Through the pouring rain and the sticky puddles of the thick forest, Dave ran for his life from the horrible sounds approaching. From behind, the awful whirring from a large drill, and from below, the rumbling of the ground being moved under his feet. His throat felt like a hot iron ball was lodged in it, and every breath felt as uncomfortable as his legs were from the constant running.

In an attempt to hide from the sounds, he dove behind a tree and pressed his back against the cold, wet bark. Carefully, he peaked over his shoulder down the path he ran down and swallowed hard when he saw nobody giving chase. Someone had certainly been there a second ago, and the pile of dirt and the gaping hole in the ground told him everything he needed to know about where the pursuer went.

Suddenly, the ground rumbled again and Dave looked down at his feet, aghast that they were shaking from whatever was disturbing the ground. With only moments to spare, Dave somersaulted away from the tree, and lucky he did, as the ground almost exploded open and a drill larger than his entire body shot out with enough force to split a gash down the tree’s side. The spinning drill, now embedded in the tree slowed down its rotation and eventually came to a stop. A single golden eye opened on the side of the drill facing Dave, followed by a pair of arms and legs sticking out to push the body off of the tree. Landing on all fours on the ground, the conical drill bit opened up like a long mouth, releasing a cackle into the air. Dave could only watch from the ground as the metal monster flicked its tongue and bared its teeth. Its body appeared to be encased in a metal shell, with both its head and tail having transformed into drills. No doubt, these body modifications were the work of a Jewel.

“You can’t run forever,” it said, “anything that touches the ground is as good as dead when I’m chasing it.” Before Dave could scramble to his feet, the drill creature raised itself on its arms and began to spin again, digging back into the ground and out of sight.

Dave had not even fully stood up yet and was still on one knee when the digger bore through the ground again and charged at him. With nothing but inches of air between them, Dave cracked a smile.

As a child, he wouldn’t spend his pocket money on comic books or candies. Dave would instead choose to spend it on the latest in stylish fashion magazines, containing information and pictures on all of the latest trends and most popular models. One of his favorites was a magazine called ‘Rogue Magazine’, and it was famous for its models, clothing brands, and poses. Every day, a young David would watch these poses in amazement, and analyze how best to mimic them in front of a full-length mirror. Years and years of studying and practicing these poses introduced Dave to a talent he hadn’t even been aware of until very recently. A talent that had proved useful in avoiding Scarlett Saviors attacks on him on a near-daily basis.

With the rain pouring around him, and imminent mutilation near inches before him, Dave raised a hand to his cheek and another to his elbow. He raised himself to his tiptoes as his legs quickly slid together, and in a motion so quick that it made the digger and the rain appear to move in slow motion in comparison, Dave turned his hips sideways from where they originally were and pushed them outwards to give his body a C-shaped curve from his head to his toes. All in under a second.

The digger had not even a chance to register what Dave had done and flew from the dirt and debris and through the space that his target once occupied. It wasn’t until it struck the ground and bore under it that the realization hit. “Huh? Wait. I missed? How did I miss, I was right in front of him” Immediately, it resurfaced and looked at the path it flew through only instances ago. There, it saw Dave, striking a strange pose and looking up at the pouring sky. Hos pink eyes turned from the sky to the digger, but only for a moment, as he turned his attention back to the dark clouds. “Think you can get away with insulting me?” it said as it returned into the ground. “That insult will be your last, creep!”

From his tiptoes, Dave could feel the ground rumbling again, but he did not move from his pose. His heartbeat was so hard, he could feel his shirt bouncing. His already short breath was hardly more than a gasp. His entire body was shaking and threatened to have him fall flat on his back in an exhausted heap. But in spite of his fatigue, he kept his pose up, as this was the easiest way he knew to avoid the digger’s attacks.

The ground swelled up beneath him, and it was time to act. Just as the digger broke through the ground, Dave twisted his body to the side, narrowly avoiding the drillbit as his body smacked onto the ground on his side and his elbow. Without even recoiling, Dave made a fist with his grounded arm and rested his head against it, all the while raising a knee to the air.

The digger bursts out of the ground at an angle, once again hitting air and landing without touching Dave. It turned to look at Dave’s new pose and growled when it saw him just laying around in the wet grass. “You think this is funny, don’t you?” it said in a far deeper and harsher tone.

