Chương 49: Don't Be Stupid

The mall around us shook a second time and a metal bracing in the ceiling fell away. Rigel and I dove in opposite directions as it crashed down, squashing the last surviving mannequin. I scrambled to my feet and rushed over to his side as he lifted his heavily armored form up.

"Looks like the sign was right and you were wrong," I gasped.

"Where is the fastest way out of here?" He looked around while the building groaned and gravel-sized chunks from the walls continued to rain down. It was probably only for a few seconds, but I felt middle-aged by the time he finally pointed to the left.

"That way." The floor vibrated beneath our feet as we ran down the mezzanine, Rigel leading the way.

"There's a fire escape on the side of the building just past the food court. Hurry!"

"I told you this building was condemned! Don't worry he says, we'll be fine he says." I dodged to the side as a ceiling tile fell from above right in front of me.

"This does not feel fine!"

"It was fine! It's not every day that you get enough force to destabilize a several ton building. Something out there has to be striking the building with close to a million newtons of impact force." We rushed down the walkway towards the food court and the salvation of its emergency exit. Rigel reached out and took my hand so that we ran side by side.

"Get ready to use your power, just in case." The palms of his gauntlets began to glow and the one in my hand felt warm as it began to heat up.

"Between your ability to stop time and my tools, it's possible that we can make it out of here." I nodded. The intense emotions necessary to bring up my powers were currently spiking through my veins. There would be no trouble using them.

"You didn't happen to develop a tool for notifying when something big and giant is about to drop on us, did you?" A large air conditioning unit fell from the ceiling and collapsed on the floor just ten feet from us.

"Close. I have a structural scanner in my visor that maps the walls and floors that I can see. It'll tell us if something is about to fail." A deafening crash split through the air, like a wrecking ball hitting the side of the building, and everything gave a violent shake. My legs stumbled as the reverberations went through them and I brought my hands up to try to steady myself. A large crack snaked its way through the top of a pillar nearby.

The sound of breaking masonry came from overhead and I looked up to see a broken slab of stone falling towards my head. My eyes focused as I gripped my power, ready to activate it but something shot past me from my left and I watched as the stone was blasted to the side, tumbling over the railing to the ground below. My head jerked to see Rigel with his arm raised, the circles on his gloves glowing white like they had in the tunnel before.

"Fire power?" I asked, still trying to regain balance. It had felt hot when it had flown past me.

"Kinetic," he said, glancing down at the circles. All we heard was a small sound of granite scraping against itself, then a huge chunk of the cracked pillar broke away from the ceiling and plummeted towards him. He was facing away, turned towards me. The slab was only a foot away from his head until it suddenly stood still, the shaking stopped, and the rumble silenced. I dashed forward in that short space of frozen time. Rigel was only a few steps away so I slammed into him.

He was big and heavy in his armor, but I had a lot of momentum. Another second slipped by as we tumbled past the falling debris. My brain pounded in my head and liquid trickled down my nose as time snapped back. I could feel the impact in my bones as the concrete crashed down next to us. It tore through the floor like a meteor. Rigel pushed me off him and pulled me up, stumbling forward.

"Come on!" He screamed over the deafening sound of the falling debris. The floor began to crack around us as we rushed forward. Every step of ours left thin breaks in the ground that spread out like spiderwebs. Any moment, I was sure it would all just fall away, with us included. Another earthquake shook everything in sight. A giant cacophony of glass shattering and a metallic scraping sound of something huge and heavy collapsing echoed from ahead.

We rushed past a pillar which gave enough support to end the creeping death of the cracking floor behind us. Rigel yelled next to me.

"Turn here!" I grabbed the corner as I spun to make the turn into the food court. The room had probably been lovely before with a wide glass ceiling for diners to admire the weather as they ate their hydrogenated mall food, but at the moment, it looked like some post apocalyptic wasteland. The ceiling had shattered, only fragments at the edges still holding on, and the floor had collapsed which was probably the source of that mechanical monstrosity I had heard earlier.

A beautiful emergency exit sign hung just beyond the looming chasm. There was a thin path of floor still clinging to the wall and food shops that we might be able to use to make our way around. My hand reached into my belt and pulled out my grappling hook gun. Rigel grabbed my arm.

"The building's already unstable. We'd have to be able to trust whatever that hooks onto. Right now I don't trust anything here." I looked up at the non-existant ceiling and then down into the pit of the collapsed floor that stretched four stories down.

"Maybe it is too dangerous, but you know what else is? Climbing down a crumbling building." The wall beside us groaned as a crack running down it widened and more of the ceiling started to break off and fall below. He grabbed me and pulled towards the ledge.

"Hurry! We have to go." There was no more than a foot of floor left connected to the wall going around the massive food court. Our mad sprint before had now turned into a creeping slide as I pressed my back against the wall and edged my way around. Broken glass crunched under the soles of my sneakers. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. My hand rested on my grappling hook as I looked at the long drop just past my toes.

If I fell, my time power wouldn't do a thing to save me but maybe the hook would find the last structurally sound thing in this place to latch onto. It wasn't likely but it was better than nothing. We made our way across until a gap barred our way. The floor widened to stick out three feet from the wall but past that there was nothing for about eight feet.

"Can you carry me across?" I asked, eyes on the empty space.

"Our combined weight with a heavy landing could be too much for it."

"Got any magical net made out of anti-gravity forcefield or something?"

"If we get out of this alive, that's the first thing I'll make." I looked back at Rigel.

"You'll have to toss me."

"What?"

