Xole and the Groundhogs effortlessly dashed through the upper level hall. Trix, Johnny, and Sammy led the way, slicing through any Collard stragglers they found while Salamander and Sunshine held their rear; blasting away any occasional cops who tried to flank them with devastating blasts of fire or deadly streams of water. Xole struggled in between the two forces, trying to avert his eyes from the carnage while keeping alert for any other attack—to which he quickly realized he didn’t need to. They continued up the third and fourth floors, Trix squinting at the end of the hall and raising her hand.

  “Everyone, grab a door!” she commanded. As if on cue, the sound of gunfire rumbled through the hall, echoing like torrential rain. Sammy leaped ahead to the left, swinging a door open to block the gunfire while Trix took the right. Johnny fell back and yanked Sunshine to the right with him and Xole and Salamander ducked left, their doors being relentlessly pounded with gunfire. After a brief pause, Trix and Sammy peeked down the hall to see a dozen armed men at the end, one mounted behind a shiny black object. They quickly ducked back as more gunfire ensured. Trix looked back, “They got some type of Gatling gun!”

  “Tch!” Salamander said, “So they ain’t done yet! That means we’re close to da head honcho!”

  “We should wait for a gap!” Sunshine yelled through the noise, “Then take them out while their reloading!”

  “Too risky!” Johnny said, “This stretch is too long!”

  “Not to mention their ammo seems endless!” Sammy added. “Where the hell’s it comin’ from anyways?”

  “Good question…” Trix said to herself, carefully peering ahead. She spied a belt behind the Gatling gun that stretched up the steps behind the cops. She threw her head back to Xole as a bullet scrapped her cheek, “Gah! Xole!”

  “Y-yeah?!” he replied.

  “You need to get us their ammo belt!”

  “What?!” he exclaimed, “T-that’s impossible!”

  “Like how you stopped the van?” she said.

  “Or what ya did ta dat choppa!” Salamander added.

  “He did what?!” Sunshine said.

  “That was different!” he said, “I don’t have an opening here and—and…and I—!”

  “Xole,” Trix said as calmly as she could, “These doors won’t hold forever. If you don’t do something, we’re all going to die.”

  Xole clenched his fist. He carefully peeked behind the door, “Where is it?!”

  “Look on the stairs!”

  He looked, seeing the long strip from behind the Blue Collars. Gritting his teeth, he tried focus on the belt, seeing if he could pull it without getting close. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t feel anything.

  “It’s no good!” he said, “I need to get closer!”

  Salamander took a quick peak, then a quick puff of his cigar. “Sunshine, time fo some steam!”

  The young woman flicked her chamber, bringing the dual weapons to the sides of her face, “Ready when you are!”

  In an instant, the two swapped positions. Sunshine sliding on the floor while Salamander leaped over head—but in the moment they crossed—Salamander fired a ball of fire in the cop’s direction while Sunshine’s gun switched to a spray mode, firing a wide stream of water through the fire in a hot burst of pressurized steam. The cops grunted, the men on the sides stepping up to fire while the one on the Gatling cleared his visor as best as he could. It was just long enough for Xole to run close to where Trix and Johnny were, reaching out to what he saw, envisioning his arm fill with Gi.

  ‘Just like before,’ he thought, ‘Take it, seize it, don’t let it go. Make it yours!’

  He whipped his arm back feeling a tingling as he saw the belt come flying, yanking the gun over. The cops shrieked, quickly moving back as the ones in the front continued to fire, but it was no longer as oppressive as before. Sammy grinned.

  “Looks like it’s our turn now.”

  Him and Trix led the way, abandoning the floors for the walls, zipping alongside them, crossing paths several times and confusing the cops, slicing their bodies to the ground before they even realized what was happening. The woman looked up the stairs. “This’s our last floor!”

  “Ha!” Sunshine laughed, charging ahead “Didn’t have to tell me twice!”

  “Sunshine!” Johnny said.

  “I already know, uncle!” she said, “If they have another Gatling I’ll—”

  ‘BOOM!’

  An explosion rocked the building, sending the woman’s unconscious body flying back down the stairs. In a flash, Johnny had jumped and caught her, just as another noise could be heard from behind them.

  “FREEZE!” a man barked. Salamander looked back in a grimace to see their rear was filed with even more armed cops at the end of the hall.

  “Trix…” he growled.

  “I see them,” she replied, “And even worse, I count three more Gatling guns.”

  “Aww c’mon!” Sammy said. He shot a glance over to his twin, “How’s she?”

  “She fortified her body with Gi at the last second,” Johnny replied. He carefully placed her against the wall, “She’ll be fine, but that depends on how long we survive.”

