We exited the apartment, and rushed right up to the barrier line. Once we crossed it we slowed down, and Miss madeline whispered to me:

“I can still hear something on the stairs, but the screaming’s stopped.”

I felt a pang in my chest. I won’t say it felt like I’d been stabbed, having been through that, but my insides ached at the thought that we were too late. I looked at the gun in my grasp, loading it really had taken forever. But, going into this unprepared and getting myself or Miss Madeline killed wouldn’t have been any good either.

“It also sounds like there’s something stomping about upstairs, and-”

“And?”

“Hush,” Miss Madeline cocked her head and was silent for a second, “I’m also hearing some thumping. I think if we hurry we can still do some good.”

She sped away from me, and I had to jog to keep up. We made it to the stairs in under a minute. Madeline looked up the stairwell, slight exasperation on her face.

“Frankly, my murderball chair is not the one I would have picked for this task. It's heavy, and the guarded front isn't going to make this any easier. I’m gonna try something dumb.”

She opened her display. “I’m gonna see if I can use Accelerate to fling myself up there.”

“Considering that you broke several bones last time, I can’t see that being a good Idea.”

“I wasn’t buckled in last time.” She faced her back to the stairs, and grabbed the railing. She then pulled her chair up, and now her two large rear wheels were on the first step. She opened her display again while she was balanced there, and tapped on it.

“. . .”

“. . .”

Nothing happened.

“Oh wait, it looks like I have to press another button-”

Next thing I knew she was on the next landing and had slammed into a wall. I heard her hack out a painful sounding cough, and I ran up to her.

“Madeline!”

It took a second for the coughing to stop, and for her breath to come back.

“I’m fine, I think.” She looked down. Her left arm, especially around her wrist, was red, swollen in a way that I found more than a little concerning.

“Actually, cancel that.” she said, “I broke an arm.”

“What the actuall fuck.”

“Well I'm only feeling it now, ok?” She opened her display, tapped a couple times, and grimaced. Her arm straightened out and the swelling disappeared.

“Oooowwww, why do those have to hurt so fucking bad?”

“Worse than a broken arm?”

“Yes, actually. Much worse!”

I remembered when I had first used a potion. It did hurt worse than being stabbed had, and being stabbed sucked pretty hard.

“Anyway, I think we can say that was a bad Idea.” I said.

“Maybe. Gonna do it again though.”

“Really!?”

“Yes.” She repositioned herself, and I went to grab her, but she was gone again. I heard a crash, and looked up from my landing. She was a flight up, her wheels on the wall, and before gravity took her down to the ground, she twisted in midair and disappeared again. I heard another crash, and another after that.

I gave chase.

***

I caught glimpses of Madeline bouncing from wall to wall above me. It looked slightly insane from my perspective, but my toys had come to life with functioning weapons attached, so maybe this was the new normal.

After climbing several flights of stairs, I wasn’t getting any closer to catching up. And I was hearing gunshots. A piece of metal fell from above me, and I watched it tumble through the empty center space in the stairwell. It looked like a sword of some kind, but I couldn’t tell what type specifically, because it soon crumbled into fluorescent shards.

I resumed making my way up the stairs with all possible haste, though the actual amount of haste wasn’t much considering that I was at that point completely out of breath.

I dragged myself up on quaking legs anyway.

By the time I caught sight of Madeline again, I was on the ninth floor, and I called out to her.

“Madeline!” She was currently wheeling backwards from some sort of black, hairy creature.

It had one single, ginormous, lidless eye. The iris was gray, and the pupil elongated, like a cat’s. The skin on its face was stretched tight against its oblong skull. Its cheekbones were so sharp they almost protruded out of the skin. Its jaw was vicious, and had a tusk like a boar’s. The creature was shaped like a monkey, and walked on clawed hands.

Madeline was out of ammo, and was fumbling with her purse while she used one hand to maneuver her chair.

My problem was that the goblin monkey was too close to Madeline for me to have any confidence that I could try shooting at it without risking friendly fire. They were also both moving at too much speed for me to feel confident that I could close distance before it was too late, and the ape gremlin was practically on top of her.

