Sara whipped her arms out as she tried to catch something to stop her fall. The threads leaped from the lion’s paw and stabbed something in the dim lighting. The lines pulled her through the air until she was skidding across the floor and ran into the base of a large vat. She groaned as the lines finished retracting into the gauntlet.

She picked herself up as Voit flew around above her. She had to move before he came down and tried to finish the job.

She looked right, then left. Everything on the ground looked clear. She expected workers, or monsters, to patrol the floor. Where were they?

“You freelancers have been warned to stay away,” called down Voit. “You’re about to find out what I do to trespassers.”

Sara pulled the pistol and fired a couple of red rods up at him. Mummification would stop her quest. She wasn’t letting him get close enough for that. The blasts hit a shield and dissipated.

She wasn’t going to get to him with the blaster. How did she get to him? Could she cut through that shield with the lion sword? She needed to draw him close to cut him.

She had the two stones that allowed her to throw energy beams. Would that get through Voit’s protections? She didn’t think so.

She wondered which way stood the gate. That was where she needed to go. She heard gears moving. Was Voit sealing her in?

She dodged through the vats. The giant tanks rested on solid platforms. Hoses and gauges were everywhere. She didn’t try to read them. Voit still floated above her like a falcon waiting on a smaller animal to get clear of protective cover before swooping down.

She saw a door after a few minutes of skulking through the machinery. A large metal shield had been dropped over the opening. Pipes ran up the wall. They probably went to the turrets outside.

Could the ox plaque give her the strength to get through that barrier? Why did he have that? How many freelancers decided to try to come through here instead of going around?

She looked up. The top ring could be below a window or ramp she could use to get close to this side of the wall. How did she get up there?

She didn’t see any steps. She would have to fly up there if she wanted to get to the ring.

She didn’t think that was a good idea with Voit circling around. He was better in the air than she was.

She looked for another way out of the mess she was in.

She spotted the original tunnel she had used to get to the central chamber. She scanned the top of the chamber and spotted a door and ramp on the other side of the giant room. That was a possible escape route, but again it called for her to get into Voit’s space and then get out as fast as she could before he focused whatever he could do on her.

She needed to fly. That was the only answer to her problem. She pulled out the bag of plaques to search for the rooster. She couldn’t find it.

She remembered that she had been holding it in her hand when she had been shot by the crabs. She must have dropped it outside the tower when she hit the ground. She couldn’t go back to get it. What was her second choice to help her out of her spot?

Maybe strength was the way to go. If she could lift that barrier, she could get out to the inner wall depending on where the exit happened to be. And the weight would drop it back in place to block Voit from directly following her.

She liked the simplicity, but could she make it work? She didn’t like the doubt in her mind. She needed to be clear and ready. The other options weren’t that good without the rooster to help her fly.

She clutched the ox. She had to get through that door. She had to get home to her kids. This place wouldn’t matter after she was back home.

She took some breaths to clear her head. She hated that she would have to cross clear flooring, lift the barrier, and then get through with the hope of Voit missing her with whatever weapon he was holding.

Her other option was knocking the vats over and using that as a distraction. Could she do that? What would happen if she tried? What was in the tanks? Would that stop her permanently if the contents touched each other?

Maybe she could push one over as a distraction. Would Voit drop everything to keep the contents from spilling everywhere?

She decided to do it and see what he would do to stop her.

She braced her back against the nearest tank. She began to push on the metal wall. She realized that she was bending the wall of the container because it was secured to the floor through the base it was sitting on.

If she kept pushing, she would punch a hole through the holder and dump the

contents all over herself.

Maybe she should slice through the base with her sword. That would dump the contents out and allow her to dodge anything that looked like trouble.

And the ox would give her the strength to penetrate the metal shell.

Voit dropped down from the top of the room. Twin bursts of green slime walked around Sara with the sound of plopping impacts. He pivoted to track her as she moved.

The freelancer put the ox in her gauntlet so she could use the sword. She moved among the looming tanks to get away from the winged shadow above her. She needed to get better cover.

She had made a mistake trying this on her own. She should have tried to recruit someone from Joe’s diner to help her out. She hadn’t wanted to deal with the extra trouble of having someone else along, but now she needed hands to get her out of the pickle she was in.

At least she had caused some trouble for Belsin with her spotlight. Was the factory still burning?

Crab machines started pouring into the room. They dropped from the entrance above and took a moment to orientate on her. She grimaced at the second front. She should have known Belsin’s security would keep up the chase.

She made a throwing motion with the lion gauntlet. Threads wrapped around the top of the vats. She flew to the top of the nearest tank and pulled herself on top of the connectors for the hoses.

Voit circled around. Green globs reached for her as he soared through the room’s air space on his wings. None of the viscous projectiles hit her as he completed his strafing run.

