My feet passed over a bump in the ice, and I grabbed at it when my hands went over it. Something thick and round was under the ice, making a small speed bump. I looked around, Mage and Tem had found the same handhold, and Steffie slid into all three of us, but we held and caught her as well. I pulled my legs in, and ice blades crashed from the ceiling like the world's most brutal, briefest hailstorm. I felt the ice crack under me from the force of the impact.

I was sweating, despite the cold. Thank God for this...wire cable, I realized. I didn't remember a wire cable being over here when we first entered. No time to stop and think. We were only a quarter of the way to the stairs.

"Tem, I can't melt the ice fast enough with my swords. Can you laser it?"

She nodded and closed her eyes for half a second, and I saw a large hazy cloud forming near us. After a moment, it erupted into light, completely blinding me. Blinding all of us. Way brighter than it should have been.

I felt the beam hit me, felt my flesh burning on my shoulder. Wanted to scream at Tem over the sound of the air tearing apart and the blinding light, but I realized she was screaming too. All of us were.

Tem's lasers weren't limited by range, it wasn't something she controlled, not in a powers sense, she just created them and let them go. They still followed conventional physics once they were loose, and so her light did what any light would do when it was fired off in a huge empty hall lined with reflective sheets of ice. Bounced everyfuckingwhere and torched everyone inside.

I was glad she'd kept it to a medium-strength blast. I'd have gone all-out, and we'd all be dead now.

"Ow, ow, ow," said Steffie, inhaling sharply.

"Tem, what the hell!" yelled Tower, who'd gotten it all the way on the other side of the room.

"I'm...I'm s-so s-s-sorry!" Tem cried out. "I didn't know!"

"Tem, shut up, please. It was my fault, but apologizing and assigning blame is a waste of time. We need to keep moving."

My arm was stiff and my skin felt unusually tight and hot. First or mild second-degree burns. Everyone else looked about the same or better. That could have been so much worse, but we still had so far to go until the stairs, and then there was another entire two floors of this.

Fortunately, the cable ran straight towards the stairs. Not a fan of the biting cold, but not seeing another option, I slashed at it just under the ice with my swords and plunged my hand into the rapidly-refreezing water, snatching the wire and only putting my hand in for a moment.

Biting cold was a fucking goddamn understatement.

Fuck, it was like fire. My hand went numb and hurt more than anything I'd ever felt, all at the same time. I gasped, and when that didn't begin to cut it, found myself emptying my lungs into a scream. My hand was like a paralyzed claw, white and red splotches forming across it, as the water on my hand froze into a thin layer of frost directly on my skin. In my skin, it felt like. I clawed at it, trying to get the liquid off of me, but stopped after a moment, realizing that it was frozen pieces of my own hand I was tearing away. I couldn't even feel them.

"Jesus Christ," said Steffie, looking at my frozen twisted hand, her face at least as horrified as I felt.

I said nothing. I couldn't say anything but scream, and I knew if I started screaming...more than I already had...I wouldn't be able to stop. I slowly, deliberately handed the wire to Mage standing next to me and put my hand down. Moved it out of sight.

I was Saga. I built a wall in my mind and shut the arm out. It was gone to me, gone from this whole world. I couldn't focus on it now or I'd die. We'd all die. My blades slashed out again, and cut more of the wire free from the ice, and we all advanced slowly, pulling the wire from the ice using the wire we'd already pulled free, and used it to pull ourselves along, Tem dragging Steffie behind us on the ice like an uncooperative dog behind us.

On the other end of the room, Tower was making progress, building up speed by increasing his sliding ricochets when they pointed him towards the exit, and dampening others. His largest issue was the continuous ice weapon attacks, which he couldn't avoid and which sent him flying off at random.

When the attacks came for us, I slashed the ice down as fast as it could aggregate, and just endured the biting cold until the attack gave up and tried something else. The cold was even worse now, I felt like my hand had sapped all the heat from my body, and any change in temperature made it burn. I considered just hacking it off and cauterizing the wound with my blades, maybe that would deaden the nerves and the pain.

And fuck, was I lucky Blackett and Karu both had access to a regenerator. A multi-million-credit luxury not afforded to your standard soldiers.

My hand screamed at me and I tried to push it back out of my mind. It was impossible, so I pushed cutting more of the cable and dragging ourselves out of here into my mind instead. Every damn step felt like a battle, but we were almost there. Just a few more steps.

