I lounged against the cart, inspecting the bottoms of my shoes. The toes had been worn down pretty well already, and my sharp stop had left the heels with several holes. I debated taking them off, but I didn’t have any other shoes that would fit, and the pavement was ridiculously hot to the touch.

I was pretty sure I could run barefoot if I had to. There was an inherent resistance to damage that seemed to come with leveling up, and Rapid Regeneration and Healing Touch would be able to help remedy issues, but I was already using those on my inner thighs, where my baggy cutoffs were causing an unpleasant amount of friction. I should have looked for running clothes in Santa Fe. There was a limit to how frequently I could heal myself without tiring, and running at top speed was already taxing.

Byron was harvesting metal from the bottom of a nearby car and bringing it to Kurt, who was creating metal casings around each wheel. Davi and John were working too, using Shop-purchased blades to cut seatbelts out of nearby cars and tie the long strips of polyester around the cart handle to serve as additional support and restraints, making it easier for my friends to watch the road ahead and stay aboard.

“I think that’s as good as we’re getting." Kurt stood, but his posture was slumped. He hadn’t had much rest since he’d animated a whole car to slam it into the Titan, and now he’d had to use Repair and a whole lot of one of his Shape Metal Abilities.

“I’ll try to keep the wheels from getting too hot,” Byron said. “Might help them last longer.”

Kurt nodded. “Good. Everyone hold on, too. No more pointing hands to fire abilities!”

“We all do that,” said John.

“Yeah.” Kurt grimaced. “It’s more comfortable, but we don’t need to. We’re betting on Vince’s speed now. If we have to stop at a bad time…”

John didn’t argue further.

My friends wiggled into their new restraints and I took off. The fire had grown much closer, but as soon as I got moving, we started opening up the distance. With everyone facing forward, all the monsters in front of us were distracted or blocked before they could become issues, and once or twice I saw the blue of a Force Shield flicker beneath my feet, when Davi threw one out to smooth a pothole. I was trying to avoid them, but pavemimics were the highest priority.

The cart itself was cartoonishly loud, wheels whumping and grinding across the asphalt, squeaking as metal ground against metal. The cart and my heavy breathing were the only noises; my friends could barely speak over the rough ride. I made a mental note to check everyone over once we got to safety. These prolonged full-body vibrations couldn’t be healthy.

I tensed as we crested a small hill and I caught sight of a large pack of wostrich off to the side of the road. Blackened patches on their colorful coats suggested that this was the same group we’d seen fleeing the fire earlier.

The pack hadn’t noticed us yet, but they would. We were heading toward them.

“V-v-v-i-i-n-” John tried to get my attention.

“See… them…” I panted, then dug deep to pile on more speed.

The pack of wolf-bird hybrids noticed our cart when I was a few hundred feet away and wheeled toward us in eerie unison.

All I could do was keep sprinting forward, moving so fast my heart felt like it would burst. I stepped on more blue patches as I ran, Davi doing her best to smooth the way for me, covering even minor hollows with her abilities.

I’m not going to make it. They’re going to catch us.

The birds were frighteningly close now, still in front of us, but now at the edge of the road. If they got in front of me and blocked us, if we had to fight them all…

I was panicking, but all I could do was keep running.

Byron could do more, summoning a vast wall of flame in front of the wostrich herd and making them hesitate for a critical second.

I dashed by, just outside the reach of their fangs, close enough to smell the scent of burnt wostrich.

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Then, they were behind me.

Another thirty seconds of heart-straining sprint gave me a little breathing room, allowing me to reduce my speed slightly. I could still hear the wolf-birds behind me, screeching and screaming animal threats at my back. We didn't lengthen the distance between ourselves and the pack any further. My passengers kept looking back nervously, but they wouldn’t catch us. Not unless something else slowed us down.

I’m not sure how long I ran, my muscles burning with pain. John reached back to use Healing Touch on me from time to time, which helped. I was using the ability fairly frequently on myself, but I was getting tired.