Sara jumped to a taller tank and flung her arm again. Threads wrapped around one of the support trusses for the catwalk ring above her. They yanked her into the air, swinging her toward the other door into the room.

Beams of light tracked her as the crabs tried to knock her out of the air. She winced at the burns she received but the dog and horse kept her moving. She reached up to hook an arm over the support beam.

Voit hit her as she tried to get on top of the beam. That was enough to send her swinging out over the industrial area he kept. She hit the wall, but kept her grip on the lion paw so it didn’t come off her hand and send her to the floor again.

Sara started swinging away from the wall. Voit was right there in front of her. Globs of green snot sent her back into the wall and glued her in place. She struggled against the restraint. The Dark lord landed on one of the tanks and looked up at her with owl eyes. His wings folded to nothing while he thought about what he wanted to do.

“Did you really think you could challenge me?,” asked Voit. “Stay there while I check on Bel. When I get back, I will want to have words with you.”

Sara tried to push against the slimy bonds. When she got to a certain point, they snapped back and slammed her against the wall. She needed more leverage to effectively use the strength of the ox.

Maybe she could get another plaque out of the bag. Maybe the laser eyes could help her. Maybe she could cut the slime away with it.

That was a lot of maybes.

How much time did she have before Voit came back? She needed to be ready for him. Maybe the laser eyes could slice through the shields he used.

She wriggled her hand down to her gun belt to get at the bag of stones. The slime resisted her efforts, but she finally pulled it loose from where it was hidden. The green slime tried to hold it to the wall.

She pulled open the bag, tearing the mouth with her increased strength. She touched one of the stones. Her mind separated from her body. She shook her head and dove back into her body. She touched another of the stones. Everything slowed down. She had grabbed the rabbit by mistake. She tried again. Laser beams cut a line along the wall next to her, before she turned it on the crabs on guard below her. Explosions marked the burning monsters.

She turned her gaze on the green slime. She had to be careful not to cut her feet off but she quickly sliced through the restraint. One pull dropped her on the floor. She sliced through the vats, dropping their contents on the floor and her enemies. She used the threads from the climbing paw to lift over the mixing chemicals splashing toward her.

An explosion sent a blast of fire after Sara. She grabbed the thread and began pulling herself up hand over hand to get away from the fiery pillar. The shockwave blasted her upwards at the head of a comet.

She hit the donut ring. The flame and pressure hit right after. She could feel her body being pulped. The dog and horse kept her alive long enough for her to grab the twisted remains of the circular catwalk with the gauntlet. Then their influence stopped as they fell from her, back into the firestorm below.

Sara cried and cursed as she hung from the bent metal net that had once been a platform. She had to get moving. Voit was not going to ignore the bottom of his tower blowing out. She had to find a door and get to the gate before he hunted her down.

The dog and horse stones had been a huge advantage. Now she was back to being killed and ripped apart like the other freelancers that had challenged Voit. She had to do better than they had. She had to pull herself together and move.

She wiped the tears from her face with her free hand. She was in a bad position. The net still looked red hot. Once she stepped on that with her bare feet, she wasn’t running anywhere.

Sara looked around. The fire seemed to have used all of its fuel in that one explosion. Maybe she could drop down and recover the stones. The only one she had was the ox. The rest had been scattered.

She needed more clothes. Hers had been reduced to burnt rags. Her boots had taken most of the fire and burned away as the dog and horse kept her moving. She needed to get them back no matter what.

She was on the clock on top of all of her other problems. She had to make a decision and act. The rest would have to sort itself out.

She needed the stones. She had to get them. She needed more clothes for protection. And she needed to clear out of the area before Voit came back.

It was a simple list, but it was also a plan. She needed to get down to get the stones. She had her lion’s paw and sword. Getting down seemed simple enough to do.

She pulled on one of the talons with her free hand. She wrapped the end of the thread extracted from her metal finger around the metal bar she hung from. She released her grip and the thread dropped her until she clinched her hand shut. She dropped down in a series of staggered falls until she hit the floor.

She thought she didn’t have time to gather all the stones. And some of them could have been blown through the walls by the force of the blast she had caused. If she hadn’t had her two stones in her boots, she would be whatever they considered dead here.

She found the dog and the horse. She smiled. That had been a piece of good luck, but she knew they had fallen straight down from where she had landed. They should be where she dropped them. She stuffed them into the lion paw with the ox. She should have done that in the first place.

Now she had to find the rest, but she only gave herself a few minutes to look. Voit was bound to come back any time. She didn’t want to be scrabbling for the stones and fighting him at the same time.

A set of green sparks lit up the other stones. Four of them had been blown out of the tower’s bottom floor by the explosion. There was nothing she could do to recover them unless one of the closer ones was the rabbit.

She grabbed the closest one as Voit appeared at the hole in the wall.