I opened my inventory and removed from it the only mecha I had left. Tapping on the selection caused it to slide out smoothly from the screen. I shoved my gun in my armpit and grabbed the mech with my left hand, Animating it on the spot. The ensuing burst of particles and light tingled on my hand.

“I’m gonna throw you.” I said to my new companion before it could even salute me. It nodded at me, curled into a ball in my hand, and gave me a thumbs up. I wound up for a baseball pitch.

I threw him as hard as I could, and his thrusters corrected for my terrible aim. He used two of his four arms to draw his massive sword from his back, and the sword unfolded to become even larger, the blade glowing blue.

The cyclops-chimp raised a clawed hand.

My newly animated companion’s thrusters flared brighter, and it cartwheeled through the air with its sword, turning into a flying bender, slicing three of the four fingers clean off of the primate-pooka’s raised talons.

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

It screamed.

Madeline used Accelerate, and lariated the monster as she went past. It spun in the air, landing on its back.

I’d been running to get there the whole time, and as the orangutan-troll-thing tried to get up, I put my gun to its head and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened. I forgot to pull the hammer back.

I got swiped at, but came out unscathed. Mick-Chicken launched a missile at the creature, and it detonated in its eye. It was blinded and stunned.

I pulled the hammer back this time, and shot it.

It dissolved.

***

“I saw you forgot to pull the hammer back,” Miss Madeline chided me.

“Yes, well, I’m just glad neither of us are dead.”

“Me too. I killed four of those things and zombie-knight before I ran out of ammo.”

“Zombie-knight?”

“Yeah, it had a full suit of shiny armor and a big sword. I ended up running him over with my chair before I shot him in the face.”

“And there were four more of those pooka things?”

“Pookas?” Madeline tilted her head slightly, not getting my reference.

“Shapeshifting creatures from Irish folklore. Depictions of them vary, and I guess they’re usually horses or rabbits, but that word is the best I got for whatever those things are.” I said.

“Seems as good a name as any I suppose. But yeah, My gun only holds six shots, unless you put an extra in the chamber. I used two on the ghoul, one for the rest, but that left a guy remaining.”

“Why didn’t you just run away at that point?”

“Those pooka guys are surprisingly fast, and I couldn’t use my Accelerate thing at the time.”

“You used it just now, though?”

“Yeah, honestly, I don’t really get how that works, yet.”

“Also,” I said as a thought occurred to me, “you didn’t have to press a button to use it after the first time. How does that work?”

“Oh yeah, come look at this.” Madeline reloaded her handgun, putting it back in her purse before opening her display to show me something. I walked a bit closer to get a better look.

"So," she continued, "I basically have to spend ATP on my abilities, and then I can use them just by thinking about it."

"That's way different from what I have to do." I said.

"Is it really though?"

"Not following."

"Well, in your case I would argue that you're spending ATP on your mechs, and then they are the ones using your abilities."

I could see the argument she was making there, but before I could agree with her, I needed to hear more details.

"Miss Madeline-" A thought occurred to me after saying that: "-hold on, are we clear? Like, is this a safe place to be chatting?"

We were still standing in the hallway that had just been filled with monsters, according to Miss Madeline. I'd only actually seen one, but I was more than willing to take her word for it.

"Maybe? I don't hear anything anymore. Which is still concerning, barriers aside."

I understood her point there. The screams had stopped, even though we hadn't found what was causing them.

"Do you think the pookas we're the ones screaming?" I asked. "That last one screeched when my buddy cut off his fingers."

Speaking of such things, where had my sword wielding friend ended up? I'd kind of lost track of him after the aforementioned finger chopping stunt.

I looked around, and saw that he was stuck in a wall. Or rather, his sword was, and he refused to let go of it, so he was just kind hanging there.

"I don't think it was the monkeys that were screaming earlier," Madeline said, shaking her head. "You didn't hear it when we were downstairs," her shoulders tensed and her expression darkened, "those first screams were different, and I don’t know if that was because it came from a person but either way it sucks ass."

"It does.” I agreed. “My vote is we just start clearing all the floors. Maybe we'll find some people then, too."

I walked towards my four armed mecha. Madeline noticed him there, then.

"Is he stuck?"

"His sword is, yeah."

"And he can't just let go?"

"He probably could, but he sure doesn't want to."

"That's kind of hilarious." Madeline said, now sporting her usual lopsided grin.