  Xole looked up the stairs, ‘The floor’s trapped Just like what Spit-Take did during our training—’ The sudden sound of a helicopter flying nearby broke his train of thought, his eyes now fixed on the vehicle, watching hit fly close to the fifth floor. His eyes widened in realization, ‘You coward!’

  “Guys!” He said, “He’s trying to escape!”

  “I said FREEZE” the front officer yelled, “We’ll give you to the count of five!”

  “Forget about him, Xole!” Trix said, “We need to prioritize escape!”

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  “FIVE!”

  “No!” Xole said, “We didn’t come all this way—hurt all those people for nothing!”

  “FOUR!”

  “What would you have us do!?” Trix said.

  “Go on without me!”

  “THREE!”

  “No!” she said.

  “I can do this! You guys were relying on me, remember?!”

  “TWO!”

  “Hey,” Salamander put a hand on Trix’s shoulder, “Let da kid go.”

  “Salama—!”

  “It’s what Abbas would want. Dis is what he meant.” He said. The chain smoker looked at Xole and nodded, “It’s all on you, kid.”

  “ONE!”

  With a puff from his black cigar, Salamander expelled a devastating stream of fire from his mouth, the walls crumbling in their wake to combat the hail of bullets. At the same time Xole took off up the stairs, heading straight for the pressurized floor without a second thought. He took a leap to the tile of Sunshine’s boot print. Nothing

  He saw the door at the very end of the hall, ‘He’s gotta be in there. Get ready!’

  He bolted, stepping to the next tile, watching it glow only to immediately realize…

  ‘Now that I think about it…Spit-Take’s was with Inner-Gi…but what about non—’

  ‘BOOM!’ ‘BOOM!’ B-B-BOOM!’

  “ARRGGGGGHHH!” he screamed helplessly as he was blown around the room, bouncing like an idiot, boom after boom.

  ‘B-B-B-BRTRTRTR-BOOM!’

  ‘I’mgonnadie’imgonnadiei’mgonnadiei’mgonnadieI’MGONNAD-HI-HI-hIE!!!’ his mind screamed, feeling an explosion as his back hit the floor.

  ‘BOOM!’

  His body blasted into the ceiling, ‘It’s just like then!’ he thought back to the shaved headed woman beating him up in Amesworth. He felt himself fall back, rolling to a another set of tiles only for it to—”

  ‘B-BOOM!

  ‘No,’ he thought, watching the upside down world fly by as his head flipped over the window. He shut his eyes, bracing for impact. ‘That day hurt much worse…’

  ‘BOOOOOM!’

  His eyes rolled to the back of his head. His peripheral caught the sight of his body dangling after him like a kite. It then twitched to the ground rushing up to him—quickly realizing that he was about to hit his head.

  ‘That’s it…’ he thought, his eye tracing from the floor all the way to his immediate right—a door. He could feel a brief ting from it. ‘That’s where you really are.’

  He tensed, clenching his muscles, fists, toes, teeth—anything he could feel—while envisioning his body filling with cloudy white Gi. Though it only appeared more of a fog, he forced it downwards to pump his legs and flipped them over his head—barely grazing the floor and touching the wall behind him.

  ‘Just like then,’ he thought. As his legs pulsed, he remembered the pool again. He remembered now Yesfir helping him kick off the wall, commanding him to be faster. ‘Just like what you taught me all those years ago…’

  He burst off the wall, shooting through the door and rolling to his hands and knees.

  ‘Clap’ ‘Clap’ ‘Clap’

  “The troublesome homeless, huh?”

  Xole’s head slowly rose. He was covered in red dots by the automatic weapons of the dozens of armed cops that surrounded him. From the back of them hobbled a man with a cane in a normal police collared light blue shirt and black pants and hat. He aimed his gun to Xole’s head.

  “Now I remember. You were with those other two from the park.”

  “…”

  “Is it safe to assume your companions are involved with these homeless as well?”

  Xole’s lips parted slightly. “…No.”

  “Hmm, I think…” He eyed his fellow officers who shrugged before returning his gaze down He then cocked his weapon. “You’re lying.”

  “…Can I win?”

  The officer’s exchanged confused glances. Between two of them Yesfir shrugged, shaking her wide-eyed face.

  Xole’s face stared to the floor. “Why did you do it?”

  The cop made a face, “You don’t get ask the questi—”

  “Why did you abandon those guys on the first floor?”

  “Rickard?” one of the armored cops said to him.

  “Ignore him.”

  “But that unit hasn’t responded yet.” Another said, “Also—”

  “SHUT UP!” the man screamed.

  “Rickard!” the first armored man said, “My wife was down there!”

  “Okay so?!!” he bellowed. “Did you idiots forget him and his people broke in and started this massacre?!!”

  The officer’s glanced at each other and aimed their weapons back on Xole.

  “That doesn’t give you a right to leave them!” Xole shot back. “They needed you—!!”

  ‘THWOCK!’