"Listen, I'm not a dwarf, and you can tell any elf you ever meet all about it. But I can't make the jump, so you'll have to toss me." A small piece of floor behind him crumbled away.

"Okay. Just make sure to catch yourself when you land." He grabbed me by the hips and picked me up like I weighed nothing. I'd never been more grateful to be so skinny. Maybe it was the power armor or points in strength, but he swung me around and unceremoniously launched me through the air. I could only think of Vigilance throwing me aside and dislocating my shoulder as I crashed onto the pavement that one night six months ago. It helped distract from the fact that I was hurtling untethered fifty feet in the air.

I didn't look down at the black void below me that could easily swallow me up if I didn't land on a small three feet of space. So I kept my eyes on that. My landing this time was less painful, but far more traumatic. My hands spread out to block my fall. I slid face first on the floor that remained, but couldn't stop until my head and shoulder dangled over the edge before I could dig my feet in order to arrest my momentum.

I stared down into the pile of broken tables and chairs covered in broken glass that rested on the rubble below. The question was would impaling have been worse, or shattering full tilt on the ground? I hoped I would never find out the answer. Grabbing onto the wall, I was able to pull myself back up into a standing position and look back at Rigel. I tried to speak, but my lungs lacked air, so instead I forced a smile and gave a thumbs up.

My feet moved cautiously along our broken path to make room for him to leap across. His leap sent him flying through the air and landing on his feet where I had sprawled. He looked up smiling.

"Not too–" The floor beneath him where he landed began to crumble. I reached forward and grabbed his armored chest plate, pulling him away from the quickly collapsing floor. He stumbled forward and fell against me, pressing me against the wall. The slim piece of ledge left little room, our feet side by side, his head pressed next to mine as he gasped for breath.

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it," I gasped. He edged himself to the side, and we pressed onwards towards the exit as the whole building seemed to groan around us. There was a deep primordial roar of rage from the sky that grew louder as it morphed into a scream of fear. A figure plummeted from above, through the broken roof and straight past us to the floor below. It only took a second for him to fly by before there was a loud and wet thumping noise. It happened so suddenly, I didn't have time to think, let alone act.

I looked below to see someone that was too big to be a normal man. There was a lot of blood but where he wasn't coated in red, his skin was a dark shade of purple and covered in thick-matted hair. The Chem Heads were here and it looked like there was now one less of them. Rigel took my hand again.

"Hurry, we have to get out." The last bit of floor was stable and as we made it to the door, I grabbed the handle and slammed my shoulder, my movements desperate now. The door refused to budge an inch. My scrambling mind jumped to the idea that it must be locked, but then saw how the wall had shifted, pinching it in place. We had come so far for this stupid door all for it to be stuck. My brain turned the panic churning through my veins into humor as it tried to remove itself from the situation.

A chuckle filled my throat as I turned to Rigel.

"Any other exit plans?"

"Just one." He reached forward and brushed me to the side so he could stand in the small space in front of the door. Both of his palms glowed brightly and gave a quick mechanical whine as they charged up. A white light filled the area, blinding me temporarily, but I heard a huge blast and the whine of metal. When I opened my eyes again, the door was gone. There was a rickety fire escape leading below, but tall buildings crowded around above it, looking like heaven itself with their lack of dilapidation.

I turned around to see Rigel flat on the floor. I crouched over him, putting a hand on his shoulder to shake him.

"Hey, you okay?" His head lolled to the left.

"Think something hit me back there." My eyes scanned over his form, but I saw no darkening patches on his suit. He lifted a hand to his head and that's where I saw it, a big dent and scrape on his helmet.

"Can you stand?" I offered a hand to help pull him up. He took it, let go, then put his hands on his knees, his head bowed.

"I'm just dizzy, but it's alright." I glanced over at the buildings again.

"Do you think you could handle swinging to those apartments over there? I don't think we can trust the stairs." The ground shook again as something impacted close by. Behind us, parts of the ledge we'd crawled on toppled over and debris rained down onto the staircase.

"We don't have a choice." He reached over and wrapped an arm around my waist, just like in the alley where we met and pulled out his grappling hook. It launched to the building across the street, ten stories up.

"Hold on," he said, and squeezed me so tightly, I had a hard time breathing. But considering what we were about to do, I had no problem with that. We flew up and across, the wind whipping across my face like a slap, making my eyes tear. It did not have any of the exhilaration of the leap from before, just the exhausted hope that maybe we were finally done flirting with death for the day.

I tried tilting my body so that I would take the brunt of the crash, but when we finally slammed into the edge of the roof, his head smacked against the wall hard. My feet pushed against the concrete, stabilizing myself so that he could go first. He rolled over the edge and I scrambled after. Rigel hadn't moved from his spot on the ground.

"Are you alright?" I hunched over him. It was impossible to see what kind of condition he was in what with his face being mostly covered, but his mouth was open and his breathing sounded shallow.

"I'm sorry, I tried to take most of the hit, but I didn't think about your head." I huffed out a breath.

"You were the true superhero back there; you knew exactly what to do. I barely did anything, and I couldn't even help you when you were hurt. You've done so much for me and clearly, I can never do the same for you." I scoffed at myself.

"This is why people don't like me and they're right to do so. I'm nothing but a screw up." There was mostly silence on the rooftop as I looked out into the black night. I felt as alone as if I were on the moon, but down below figures were moving in some kind of battle that was obviously the cause of the breaking of the building we'd been in. Rigel finally groaned and my head whipped around to look at him.

"Don't be stupid." His mouth barely moved to mumble the words out.

"I like you, Cass." Something clicked in my head.