I heard crunching again, but not the ice rearranging we'd been hearing near constantly now. Even, paced crunches of ice. Footsteps. Up the stairs we were heading towards, the head of a figure appeared.

Minus the implication of who he was, and his calm at this whole calamity, he looked...unintimidating. Like any other man. Business wear, tie loose, jacket held over his shoulder, light blue shirt and dark brown slacks. The only unusual part of his outfit was the heavy boot with snow cleats crunching up the stairs. His hair said 'young professional', but his face said 'punch me.'

He leered at us sideways. I didn't bother asking for his name before trying to cut him down, three blades on each of his sides, slashing through him like scissors.

They slashed through a pillar of ice, but he wasn't there anymore, stepping off the top of the pillar onto the icy floor with us as my swords shredded it.

"Thought you were supposed to read me my rights first, officer?" he said, his blue eyes glinting at me from beneath his straw-colored hair.

"You have me confused with a police officer. See, I'm an assassin."

I slashed at him again and again, but he skated around easily, quickly moving out of my range. He'd put solid hunks of ice covering the spikes on the bottom of each of his shoes, and presumably using his powers, slid around like they were ice skates.

"What do you want," I asked.

"Are you stupid?"

"I've been accused of that at times. So answer the damn question."

"I want you all dead, obviously."

"That's not very nice. Or very specific. Did I kill your dog or something, or are you just a huge fucking hypocrite who hates other Exhumans?"

I needed time to think. I'd seen some of what this guy could do, but had been focused on escaping instead of fighting. It was troubling that he had made the pillar of ice under his feet so fast when I first attacked, meant that like me, like all Exhumans I'd met so far, his powers really were almost instant-speed. The slowness of his attacks before must have been a trick he could use to extend his range, like me throwing lightning bulbs or Tem firing a laser.

That made us relatively safe outside his reach, but near him, this guy was basically the same as the terrapath, but with ice. If he was just downstairs though, his range couldn't be that large, not enough to activate through the ceiling above him. So...less than six feet, at least. In both applications so far, he'd used his powers directly under his own feet. Maximum confirmed range was zero.

"Oh, I don't hate Exhumans, I love them. They're my favorite thing in the whole world."

Great, got him talking. That would buy me another few moments. I kept my injured arm in the open where he could see it. If I hid it, it would look like I was on the defensive, and prompt him to attack. For now I just wanted to hold him while he talked.

"Then why are you killing us, huh? You must suck at relationships if that's how you show love."

He grinned. Good, a talker like me, then. Get under his skin and keep his lips flapping.

The obvious plan was still the same. We could take him easily if we had traction under our feet, so we had to get out of this icy madhouse. Tower could bust a hole in the wall and get out any time he wanted, and hopefully Jack was already gone, but Tem, me, and Steffie needed stairs like properly civilized idiots. Steffie was worse than useless, and Tem could only be counted on her for her illusions, and if it came to it, her constructs.

"I'm not interested in discussing my personal affairs with a child. Your death will suffice."

"Child?" I shouted, trying to sound baited. "I'll have you know, I'm the leader of the world's first all-Exhuman fighting force. You think you get there by being a child?"

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

I wasn't the really the leader, but any reason to keep him yapping.

I needed to get the others out, but they were just sitting on the damn stairs watching. The door was right there, guys, and the next two floors we didn't have to cross a whole floor to reach the stairway. If they'd been filing out this whole time, they might be on the ground floor by now.

I couldn't tell them that, of course. I padded my pocket subtly, my comms was gone, left on the floor where we'd started. I guess if I wanted them to go, I needed to start a real distraction.

"Yes, I saw you on the holo. Honestly, you think I didn't know that? Why do you think I went through the trouble of setting this trap if I didn't know what I'd be catching? You think I'm stupid?"

Yes. But that was beside the point right now. Tower finished sliding around and rejoined the rest of us. We could act now…

We really needed to come up with some hand signals. Or have Saga on the team, I decided.

"Guys, run. Now," I said.

"You gotta--" Tower was cut off as Mage grabbed him by the pants and threw him down the stairs.

I didn't see anything else, and had to just assume they were moving. I was busy flying across the ice at...huh. I realized I didn't even know his name.

Dipshit it was, then.

