Rana

Ten Seconds To Detonation

“Ten…”

Everyone else reacted in slow motion.

:Go up, I’ve got the rest,: she sent to Lea and Kenta. No time to explain or revise her half-formed idea, only to act.

First try, no mistakes.

Rana lunged to grab Daniel by the robes. She ignored the pain of skin burning from unprotected contact and twisted around in a slick-slime shuffle. Using their combined momentum, Rana slung him bodily through the air.

:Catch,: Rana sent to Wendi. The red devil girl caught Daniel in her palm like a catcher’s mitt nabbing a baseball, the boy eye to eye with her. A distinctly uncomfortable expression crossed his face, matched by her friendly grin.

“Nine…”

The equal and opposite reaction of throwing Daniel spun and propelled Rana on lubricated feet to Cassie as the bat girl counted down in the soldier’s voice. She seized Cassie’s shirt and grounded her feet in sticky slime. Doing her best impression of a martial arts throw from TV, Rana shoulder tossed Cassie into Wendi’s other waiting hand—feet up, head down.

“Eight…”

Changing sticky to slick with a thought, Rana launched herself and skated toward Wendi at speed. Her tongue whipped out to wrap around Paul’s waist.

“Wha—” Paul said, cut off as he reflexively transformed into a candlestick.

Intuition allowed her to alter the slime’s consistency on each foot to steer without losing momentum. Rana turned her back to Wendi. At the last second, the frog girl dropped into a deep squat and tucked in her arms.

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When the back of Rana’s head hit Wendi’s stomach, the impact knocked the devil girl off her cloven hooves. Wendi’s seat landed on Rana’s shoulders.

The frog girl secured her grip around Wendi’s thighs, elbows and knees interlocked. Rana tried not to imagine how ridiculous the five of them looked.

“Seven…”

Rana didn’t have a fraction of Wendi’s arm strength, but her legs and back were supernaturally gifted. Weighed down by four friends, Rana’s jump height capped at a third her normal capacity. She’d make do. Focusing power in her legs like a coiled spring, she leaped and the five of them ascended.

Rana reeled in Paul as they rose, clamping down on the metal handle to hold him in place.

Above, Kenta made a hole in his hair for them to fly through as he ducked aside. He’d been hoisting himself through the succession of floors on a hundred thousand black threads.

“Six…”

At the top of the jump, Rana slapped her sticky feet against a broken concrete edge. She pushed off with another spring of her legs, shooting past Lea on a levitating black orb, then stuck her feet to another floor high above. A final leap.

“Five…”

Five children stared into the open vault. The moment Rana’s feet touched ground, she slid out from underneath Wendi and took one of the faun legs in both hands. Feet planted, the frog girl swung the devil and company around in several accelerating rotations.

This was an opportunity to try another of Rana’s favorite winter sports, Curling.

“Four…”

Four kids glided into the vault spinning on Wendi’s slime-slicked back. Paul, spat onto Wendi’s stomach, rotated at the center of gravity on the base of his candlestick. :So dizzy…:

Rana, who remained on the ledge, looked below at the two climbing—but not fast enough. She fired her tongue past Lea to wrap around Kenta’s waist, “N-n-no!” he said.

Hunkered in her deepest squat, she offered a silent prayer her tongue wouldn’t snap like a rubber band. She released the spring—launching herself into the vault.

“Three…”

Three figures soared through the door, Rana first, Kenta pulled second, and Lea on her orb tangled in a knot of hair trailing last. Rana landed in the corner by the other four. She withdrew her tongue from Kenta, stepping out of his way before they collided. The Kaminoke’s velcro hair caught on the walls, floor, and ceiling to slow himself. Kenta’s fluffy hair also cushioned Lea’s stop.

“Two…”

Two sets of hands wove hair and a heat-resistant foam, sealing the seven of them into a corner. Kenta and Rana knew when to set aside their differences.

“One…”

One second left and Lea’s eight black orbs wrenched the vault door inward when—