Two figures, one male and one female, sprinted full-out down the corridor with vault doors on either side of them. Their footsteps, pounding loudly against the floor, echoed through the hall along with the sound of their heavy breathing.

Not even thirty feet behind them, the giant snake was hot on their heels. Its tongue flicked out, coming close enough to almost taste the pair, while the caustic gas it continuously exhaled withered the walls around itself to mark its own path. The snake was so fast that it kept nearly catching up to the two, only slowed at various corners and turns that they made to keep it from overrunning them. Even that didn’t help too much, since the snake simply shrank down for a few seconds to make the turn.

Maybe running wasn’t the right word for what the snake was doing. Overslithering them.

“The funny thing is, I’ve had nightmares exactly like this!”

As Doug Frey’s words interrupted her thoughts, Vanessa glanced sidelong at the boy. “Nightmares about being chased through a maze of corridors by a giant snake with acid breath?”

“Okay,” Doug admitted, “the acid breath is new, but other than that!” Producing his pen, the boy clicked twisted the cap to go through his recorded options. “I don’t know what else to hit it with! It’s already shrugged off three spears and any of my spell balls that I try to throw at it.”

“Yeah,” Vanessa confirmed, “Larees said they’re kind of resistant to magic. We don’t have any spell that can hit it hard enough to matter.” As she spoke, the girl freed the Seosten laser pistol that she’d acquired earlier. They were sprinting down a long corridor by that point, racing full-out with the snake catching up with each passing step. Before it could make that last lunge, she pointed the pistol over her shoulder and triggered three quick shots. The first two struck the snake in the eyes, while the third found its flicking tongue. The snake gave a terrifying sound of pain and anger, but didn’t stop. It did, however, slow fractionally to recover, buying the two a few precious extra steps.

In those steps, Vanessa’s other hand snapped out ahead of them, sending her whip that way to crack against one of the walls. At its touch, the whip left a glistening silver rune. A quick snap of the whip the other way left an identical rune a few feet further on the opposite wall.

The two of them ran through the planted traps just fine. But when the still-reeling snake passed through them, they triggered a cloud of intensely cold, supernatural ice that made the summoned creature slow just a little bit more. Another few steps were gained, saving the two from the snake’s stomach once more. It did not, however, solve the overall problem. As resistant as the snake was, they were lucky the ice-mines even slowed it down. They could (barely) hurt it and (kind of) slow it, but nothing actually stuck. Nothing seemed to last long enough to matter. And they didn’t have time to actually prepare anything better with it so close. Unless…

“We can get far enough ahead to buy some time,” Vanessa informed the boy beside her, even as the snake was shaking off the last of the ice effect and began catching up once more. “If I boost us.” With those words, she extended a hand toward him.

Doug hesitated only for a second, before his own hand grabbed hers. With a thought, Vanessa possessed him. She let him keep running (an easy thing to do with his hat), and focused on boosting the boy. Suddenly, he was running much faster, almost flying down that corridor. The snake lost ground, particularly when they turned the corner at the end of the hall and kept going.

Vanessa only kept the boost going for about fifteen seconds. But that was enough to buy some time. Once it was done and Doug slid to a stop, she hopped out.

“Can’t get too far ahead,” the boy muttered, “or the damn thing’ll just shrink down, turn around, and go back to find the others.”

Vanessa nodded, looking back the way they’d come. They could both hear the snake’s approach, though it wasn’t in sight yet. They’d gone just far enough to buy a few seconds to talk without being interrupted by the thing trying to eat them.

Thankfully, she already had a plan.

“You can make anything you draw, right?” Vanessa quickly blurted. “I mean, anything simple without a lot of moving parts.”

“Uhh, yeah?” The boy was clearly confused. “I mean, for about ten minutes at least. Why?”

“Can you draw it big enough to block the hallway?” she pressed, already turning to start running so they could stay ahead of the snake. “Look.” she pointed as they passed another set of doorways on either side of them. “Can you make things that fit into that doorway from one side to the other, so the doorjambs hold it in place? Like a wall.”