While we'd been talking, I'd been manipulating a sword the size of a toothpick under my foot, freezing and reforming the ice, until I had a nice little mound to shove off from.

And when I shoved off, I shoved off. Stupid as the fucking move was, I jolted my own legs to give myself one hundred percent. My legs would be out of commission for a while, but they weren't exactly useful on the ice anyway. I exploded forward with inhuman speed, six shining swords bearing from nothingness to cut and slash at him, while my legs cramped and burned, and my useless arm hung at my side.

I saw fear in his eyes for a moment and then he evaded, falling backwards, but the ice under him rising to catch him and pull him just out of reach of my swords. I sailed past on my back, heading straight into the wall behind him.

Right where I wanted to be.

Before I hit it, I hacked at the wall, slashing at it ruthlessly with all six blades. I had to cut through before my speed carried me right into it. Without my legs usable, and locked tense as they were, I'd break both of them for certain, and I didn't have the remaining functioning limbs for that.

I only had split seconds between entering range of the wall and crashing into it, and I hacked only a small square hole into it before I slid through, my prone body barely clearing the gap I'd made, and the rest of the wall complaining with loud cracks about the sudden structural change.

But I'd done it. I was out. Sunlight and warmth flooded my perceptions as I cleared the tiny hole.

I began to fall, but my target had not been chosen randomly. There, hanging in the ice next to me, the rest of the wire cable hung off the side of the building. Encased in ice mostly, but towards the bottom, it hung free.

Thank God gravity was a thing this time. As I hacked the wire free and grabbed it, keeping myself from flying off over three stories of nothingness, the re-freezing water fell away instead of pooling on me and burning my arm. I mean, it did burn my arm somewhat, but compared to my right hand? It was like reaching into ice water. Nothing to die over.

I slashed at the cable as I fell, freeing it from the ice, and wrapping my whole body around it. I was still falling too fast, but I had a chance. Through the ice, I glimpsed for a moment the second floor, where the others were barreling down the stairs. Good, that was one less concern.

I really should have been more concerned with the ground coming up to meet me, though. Three stories was a lot.

My hand felt like it had no skin left on it, but I still grabbed the ice-cold cable with everything I had. The bottom end was now free and snaking around, but I managed to clamp my cramping legs on it, because hey, I needed rope burns everywhere, why not.

I closed my eyes and just hung on, feeling myself slowing but having no idea how much distance I had left or how far I had to go. Everything hurt. My right arm was totally gone, my left hand was one huge mess of burns, my legs were cramping and twitching and resented me for forcing them together on this fucking metal cable. Skin was beginning to feel like a luxury where I touched the cable.

I slammed into the ground and added my tailbone to the mix. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I rolled to my side, but didn't have any more functioning limbs to nurse my butt. At least I hadn't snapped my spine in landing or anything. But Jesus, I hurt all over. I knew he was probably coming for me, but I couldn't move. I had to just lay there for a few and breathe, my body was seriously falling apart here.

I only had a couple of minutes of painful, writhing respite before the building began to crack ominously. From one or two loud cracks to quiet crinkling, the building was soon a deafening, constant roar of noise.

Ice began falling off of it in large chunks, and as it did, it became water again. Drops at first, with a few large chunks of melting ice, but soon there was a torrent of water flowing down the sides of the building again. It washed over me, and felt surprisingly warm. I gave myself another minute to bask as the building emptied itself out.

Eventually, I'd decided I indulged myself enough. I had to move. I had to. The others might be in danger. I might still be in danger. The ice might be gone, but who knows, the asshole might shoot Tem in the face for all I knew. I used my elbows to rock myself upright, both of my hands now just garbage, and headed back inside.

What I saw was...not what I was expecting. Jack, unconscious, by the looks of it, on the first floor. He had a pretty bad cut across his chest diagonally where the ice had got him. I couldn't help in my state much, but, knowing how much this would hurt, dragged a tiny blade like a needle across his wound, cauterizing it and stopping any further blood loss.

He looked like shit. Blood fucking everywhere, sweat standing on his brow, shallow breathing. I hope the XPCA got here and got him out fast.

I couldn't do anything else. I went up the stairs, water still trickling past my feet. On the second floor, I caught up with everyone.

I must have looked like real hell. Tem wouldn't look at me after her first glance over. Tower stepped up to me, and I was legitimately worried for my life if he hugged me now, but he just nodded at me and asked if I was okay.