We all were. Byron, Kurt, and John had all made huge efforts, expending a lot of energy in one place to keep us going. Davi had been spreading out her ability use more, but not enough to be sustainable. Multiple times a minute, blue walls of force slowed monsters or smoothed my path.

I kept running until something ahead caught our attention.

“N-n-n-n-o-o-o!” Davi moaned.

The brilliant colors of a wostrich herd wheeled in the distance in front of us.

I kept running, but slowed, not sure what to do. If I stopped, the group behind would catch up. The ground at the edges of the road wasn’t very even, but maybe I could-

“L-l-l-ook!” John managed. “A-a-ar-r-m-m-m-y! K-k-keep g-g-go-o-ing!”

I couldn’t see what made him say that. All I could see was the far-off swirl of wostriches, but he was the one with Analyze, not me.

“Sure?” I panted.

He didn’t bother speaking, but nodded, his face determined.

“Alright. Team… Always… Forward!”

With that, I sped up once more. I was almost at the end of my rope, but if there was really help waiting on the other side of that pack of monsters, I didn’t have to last long, and I did want to hit the monsters as hard as I could.

As I got closer, I saw that the wostriches were piled up against a tall fence. They were running and leaping to try to get through a gap in the center. I caught glimpses of people, metal weapons and plastic helmets glinting in the sunlight as they fought off the horde.

The monsters stayed focused on defenders ahead until we were almost on them, a few just beginning to turn as the cart slammed into the edge of the herd.

Wostrich went flying, most of them skidding across the cart toward my friends, impacting a large Force Shield that Davi threw up at the last second.

Plowing into the monsters brought the cart to an abrupt stop. My friends were thrown forward against their restraints, then hurried to get free. Byron bought them time by sending a lancing line of flame through the tightly-packed monsters ahead.

The move must have gotten someone’s attention, because an announcement echoed through my head a moment later. Unlike the alien announcements, this one had a human voice; it felt like a man was shouting directly into both my ears.

Reserves, forward! Full effort. Refugees in middle of horde!

The majority of my focus was on the monsters right in front of me, but I could tell something was happening near the gate. Monsters were being sent flying. Colorful clouds and sparks of electricity were carving a path toward us.

We just need to hold on.

I yanked my trident away from where it hung on Byron’s pack. In my hurry, I ripped the whole loop holding it off, leaving a ragged hole in the top of the backpack. My coworkers and I collapsed into a tight group, swinging our weapons to try to keep the monsters away. There were only five of us, however, and we were all exhausted. We made it barely fifteen feet forward from where the cart had stopped, unable to do more than defend ourselves… and not even that, perfectly.

My trident was a thrusting weapon, but that was no good against so many enemies. I swung it in large, fast arcs, trying to snap fragile necks or at least keep monsters from getting close. Only constant motion could accomplish that: when the barbed tips of the trident got caught for a moment on one wostrich’s torso it took almost no time to free the weapon… but even that slight hesitation was enough time for a different wostrich to sink its teeth into my arm before I could knock it away.

I didn’t heal the injury, not sure I could spare the energy.

I’d almost forgotten about our rescuers, frantically wheeling my weapon in an effort to keep my friends and me safe, when they finally reached us.

The wostrich I’d been trying to knock back was suddenly beheaded by something that looked like a laser beam, the first bright flash in a spate of glowing attacks that machine-gunned a cluster of enemies in front of us.

A woman in, I shit you not, a chainmail coif and hauberk, landed in the empty space. I’d seen Knockback before, but hers sent monsters flying in a vast area, while leaving my friends and I untouched. She was carrying a wicked-looking battleaxe, far more ornate than anything I’d seen the Shop sell. She looked like she’d stepped out of a fantasy story. Then, right next to her, a man in military fatigues dashed forward and erected an enormous Force Shield.

It was enough to make me wonder if I was dreaming. The woman looked over at me and barked orders. “Hurry up! We can’t hold them forever! Get to safety.”

Bewildered, relieved, and grateful, we obeyed.