“Sure,” he confirmed, glancing at her while they ran to maintain their lead over the snake. “But you know it’ll just melt through anything we put in its way.”

“Path of least resistance,” she replied, “it wants to catch us.”

Now he was even more confused. “What does that–”

“Take this,” she interrupted, reaching into a pocket before tossing the boy a bag without breaking stride. “Mom and Uncle Apollo made Tristan and me make up emergency camping supplies if we ever got lost somewhere. There’s books, tools, sleeping bags, weapons, everything.”

“Okay…” Doug opened the small bag, peeking within. “And why is that useful now, Vanessa? And what does it have to do with anything we just said?”

“Take it and keep going,” she hurriedly instructed, pointing down the hall. “Get out of sight so you can set things up.” Even as the girl spoke, they could hear the snake in question, and glancing back showed it turning the corner behind them. It would catch up soon, so they only had a few more seconds to talk.

She took advantage of them, quickly telling Doug exactly what to do. She told him how to set up what they needed, stressing just how important it was that he do it right.

“And what are you gonna do?” the boy demanded, even as they continued running to stay ahead of the snake for just a bit longer.

“I’m going to be my brother,” Vanessa informed him. “Since he’s not here to do it.”

“Be your brother?” Doug was baffled. “What does that even–”

“I’ll buy you time!” she interrupted, pivoting back the other way. “Just do everything I said!” With that, Vanessa began to sprint back toward the snake, raising her hand to touch a spell that had been stitched into her shirt. As it was activated, the spell sent her clothes into a safe pocket dimension, leaving the blonde girl in the simple skin-tight Seosten bodysuit.

That done, she lifted her appropriated pistol, firing several quick shots. She hit the snake’s tongue each time, even as the thing jerked back and forth wildly. It was easy. She just thought about where she wanted the shot to go, and it went there. She knew exactly where to point the gun, exactly when to pull the trigger, exactly how to adjust it for each movement… she just knew.

The shots did more to annoy the snake and sting it a little bit than any actual damage. Still, they made sure that its attention was on her. Not that there was much question of that, considering she was running straight at the thing.

The instant she was close enough, the thing struck. Its head snapped down at her as quick as… well, as quick as a snake. But Vanessa used her boost to react just as quickly. With a grunt, she launched herself up, letting her super-leaping ability carry her all the way up to the ceiling, over the snake’s lunging head and its acidic gas.

Then she shape-shifted. Because Vanessa had discovered something interesting while experimenting with her powers. When she normally shifted into her bird or bear forms, it took at least a few seconds. Longer for the bear. But if she was boosting at the time, the change was almost instantaneous.

In the blink of an eye, she was suddenly in her bird form, above the snake’s head. With a few quick flaps, she flew down the length of it to the tail, even as the snake was still trying to figure out what had just happened.

Reaching the opposite end of the snake, Vanessa flipped around in the air while shifting into her human form. Her human form with her weapons. Because thanks to Uncle Apollo, the Seosten bodysuit she wore had been given a little upgrade, which made it so that anything she was holding when she shifted would disappear, automatically shunted into the same space as her clothes, and then reappear instantly when she shifted back.

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So, with weapons in hand, she landed, skidding from her own momentum while snapping her whip out to create a fire rune against either wall. Both exploded immediately, turning into a brief, yet intense ball of flame right on the tip of the snake’s tail.

That got its attention. The summoned creature shrank, spun to face the other way, and regrew almost in the span of time that it took for Vanessa to take two quick steps backward. It had inverted itself that easily and quickly, and was practically right on top of her once more.

It lunged again, but Vanessa leapt backward while snapping her whip down at where her feet had been. This time, she created a wind rune. A sudden gust blew into the creature’s face. It did nothing to damage the thing, but it did blow all of its caustic gas away for the moment.

Vanessa took advantage of that. Boosting again to speed her shifting, she threw herself at the snake while changing into her bear form. Now a massive grizzly, she slammed her meaty, furry, frying pan-sized paw into the side of the snake’s head, colliding with a satisfying thud that drew a brief noise of pain from the snake. Before it could recover, she slammed her other paw into the opposite side of its head, digging deep with her claws. It wasn’t going to kill the thing, but she did some damage. If the snake hadn’t already been pissed off, it definitely was now.