"I've been better. Where's...where's Dipshit?"

They parted to give me a path to the stairs up, and I couldn't believe what I saw.

He was laying face down at the bottom of the stairs, and protruding from his back was the same damn chisel Mage had earlier.

"You impaled him?" I asked.

"He came running after us, after you were gone. We were sliding all over on this floor and almost at the stairs down," Tower said. "He came up at the top of the stairs, and we were right under him. We were in his range, we were done for. And then…"

They just looked at each other, except Mage, who mostly looked miserable, and Steffie, who looked traumatized.

"He...he...just, s-s-slipped," Tem said.

"He slipped," I echoed.

She nodded.

"There's a chip taken out of the top step, it makes a slope instead," Tower said, glancing at Mage. "He musta stepped on that. Then he just...went bouncing down the stairs. Cracked his head before I think he even knew what was happening, and then...landed on...that."

The body in a pool of blood with a chisel sticking through it seemed self-evident now.

I turned to Mage. "You cut that notch out of the step."

She said nothing and avoided my gaze.

"You put the chisel where it sat. You ran the cable across the floor above us, and you broke the sprinkler. You knew all of this would happen."

"I didn't," she said.

"You did, and that's your power, isn't it? You can see the future."

"I didn't!" she yelled back.

"There's no other way you can possibly have known all these things would come in handy. It's completely impossible. In fact…" my mind raced. "Every single time I've seen you do or say anything, it's had a purpose, hasn't it?"

"You're stupid. I hate you, Chariot. Leave me alone!" she screamed at me like the child she was.

"In...in Blackett manor, after I hurt Tem...you were clinging to my arm all weird-like, and Tower pulled you off of me. Later that day, he and I made up over it. You did that."

"I said, shut up!"

"And when I was beating myself up over hurting her, you said the one thing I needed to hear to be able to start figuring out what was wrong with me."

Mage lunged at me, but Tower held her back.

"Hey, at least she's on our side, right?" he said, "We'd have never made it through this without her."

"Just shut up and leave me alone," she moped, toothless in Tower's arms.

"My, what an amazing power. And I was going to be satisfied with the boy downstairs."

We heard an unfamiliar voice, and turned to see Dipshit sitting upright, and pulling the makeshift blade out of his chest and throwing it aside with a clatter. Flecks of his blood splattered off of the chisel while it bounced.

"It...it...went through his lungs. He wasn't breathing," Tem gasped.

Before I could even think about acting, Mage trembled in Tower's arms. I thought she was just having a seizure or something, but then...she exploded, a spear of ice piercing through the front of her chest from inside.

"Got you back," he said with a smile. "Except I bet you don't regenerate like I do. Bet you wish you didn't drink that water now."

She gurgled and hissed, shaking in Tower's arms. Blood seeped from the corners of her mouth as she tried to cough, tried to speak. He urgently laid her on the ground, but it looked bad. Real bad. The blade had gone upwards, towards her lungs and heart.

"Nobody else was thirsty? Such a shame."

He was within my range. Without even turning, I formed all six blades inside his body, tearing him apart from the inside out, like he'd done to her.

But he wasn't there. He was standing ten feet away with his eyes closed. My blades chased him, moving as fast as lightning could move, but he wasn't there anymore, appearing behind me. I sensed him there like I sensed Tem, like I sensed Jack.

Exactly like I sensed Jack actually. It wasn't possible. He had the exact same powers as Jack? Even how he flitted around with his eyes shut now...

"And now you finally get it, huh boy? Why I'd want to lure in a bunch of delicious Exhumans like you?"

"Everybody, we can't take him. We need to leave, now. Tower, get Mage and Jack is downstairs. We're running."

"No," said Tower, standing between Mage's body and Dipshit. "This guy's going down."

"We can't beat him," I pleaded desperately. "He's not an ordinary Exhuman. He's got ice, regeneration, and now he's got Jack's powers too. Who knows what else he's got."

"Then he's got multiple powers and so do we."

"Tower, I think...think he can steal powers."

Tower looked at me for just half a moment, comprehension turning his resolve into horror.

"Fuck me," he whispered, and then he turned to scoop up Mage and headed for the stairs.

Before he could reach her, Dipshit was standing between the two of them with his eyes shut and a smile on his face.