  His weapon smacked the side of his face before quickly striking the other side.

  “SHUT UP!” Rickard screamed, repeatedly beating him, “SHUT UP! Do you know where you are?! Do you know what people like Bennis, Strongarm, Ozzy, and I have to do to keep you safe?!! We have an obligation!”

  “You’re…obligations…” he faced the officer’s eye, spitting some blood. “That’s what gives you all a right to hurt people…right?”

  Rickard’s hand shook. Then he stuck his gun in Xole’s face once more until a bright light shone inside.

  “K-KRTKRT! Chief Deputy Jay Rickard,’ a PA system blared from a helicopter, ‘are you and your unit still at the top of the Head Precinct for extraction? Over.’

  Keeping his eye on Xole, Rickard answered the radio, “I am. Over.”

  He shook his head. “Don’t do it.”

  “But there’s an intruder in my office,” the officer smirked, “do you mind taking care of him for me?”

  ‘K-KRT! Yes we will gladly do that for you, please have you and your men stand clear of the windows. Over.”

  Xole’s head shot around, watching the officer’s move to the sides of the room, leaving him in the middle of the chopper’s bright light. Yesfir walked beside him.

  “You know what do to, right my love?” she smirked.

  His hand gripped his wrist, squeezing it so hard it started to blue.

  “…Yeah,” he said with a hesitant nod, “I’ll do it.”

  She folded her arms, “Do not disappoint me.”

  “K-KRT—fire!”

  A light flickered from the chopper and the windows exploded. But in that moment—just as that light flicked—Xole thrust his arm forward and to the side while throwing his body the other way as bullets tore in the room.

  ‘TARA-TTTRA-TTTRA-TTRAT-TTRATTT!!!’

  The deafening noise of gunfire filled the room. It rumbled. It shook. The entire precinct felt a subtle shake, halting all combat for the briefest of seconds.

  And in that second, Rickard screamed—louder than he ever has.

  “K-KRT! Did we get him, sir? Over.”

  “Did you get him…” his eyes went over the dead bodies surrounding the room to the center, where a hunched figure stood, looking over his shoulder directly at him. The cop’s lips quivered.

  “IT’S LOOKING RIGHT AT ME!!!”

  “K-KRT! Sir, do we need to fire again? Yes or no? Ov—”

  “OF COURSE YOU NEED T—!!!”

  But Xole bolted, throwing everything he had into a punch right to the cop’s face.

  ‘POW!’

  The man’s cane flew from his hand as he cried out, hitting the ground so hard his head bounced back up. Blood began to pour from his nose. Xole looked down on him.

  “You’re gonna pay…” he panted, “for everything!”

  “…You know what, kid?” The man’s mouth trembled, then, stopped. He gasped for breath. “What gives you the right to hurt people?”

  “…”

  The officer snickered, clutching his side. “The burden of responsibility,” he spat, “Something you people will never understand about us Collard workers!”

  “A right,” he repeated. His shoulder’s shook. “We never got any because of you!! You think homeless want to live hiding away?! You think this is something we want to do?! We’ve experienced all you’ve had to offer, so now we’re giving back what is deserved!” He held his fist to the man.

  “This is equality.”

  The man’s mouth dropped, then, his head. He reached for his chest.

  “Standing Deputy Chief Rickard Dawson to chopper 6.”

  “K-KRT! Chopper 6 to standing deputy chief Rickard standing by. Over.”

  The man took a breath—then gripped his radio.

  “FIRE EVERYTHING YOU’VE GOT ON MY LOCATION, OVER”

  Xole sputtered, “You—!!!”

  “Rickard—!”

  “THAT’S AN ORDER!!!” he shouted, and threw his radio to the side, smiling back to the older boy. “You want us to be equal, right?! We’ll I hope you enjoy that right to the grave!!!”

  Xole’s head shot to the vehicle flying back into view, then to the door. ‘I need to get out—but the tiles! I still don’t know—’

  ‘B-B-B-B-BOOM!’

  Lights flashed from under the door, accompanied by minor tremors under his feet. He scrambled to the door, throwing it open to see Sunshine at the entrance of the hall where the floor was full of rubble.

  “Stupid floor!” she said, “Now’s your chance, kid! Hurry!”

  Xole was already diving head first just as the helicopter tore into the room again. This time the ground erupted, breaking and falling to the fourth floor. He hit the ground, hearing the sound of the rising chopper.

  ‘WHOOSH!’

  A powerful blast of fire hit the vehicle, sending it spinning to the street. Salamander, Trix, and the twins ran in, helping Xole against the wall. The man lit a cigar, “Well, did ya do it?”

  He nodded, “He got what he deserved.”

  There was a pause amongst them. Then, the chain smoker smiled from ear to ear, “Well I’ll be! Ya actually did it!”