I chuckled, and slid my borrowed revolver into my display without really thinking about it. "I can't really blame him. His sword is kinda his whole thing."

I spoke to my little wall hanger, having now gotten within arm's reach of him: "If you just hold on to your sword, I'll pull."

He nodded his consent to that plan. I delicately grabbed him by his midsection, and he placed all four of his hands upon the lengthy grip of his blade. I started tugging.

"Do you think that whoever it was made it to safety?" Madeline asked.

"You mean the person you heard when we were downstairs?"

She nodded.

"Well," I grunted, still attempting to get Mr. Four-arms sword out of the wall, "Considering the lack of blood stains, I'd bet so"

Madeline looked around the area again. "You're right. Aside from scuffed carpeting and the holes I put in the wall, this place is spotless.”

Madeline turned and leaned over the side of her chair, picking something off of the ground. “I think this is the bullet you just fired.”

“Really?” I turned my head to look, one of my feet planted on the wall as I attempted to pull a tiny sword from its gypsum composite stone.

“Yeah, it's still warm. And you can tell it’s not one of mine, because mine are copper coated, and smaller to boot.”

“I’ll take your word for it-” The sword finally came free, causing me to fall straight on my ass. I lost my grip Four-arms, but he landed gracefully on his feet and without injury. Fry and Mick-chicken fell from my shoulders, but made it to the ground with similar ease and agility. Honestly, I felt a little betrayed. Why were they so much more well balanced than I was? I thought that at least Mick-chicken shared some of my clumsiness.

“Oww.”

Madeline pulled up beside me and offered me a hand. I took it gratefully and she helped me up.

“No broken bones, I trust.”

I patted my rear gingerly. “No, just a bit bruised. Do you wanna check the roof while we’re up here?”

“Sure, but we should double check this floor first. I don’t hear anything, but it's best to be safe.”

“Cool. Lemme grab my buds.” The dynamic duo took their usual places atop my shoulders. I was at a bit of a loss as to where to put my newest friend, though.

Four-arms, as I called him, was an odd mech. He had the aforementioned four arms of course, as well as almost entirely green and blue armor, and a single curved antenna in place of a head ornament.

And that’s all before you get to the sword. The blade was actually larger than he was, which is why it folded in half when not in use. It was single edged, with handlebars on the back of the blade to allow him to grasp it with all of his many appendages, including his feet.

The blade supposedly used some sort of sci-fi gobbly gook to enhance its ability to cut. Something involving electricity.

I wasn’t really paying attention when I watched the anime. I just bought the kit because I thought it looked cool.

Whilst I was staring at him, he had folded his blade with a flourish and stowed it on his backside, where it mounted itself to his jet pack.

He was looking at me intently.

“Do you want me to hold you, or can you balance on my head?” He placed one hand on top of his head, and pointed at mine.

“Fair enough.” I gently lifted him up and he climbed atop my scalp, sitting down and using his quadruple forelimbs to balance himself. At least I think that's what he did, I couldn’t see him at that point, just feel the points of contact and shifting weight. It wasn’t exactly comfortable, what with him grabbing my hair ratatouille style, but it would have to do.

“You look like a dumbass.” Madeline said.

“Yeah well, I don’t really have a better solution.”

“They can’t just walk on their own?”

“Not really. Their legs are too short, they’d have to run just to keep up.”

“And why can’t we just have one of them ride with me?”

“Because I hadn’t thought of that,” I said, because I hadn’t thought of that.

I removed Four-arms from my head, and walked a step closer to madeline.

“You good riding with her?” I asked him.

In response he hopped onto Madeline’s lap.

Madeline picked him up. “He’s heavier than I expected.”

“Yeah, I think my ability changes what they’re made of. It's not quite metal, but not plastic either.”

Madeline gave four-arms an experimental poke, and he did his best to stay still.

“You know what?” She said, gently rubbing a thumb over his chest plate, “it kind of reminds me of ceramic.”

I watched my little mecha tremble slightly as he was prodded.

“I think that he might be a bit ticklish, Madeline.”

“That’s adorable!”

“Yes, but you should probably respect his personal space a little anyway.”

“Fiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnne.” Madeline put him down on her lap. “Should we get going?”