifi opened her second mouth like some dungeons and dragons boss, the monster before them did the same. What Tanya first assumed was its tongue was a second mouth, like some strange centre of a blooming flower that opened into rows of teeth.

Tanya nearly ran into the car, getting her bearings at the last second as she threw her hands before her and thudded her palms against the boot. It sent a shock through her arms but she didn't have time to focus on it. The tendrils constricted her arm, drawing Vitality from her body like a hundred tiny pinpricks. She didn't need to pay attention to hold it back anymore.

Her eyes scanned for what to give it. Metal—it had never had metal before—but what could she snap off? She first looked at the hanging wing mirror, then the boot lid. She wasn't sure if she could tear it off in time. It felt like the more metal the better, what was the largest part she could give it?

She stared down at the semitransparent sword in her hands and a crazy idea overtook her.

Let it decide how much it can chew.

She held the sword up to the car, ripping the tendrils off her skin with her other hand and pressing them into the metal. It sized up the car with a couple of its tendrils, they vibrated as they explored the smooth metal around them. The tendrils sank further and further in like a gentle dip in a jacuzzi and the metal bent around it, coiling in as if was grasping the metal with its full strength and attempting to cocoon itself within it.

Tanya had never heard a noise quite like this before. It reminded her of some huge metal trash compactor solidifying a car into a small block. She'd only ever seen those in movies.

Her hand was still around the hilt and she let go, let it fully take over its process. The metal bent more and more with a clang and a screech. The final rip tore the back of the car from the front. A body from the back flopped on the floor, left in the devouring.

The image of the head lolling in the back of the car filled Tanya's mind. She'd completely forgotten until now. It was the first person she'd seen after Adder and his gang—that head she'd spotted through the back window out of her parlour. She had no idea who it was and no time to check.

Where the metal had separated itself it looked ground up, with bent pieces sticking out at strange angles. One of the tires thudded to the floor, but the other was wrapped up in it, the metal bending over and over again until it almost looked like a sword, and then even more until it was finely crafted.

She clasped it midair and even that one glimpse was enough to see the way the number plate became the serrated edge and the tire's rubber covering the hilt.

It had been too loud to hear that the monster had stopped. The screech of the metal was still fresh in her head, making her wince even at the memory. She looked up, her new weapon in her hands, staring at the monster.

She didn't expect it to stare back.

Fifi was tearing scrunched slices of flesh from its torso. It howled somehow even with its teeth deep inside of the monster, the sound so hollow and deep that it didn't make anatomical sense. The monster wasn't fighting back, it was staring at her.

She didn't know how she knew but she did. Even without eyes or even a face; it was watching her and her sword with something between curiosity and familiarity.

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