Dave winked.

The digger raised its head to the air and spun its drill, releasing a loud whirring noise, much like a lion roaring or a wolf howling at the moon. Digging its hands into the ground, the digger kicked off with its legs and charged Dave once more, figuring that as he lay on the ground like that, dodging this next attack would be utterly impossible. The whirring noise was so loud it was drowning out even the pouring rain.

A lot of things in this world are impossible. Dave had encountered impossible scenarios on a near-daily basis in the year and a half since the Scarlett Saviors laid siege to his home. Turning to a supine position, Dave raised both legs straight up to the air before quickly bringing them down, heel first on the ground. As his heels collided with the wet ground, he stretched out his feet until they were flat and his toes were digging into the grass. Using his ankles and tail, he pushed himself upright and avoided the digger’s charging attack. For an added flourish, he crossed his arms.

All in a fraction of a second. The poses he had practiced over the years, the transitions from one to another in a sensible, quick, yet stylish manner were starting to finally pay off.

The digger once again ate nothing but air and quickly dove back underground so that Dave did not get to see its frustrated demeanor or hear its profanity-laden tirade. Having gotten a good look at the digger’s body and drill, Dave’s mind got to work trying to come up with a way to defeat it. The body shape, a long torso with no defined hips and shoulders, combined with a long snout, Dave deduced that the digger was either naturally crocodilian or more akin to a dolphin.

“Dolphin would explain a few things,” he thought, stepping away from his current position and approaching a nearby stone, “Like how he’s able to track me from underground, and with that loud drilling going on in front of his face.”

Dave stepped onto the large stone and pulled off both of his shoes. “Dolphins have the ability to use echolocation, to see things by detecting the way their sound waves bounce off of them,” he thought, recalling something a dolphin friend of him explained once. His tactic was used to find comrades during games of hiding and seek, or marco polo. “This is a bit of a different scenario, but it’s the same basic idea.”

Gripping his toes into the wet stone as best he could, Dave threw both of his shoes up in the air in front of him. He poised himself for a leaping attack the moment the digger charged out of the ground. From both of his palms fell a shiny metal ball that hung from a wire, and as soon as the wire was fully extended, Dave began to twirl them. These were his Wrecking Balls, and with their ability to break through anything with but single touch, they proved fatal to anyone Dave considered an enemy. With their weight and the added momentum that came from the twirling, Dave’s plan to end this fight in a single hit came closer to fruition.

Underground, the Digger dug in an erratic and random fashion. “Damn him,” the digger thought, emitting his soundwaves to detect where Dave had gone. “I can’t let Scarlatto down! In the face of all who failed, if I can be the one to catch Dave, I’ll get the mother of all promotions! Show yourself, you bum!” It was then that his echolocation hit something. “AHA! There you are!” The digger said, turning in the direction of the target and shooting upwards. In its zeal, the digger hadn’t quite noticed that ‘Dave’ was reporting a much smaller, and lighter image, but in his current state of thought, it didn’t matter.

Dave stood on the slippery rock, twirling his wrecking balls and staring at his shoes slowly filling with rainwater. The rumbling sound started to fill the air, and Dave readied himself for an attack. The digger’s drill burst through the ground and knocked the shoes skyward, which was Dave’s signal to leap off of the slippery stone and swing his wrecking balls, aiming to smash the drillbit into smithereens.

Reality hit the digger then and there when he saw Dave leaping towards him, and the empty shoes he had been targeting flying upwards. He’d let himself get outsmarted so easily?

Protruding his legs back into the ground, the digger suddenly reversed back into the ground, leaving Dave to be the one to miss his attack and fall down in a heap. Dave’s legs reached out for ground to catch himself, but his feet when right through the soil like it was a liquid. All of the disturbed dirt and rainwater had turned the digger’s holes into a giant mud trap.

Now panicked, Dave tried to swim back to the stone he was standing on seconds ago, but it was too late. The digger, from below, grabbed Dave by the cuff of his leather pants. Desperately, Dave tried to undo his belt and get his pants off, but it would do no good, as the digger pulled him underground, and in a moment, all of the light and sounds surrounding him vanished.

It was dark, and Dave could barely move. The mud was not soft enough for him to swim through, and every attempt to exhale would only lead to his mouth filling with mud. Dave’s eyes were clamped shut to keep the gunk from getting in there and causing even more damage.