By that point, the snake had begun to spit up more of that acid cloud. But Vanessa boost-shifted again, going back to her bird form to retreat down the corridor a bit with a couple quick flaps, luring the thing after her and giving Doug space to work.

She repeated that process a couple of times, clearing the gas before shifting to bear to dart in and do a little damage. It was annoying the snake, which was the point. Plus, it gave Doug more time.

But it was also predictable, which Vanessa didn’t want to be, since she had no desire to be eaten by a snake anytime soon. So she had to mix things up after a few quick rounds of that.

Back to human again, and that time, she made a quick grasping motion with both hands. The air itself seemed to solidify, forming what looked like a pair of almost clear glass balls in her palms.

This was the power she had inherited from the minor Olympian Seosten that she had killed (with a lot of help from her father and Larissa) back at Kushiel’s lab. She could solidify air into these extremely durable ‘glass’ balls and then control them with her mind. According to her mother, the Olympian she had taken it from had been able to make more of the balls and then reshape them into other forms like blades. Or even combine them to make much larger things.

Vanessa couldn’t do that yet. But she could send these small, nearly invisible orbs flying at the snake, making them rebound off its eyes or any other spot she wanted them to hit. They were tough enough to ram full speed into the back of the thing’s scaled head without breaking. Which didn’t really do any actual damage to it, but did help distract and annoy it.

Clearly enraged by that point, the snake lunged for Vanessa as she crouched near the right-hand side of the hall. She let it come, then leapt to the left while mentally summoning her orbs. One flew right under her outstretched foot, acting as a brief step for her to push off of before finding the other with her opposite foot. Now just above the snake’s head, balancing on her two orbs, she lashed out with the whip, smacking the wall just next to the serpent before it could recover, creating a fire rune that exploded essentially in its face.

That really pissed it off. The snake whipped around, tongue lashing out to catch Vanessa in a way more like a frog than the animal it was supposed to be. It came close to managing it, but Vanessa was faster, barely. She flipped up and backward off her floating orbs, letting the grasping tongue strike the air where she had been before landing a few yards back. Her whip lashed out to create three quick lightning runes along the floor. As the snake rushed over them to get her, the triggered electricity coursed into its body, making it seize and spasm for an instant.

That instant was long enough for Vanessa to trigger another quick wind rune to once more clear the area of gas before she darted forward. Her whip created yet another rune then, this one ice. It exploded into a freezing mist centered directly on at the creature’s extended tongue as it spasmed from the electricity.

Resistant as the summoned snake was, the ice rune only managed to freeze a very small part of that tongue. But that small part was enough. As the snake recovered and lunged, Vanessa threw herself backwards, using her super-leap to travel further horizontally that time. While in mid-leap, she snapped that pistol up and triggered several quick shots. Each landed perfectly right at the small spot that had been frozen by the ice rune. That was enough to sever it, cutting the tongue in half. And the snake, well, the snake was beyond pissed off. It made a furious, horrible shrieking sound and thrashed its head from side to side briefly before narrowing its eyes at Vanessa.

“That’s right,” she murmured softly. “Come get me.”

Whether it understood or not, the snake obliged. Suddenly, it was tearing after her even faster than it had been before, a speeding train with an open mouth rushing down the corridor at her.

With a thought, Vanessa was back in her bird form, pivoting in the air to fly straight out away from the creature. Now she could be pretty sure that it wouldn’t lose interest and go after Doug or one of the others. It was solely focused on her.

To an outside observer, it might have looked as though Vanessa were flying wildly and frantically with no plan. But she knew exactly what she was doing. While the others may have memorized the exact path to the vault they were looking for, she had memorized the entire layout of the floor. She knew exactly where she was, and exactly where she had been.

Weaving her way through the corridors, Vanessa took a long, yet purposeful route back around in a wide circle. Eventually, she was flying over the same spot that she had left Doug at. The snake was right on her tail feathers, in no mood to let her get away no matter what form she took.

