Marty peeked out of the door. The soldiers were running toward their cells. Someone

must have become aware of their escape. He shrugged. That was to be expected.

He crept out of the empty office. He headed in the opposite direction. He didn’t want

to fight anybody unless he had to do it. Corona and Ren seemed able to hold their

own in a fight, but why fight when you didn’t have to?

Marty made it to the stairs. He heard the elevator ringing across the hall. He held the

door for his friends to step inside the stairwell. He stepped in and pulled the door

closed. The elevator doors opened to let another squad of goons step out in the hall.

One of them pointed at the stairwell door. Marty didn’t have enough room for a big

animal like a rhino in the stairwell. He decided that a big cat would have to do what

he needed to do.

The door pushed in. The tiger leaped at the first man in line before he could think to

shoot at anything that might be in the stairwell. The man went down screaming.

Corona pulled some of her power into her hand. She leaned over Marty, using his

shoulder to aim her hand. Bright light flooded the doorway. The men fell back toward

the elevator, blinded by the flare.

“Go,” said Marty. He called off the tiger to let the door close on the squad. He

wondered if they would just shoot through the door the next time.

Ren led the way to the next floor. He paused at the landing door, holding up his hand.

He took a spot next to the door and waited. The door opened and a goon peered at the

landing. Ren touched his face with the palm of his hand. The trooper froze in place.

Marty pulled the trooper out of the way and pushed him down the stairs. He let the

door close. More guys could come through the door, or the guy was on his own. It

didn’t matter. They were obviously using radios to keep track of where the escapees

were.

They had to keep moving if they wanted to get out of there.

The layout of the place seemed familiar to Marty. He put the puzzle aside as he

headed up the stairwell. They had to get away from the shaft before they were

swamped by armed soldiers and powers.

Corona paused long enough to melt the hinges on the door so it would have to be

knocked down before anyone could enter the stairwell from that floor. She smiled at

the smell of melted metal cooling down.

“They’ll have to blow that sucker down,” Corona said as she brought up the rear of

the line.

“We have to find Cog and Finch,” said Marty. “Any ideas?”

“I don’t think we can do a floor by floor search unless you want to use one of your

animals to see if it can find them,” said Ren. “We should look for an exit and hope

they are doing the same.”

“You don’t have to worry about that,” said a woman from two floors up. “It’s time for

beddy bye time.”

A rain of monkeys dropped down on the three allies. They made sure that some of

them had grips on the railings so they could hit the stairwell like a bomb hitting a

target.

“Rematch time,” said Corona. She charged upwards in an arrowhead of fire. The

duplicates tried to avoid the flaming aura as she tried to grab them.

Several of the monkeys grabbed Marty and wrapped him up in a grip so tight he

couldn’t move. He tried a head butt. He missed the skull he had been aiming to hit.

More monkeys in clothes tried to grab Ren. He avoided them the best that he could.

He wasn’t a physical powerhouse like Corona. His strengths lay in other directions.

One of the monkeys grabbed his arm. It smiled at him. He smiled back. Then he

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vanished.

Troop paused in amazement. Where had the man in black gone? How had he gone

there? The nullifier had done nothing to him when they had picked him up at the park

entrance. Now he was gone like Puff.

“Better power down, Corona,” said Clown Girl with a smile. “Troop will rip that guy

apart if you don’t.”

Corona blasted at her. The beam melted part of the railing and scorched the concrete

of the landing. Clown Girl jumped back out of the way of the beam.

A hand touched her face. She tried to turn and swing at the same time. Instead she

froze up in the middle of the move and fell over.

Ren shook his head. His move had worked almost like he had planned it. Now he had

to do something about the multiplying monkey. He just had no idea what he could do.

Troop shrieked at the sight of his partner falling over. He lifted Marty up in multiple

arms. The meaning was obvious. Give up and your friend doesn’t lose an arm.

Ren paused. What could he do about this?

Corona fired a bolt of flame through the nearest version of Troop. They tried to

scatter away from the attack. Some of them didn’t make it.

“It’s all over, Monkey,” said Corona. “Put our friend down, or prepare to burn.”

Marty took a moment to clear his head. He closed his eyes and thought. He was in the

center of a living mass, at the wrong end of his new friend’s power, and having stress

on his body to show he was about to have one of his arms ripped out of its socket.

What could he do about it?

He summoned his power. He hoped he was making the right call. He didn’t want to

be called Lefty for the rest of his life.

A giant bear fell on top of the crowd of monkeys. They had a moment to think about

things before it began swinging its big paws around. Some of the crowd tried to push

the weight off without leverage.

Corona flew into the monkeys as they divided to get away from the onslaught of

angry bear. She pushed some of the monkeys over the rail on impact. They were

forced to grab the rails to keep from hitting the bottom of the shaft.

Her aura set fur alight as she threw punches at the group of simians. That forced more

division as some of the monkeys fought to put the fires out while more tried to deal

with the bear biting faces.

Marty flung an elbow and pushed away from the grips on his body. It wasn’t strong

enough to do any real damage, but it was enough for him to roll out on top of the

monkeys while they were trying to deal with the twin menaces.

Marty dropped on the stairs, holding on to a rail. One of the monkeys came at him.

The bear slammed it from behind, sending it over the rail.

“Thanks, Winnie,” said Marty. He realized that he had to dip into his special monster

animal pool. It was the only way they were getting out of this.

A soldier appeared above the fight. He said something into the radio in his helmet.

He backed into a hand to the face that put him to sleep beside the clown.

Things were spiraling out control. They had to deal with the monkey and move away

from the scene before more problems showed up. Marty summoned his power.

A large reptile unrolled from his hands. Wings spread out from its long body. Saucer

eyes burned the air. Smoke drifted from wide nostrils.

The monkeys looked at the thing glaring down at them. Did the power want to take

on what it was looking at, or did he want to run?

Corona looked up as she grabbed one of the monkeys around the neck with a burning

hand. She smiled at the giant beast hovering above her. She flung the fragment over

the railing.

“We have to go,” said Ren. He leaned against the door above the fray. “Soldiers are

on the way.”

The dragon blasted flame on the multiple Troops. The simian pulled himself together

away from the stream of flame and then dispersed as a swarm of climbers heading

upstairs from the confrontation. Corona picked some of them off as they ran away.

Marty headed up the stairs. He shook his head as he moved. The dragon flew ahead.

Corona flew up next to it. Ren joined the Scout as he climbed.

“That was unexpected,” said Ren. He kept an eye on the fleeing Troops.

“I hoped I wouldn’t have to use it,” said Marty. “It’s my only trump card. Door.”

The door to a floor above them opened. Men poked weapons out in the stairwell. Ren

and Marty crashed against the barrier and slammed it on the crowd trying to get at

them to shoot. It wasn’t enough to shut the door against the crowd. Then the dragon

curled around and lined up its snout on the door. The soldiers tried to retreat in front

of the flame that leaped at them.

Ren and Marty slammed the door shut on the smell of burning cloth and the sound of

exploding ammunition. They waited for the sounds to die down before they opened

the door. One of the men was still awake, if hurt. They dragged him in the stairwell

before closing the door again.

“Get rid of the monkeys if you can,” Marty told the dragon. “We can’t let him stay in

here with us.”

The dragon grunted as it climbed after Corona and the fleeing Troop. It blew fire at

the monkeys to keep them moving in one direction. Corona helped with fire blasts to

keep them from turning around and falling back down on Marty and Ren.

“How you doing?,” Marty asked the soldier they had grabbed from the mess at the

door. “Where’s your boss?”

“I don’t have anything to say to you freaks,” said the man. He had to struggle with the

words from injuries to his torso.