But even without his sight, he could tell the digger drew near. The drilling sound was amplified by this soil, and Dave could feel the vibrations all over his body. With his wrecking balls out, Dave tried to pull himself out of the ground, but the fatigue was starting to set in, and he couldn’t quite find the strength in his arms or his legs to free himself.

The digger had gone far further down than before, he wanted to savor this moment. With Dave practically trapped in place, it charged towards him with its drill. All Dave could do from the confined space and oppressive atmosphere of the underground was move a hand over his chest. In that hand was a wrecking ball, but whether it was from his haste or the minerals in the soil hanging around Dave, the diggers echolocation failed to detect it.

The drill collided with the ball and upon impact, knocked the ball out of the way and crashed into Dave’s chest. But the Wrecking Ball had done its job, and cracked off the drills sharp end, leading to a painful, yet not fatal attack that drove both Dave and the digger out of the ground.

Dave wordlessly flew through the air and collided with a tree, cracking the back of his head against the trunk. His shirt was almost completely destroyed, and his white torso was now stained a deep red color. However, it was clear from the fact that Dave still had a torso to speak of that the digger, despite getting a free shot, had been holding back. Dave would not get a chance to appreciate this, as he lifelessly fell from the tree, face-first into a puddle of mud and leaves below. The digger meanwhile was shouting up a storm at his failed attack. The drill that made up most of his body was now cracked and bent and any attempt to spin it up was met with a crunchy sound and a painful wail on their end.

The metal casing that surrounded his body slowly faded away, as the digger’s true form slowly came to light. Dave’s conclusion was correct, the digger was in actuality a dolphin dressed in the customary red, white, and black uniform of the Scarlett Saviors.

As he returned to his normal form, the dolphin touched as his now bent snout, seemingly moving it left and right with little resistance but much pain. “You,” he said, through pained winces. Clamping his broken snout shut, the digger dolphin spoke through the corner of his mouth to minimize the pain. “You think this changes anything?” he asked, approaching Dave and kicking him in the red spot on his shirt. Dave did not answer. “Yeah you better not answer!” the assailant said, proceeding to kick Dave’s body a few more times before giving up. Reaching into his utility belt, the digger withdrew a small phone and pressed the single button on its face. Frustrated, he put the phone to the side of his head and used his foot to turn Dave over face up. After all of that trouble, the last thing he needed was this guy drowning on him. “Your running days are over. Do you hear me?”

Dave was not hearing him. He wasn’t hearing the rain patter around him, or the thunder cracking in the distance that made the dolphin jump and stare through the thick woods. There was only a single, familiar voice in his repeating a sentence he could swear they had never spoken before.

“Stay down!” the voice in his head begged, over and over, again and again. “For goodness sakes, stay down! Please!”

“I can’t” Dave muttered in response, rendered completely inaudible thanks to all of the background noise. Slowly, his hand reached out to the tree he had hit, grabbing onto a small branch at the base. “I can’t stay down.” Pulling on the branch, Dave turned himself over to his hands and knees, as every part of his body screamed at him to stop.

Finally, Dave opened his eyes and turned to face the blurry image of the dolphin, mid phone call. Even in his state, Dave knew what the conversation was like. A confirmation of his defeat, the exchanging of coordinates, it was a story he’d heard several times before. The time for fighting was over, Dave knew that unless he stopped this guy here and now, these woods would be teeming with Scarlett Saviors, and the chance of escape would go up in flames.

From his hands and knees, he slowly crawled over to the dolphin trying his best to stay small and quiet. In his hand, a wrecking ball formed and was primed for the small of the Digger’s back. Step by step, he approached the distracted opponent, gritting his teeth, and summoning his strength.

“Come on” the dolphin spoke into his phone, visibly annoyed with the state of his face. “The storm’s getting worse. Can you pick up the pace already?” From behind, Dave smirked, gripping his ball with just about everything left in him.

The dolphin suddenly turned around and, in a shock, Dave froze. “I think Dave’s getting restless,” he said into his phone. Before Dave had time to react, the dolphin raised a booted leg and kicked Dave right in the face, knocking him back to the ground.