By that point, Vanessa was starting to get tired. But she pressed on. Two more quick turns, and she leveled out in a long hallway. Straight ahead of her, about halfway down, was the contraption that she’d convinced Doug to make. It looked like a wall with a single hole in it just large enough for a human to crawl through. As requested, it was stuck between the doorways of the vaults, and was thick enough to take up that entire space.

In mid-flight, Vanessa shifted back to human, lashing her whip out behind her as she landed. The whip swung in a wide arc, creating a half dozen lightning and ice runes, just enough to slow the snake for a second or two.

As the creature hit the debilitating effects and powered through them, Vanessa gave one last snap of her whip. Or rather, two. These were not to lay runes, however. Instead, as her whip touched the wall, Vanessa used her weapon’s original power to copy the material. Then, with the backswing of the whip, she cracked it against Doug’s creation. Immediately, it became the same metal.

The snake was almost on top of her, and Vanessa felt exhausted. But she moved anyway, forcing herself to use her boost yet again while diving toward the hole that Doug had left. Hearing the snake hiss furiously, she crawled on her hands and knees as quickly as possible through that little tunnel.

But the snake wasn’t going to be dissuaded that easily. Though it could have taken the time to use its acid to melt through the thick wall, Vanessa and Doug might have gotten away in that time. Especially now that it was made of the same material as the nearby walls. And there was a much quicker way to chase its prey.

Before she was even all the way through the tunnel, Vanessa heard the snake behind her. It had shrunk down once more to throw itself through the hole as well. And it was gaining fast. That was how much she had pissed it off. It didn’t care what it had to do, or what size it had to be, it was going to eat her.

Reaching the end of the tunnel finally, she threw herself bodily out of it while screaming out loud, “Now, now, now!” Her voice echoed loudly through the hall.

The snake was right behind her, and lunged, just as she did, for the opening. But Doug was there. The instant that Vanessa was clear, he appeared, holding something in front of the hole. Vanessa scrambled around on her knees, grabbing onto the thing as well to help keep it in place, just as the snake flew out of the tunnel.

It was the extradimensional bag that she had given the boy a few minutes earlier. He had already dumped all the extra stuff out of it to make room. Room for the snake.

The two of them held the bag in front of the hole and let the snake rush right into it. Then they closed the bag and cinched it tight, trapping the creature within. As long as the bag wasn’t opened, there would be no way for the snake to escape. Unless it was simply de-summoned, in which case it still wouldn’t be their problem anymore.

As soon as the bag was closed, Vanessa turned and collapsed, falling backward before staring at the ceiling while panting heavily.

Doug collapsed next to her, turning his head to look to Vanessa. “You okay?”

It took her a moment, but Vanessa nodded. She was breathing hard, eyes wide as she came down from the panic high of the last few minutes. “Uh huh. Uh huh. Peachy. No more snakes for a while, okay?” Her voice was a bit squeaky from her own rush of adrenaline.

“I’m not sure if the bad guys will listen,” the boy replied, “but I am totally on board with that rule. And hey, good job calling that it would shrink down to chase you if you pissed it off enough.”

“Like I said,” she replied, “path of least resistance. It didn’t need to take the time to melt the walls if there was another opening. One we wanted it to go through.”

The two of them laid there like that for a few moments, just catching their breath. The snake bag lay between them, completely still and silent, of course. But that didn’t stop either of them from keeping half a wary eye on it.

“It definitely can’t get out of that, right?” Doug pressed. He obviously just needed to hear a little reassurance that they weren’t about to be ambushed by the worst game of Jack-in-the-Box ever.

Vanessa’s head shook. “Definitely not. As long as we keep it shut tight, there’s no portal for it to come through.”

With a soft sigh of relief, Doug nodded. “Good. Somebody else gets to check and see if it’s gone later.”

He paused, before asking, “How do you think the others are doing?”

Vanessa took a moment before answering. “We should probably go find out. This is too important to lie down on the job.”

Doug winced, but nodded, picking himself up before offering a hand to her. “Right.

“Let’s go see what we missed.”