Dave rolled with the kick, further than one would expect from someone only getting a kick to the face. The dolphin watched, confused as Dave continued to roll on the floor like a log before he arrived at one of the muddy openings the digger had produced. It was then that the Scarlatto Agent realized what he was doing. He leaped towards Dave to catch him but was too late. Dave dove headfirst into the muddy hole, completely obscuring himself and disappearing before the dolphin’s very eyes.

“He won’t survive down there,” the dolphin thought trying to assure himself, hanging up his phone and stepping away from the hole. “There’s not enough air down there for him. For anyone. He’ll die down there for sure…no way he can move.”

It took a moment for things to click for the dolphin, but once they did, he sprung into action. Approaching the hole, he dug both of his arms into the wet mud, reaching around for Dave’s body. Without his own drilling abilities, free underground movement would have been impossible, so he couldn’t have gotten far. The fear of having killed his all-important target was starting to kick in, and the search through the mud became more fierce and panicked.

Had it been a dry, hot day, perhaps underground movement would have been impossible. Had just about anyone else been in this situation, underground movement would have been impossible. A lot of things in this world were impossible and Dave had run into quite a number of them.

Thanks to the overwhelming rain pounding the land, the dolphin’s erratic digging motions, and the all-destroying ability of Dave’s wrecking balls, the impossible was able to fade away into nothing. Dave, planting one of his balls into the edge of the disturbed soil would drag himself forwards before planting the other and repeating. By doing so, he was able to get out of the digger’s arms reach and crawl through the mud trap like a horizontal mountain climber. Once far enough away from his entry hole, he would strike the roof of the rudimentary tunnel, over and over again until he broke through the thinner layer of soil.

As the dolphin digger was now elbow-deep in the mud, trying to free Dave’s body, the ground mere inches behind him broke open and a familiar white body pierced through. Emerging from the ground as the Digger had before, Dave raised both of his wrecking ball primed arms and attacked the digger from behind, smashing the back of his head with both balls in an X shape.

The digger fell forwards and convulsed at the attack. Sight in one of his eyes faded, and his hearing was beginning to fail him. He turned over face up, but Dave jumped on top of him, straddling him and pinning both arms down with his hips and legs. With one hand grabbing at the Dolphins neck and another raising a wrecking ball high, a flash of lightning illuminated the blank, tired expression on his face.

“Where is he hiding” he tiredly asked. “Where is your base!? Where is it!?”

The dolphin, at first frightened, cracked a smile, and laughed. “Do what you want to me” he said, his snout flapping with his every word. “Kill me if you want! Whatever you do to me, Scarlatto will do a million times worse to you! You think caving my head in will change anything?!” The dolphin cackled again. “You will never escape us. Kill one, two more will take their place!”

Dave gripped the ball tightly in his hand, trembling as the sound of thunder rolled over. He shut his eyes, and

The bathroom door swung open, and Dave snapped back into the hotel room, still sat on the bed, shirtless and staring into the mirror. He turned to face Zed who was wiping his head down with a towel, and before he could see what he was up to, dove under his bed covers and covered up his scarred body again.

“These showers aren’t great,” Zed said, furiously wiping his head. “Not enough pressure. I had to fill the bucket and dump it over my head to get all the soap out.”

“I’ll ask for a motel with a watering hose next time,” Dave said, surreptitiously putting his sweater back on from his feet up. “That’ll wash the color right out of your hair.”

Zed threw the towel at Dave and crawled into his own bed. “So what’s next?” he asked, putting his glasses on his bedside table and drawing the curtains shut.

“When we get up, go to the hotel and find out what we need.”

“A clue to finding their base of operations.” Zed fiddled with the alarm clock beside his bedside table, adjust the hours and minutes to match the time on his phone.

“It’s my best hope yet. These agents have tight lips.”

“I don’t suppose you’re looking to find a map that says ‘Base Here’ on it, but I’ll leave it to you. I’m sure you know what you’re up to.”

Dave smiled and nodded at Zed, but turned away from him and let his smile drop. As he heard Zed shuffle into bed and cut the lights, Dave hoped that he too knew what he was up to. The best-case scenario was finding a clue, but he didn’t even want to consider what the worst-case scenario may hold for them. As he shut his eyes and tried to catch up on his sleep, the sound of a whirring drill filled his head again, and all he could do was utter a defeated sigh.