Then the helmet turned.
Toward me.
My breath stopped.
Every instinct I had screamed the same thing.
Run.
But the girls were trapped. Velma and Daphne were still caught in that unbreakable net, suspended and vulnerable, and that security guard wasn't moving.
Shit. I had to do something.
The thought of doing nothing cut through the fear like a knife. In that moment, standing there with a literal animated suit of armor staring at me, I felt something click into place. From that green void, from surviving in that empty space between death and rebirth without losing myself.
I'd already died once. I'd spent what felt like eternity in nothingness and came out the other side with my will intact.
A walking suit of armor? Scary, but I'd faced worse.
"Like, hey there, tall, dark, and clanky!" I shouted, my voice echoing down the hallway. "Come and get me,"
The Black Knight's helmet tilted slightly, processing the challenge.
Then it moved.
Not walking. Charging.
Metal feet hit with audible thunderous impacts, each step echoing like a gong, and I spun on my heel and bolted in the opposite direction, away from where the girls were trapped.
My long legs ate up distance, body moving with that loose limbed speed that felt almost effortless. The lockers, and classroom doors, blurred past reflecting my terrified expression.
Behind me, the Knight's footsteps grew closer, impossibly fast for something made of metal.
I rounded a corner hard, my sneakers squeaking, and suddenly I heard another pair coming, Fred was there, running beside me.
"Fred?! What are you—"
"My fault!" Fred shouted, his voice determined despite the obvious fear in his eyes. "My trap, my responsibility! I'm gonna clean this up!"
He looked back over his shoulder and actually taunted the thing. "Come on! That all you got, you overgrown tin can?"
The Black Knight appeared at the corner behind us, and If it didn't have ice powers I didn't know how else the air got colder.
We ran side by side through the darkened school, taking turns randomly. A left at the science wing, right past the gymnasium, straight through the arts corridor. My mind was racing, trying to form a plan beyond just "don't die."
The girls were still trapped. We needed to lose this thing long enough to get back and free them. But how do you lose something that moved like liquid mercury in a metal shell?
I really didn't want to but I knew what to do.
"Split up!" I gasped. "Like, meet back at the window!"
"Good idea!" Fred veered left at the next intersection, heading toward the cafeteria.
I went right, toward the pool area.
The Knight hesitated for maybe half a second, then followed me.
Of course it did.
The pool entrance was ahead, double doors that I hit with both hands, slamming them open. The chlorine tangy smell hit me immediately. The water reflected the emergency exit lights, creating rippling patterns on the ceiling.
I could hear the Knight behind me, those footsteps like hammers on an anvil.
I ran along the pool's edge, trying to think. Water. There was water here. That could be useful somehow.
I rounded the deep end and risked a glance back.
The Black Knight stood at the entrance, backlit by the hallway lights. It raised one armored arm, pointing directly at me.
Then it charged again, moving along the pool's edge with that same impossible speed.
I kept running, circling back toward the exit on the other side. If I could just get past it, get back to the hallways, maybe lose it in the maze of corridors—
The Knight suddenly changed direction, cutting across my path.
I skidded to a halt, nearly losing my balance on the wet tile.
We locked eyes—or at least, I stared at where its eyes should be in that dark helmet.
It lunged.
I dove sideways, rolling across the rough pool deck, feeling the concrete scrape my palms. The Knight's armored fist slammed into the tile where I'd just been standing, cracking it with the impact.
I scrambled to my feet and bolted for the exit.
Made it through the doors, back into the hallway, lungs burning, heart hammering against my ribs like it was trying to escape.
Had to get back to the window. Had to free the girls. Had to—
Fred appeared from a side corridor, slightly out of breath but grinning. "Lost it?"
As if on cue, the pool doors exploded outward, and the Black Knight emerged like something from a nightmare.
We ran together again, this time heading back toward the west wing. The window was close now, maybe two more corridors away.
"Almost there!" Fred shouted.
The Knight was right behind us, close enough that I could hear the whir of whatever mechanism allowed it to move, like gears grinding or machinery cycling.
We turned the final corner, and I could see them—Velma and Daphne, still trapped in the net, their faces pale and frightened.
"Cut them down!" I yelled at Fred. "I'll keep this thing busy!"
But the Knight had suddenly accelerated, faster than before, and its arm shot out in a wide sweep.
The impact caught Fred across the chest, lifting him completely off his feet and sending him flying into a row of lockers. The crash was sickeningly loud—metal crumpling, Fred's body hitting hard.
He crumpled to the ground and didn't move.
"Fred!" Daphne screamed.
Something cold and sharp crystallized in my chest. Something harder and incomprehensible, it felt like standing in that green void again refusing to disappear.
I turned to face the Black Knight fully.
It advanced slowly now, almost leisurely, as if it knew it had won.
My hands clenched into fists. My right palm was slick with something warm—blood, from where I'd scraped it on the pool deck. Fred's nose was bleeding too; I could see the crimson trail from where he lay motionless.
The Knight raised both arms, preparing to end this.
And something inside me ignited.
I didn't know what it was, but in that moment, in almost slow motion, backed into a corner with my friends in danger and my own blood hot on my palm, I felt it.
Energy. Something that existed in the space between breath and heartbeat, between will and action.
The blood on my hand, dripping down began to ripple in a glow—faint at first, then brighter, golden like sunlight filtered through amber.
The Knight hesitated.
I didn't understand what was happening, but my body seemed to know. I pressed my glowing palm against the wall beside me, where a water pipe ran behind the plaster. I could feel the liquid inside, could sense its flow.
The energy spread from my hand into the pipe, racing through the water like electricity through a wire.
The pipe burst.
Water exploded outward, but instead of just spraying randomly, it moved with A target in mind. The stream hit the Black Knight's chestplate with the force of a fire hose, and where the water touched, that golden energy transferred.
The armor began to crack.
seizing up, the joints started locking, that dark metal losing its coherent form. it couldn't withstand the energy flowing through the water, disrupting the connection between pieces.
I pushed harder, focusing everything I had into that stream, and the Knight staggered backward.
The helmet fell away first, clattering to the wet floor, empty.
Then the arms, the legs, the chestplate—all of it collapsing piece by piece until there was nothing but scattered metal and a growing pool of water.
And standing behind where the armor had been, soaked and sputtering and looking absolutely terrified, was Mr. Wickles.
The history teacher stood frozen, his eyes wide with shock and fear, water dripping from his thinning hair.
"I—I can explain—" he started.
Then flashlight beams cut through the darkness. Multiple of them.
"Nobody move!" The security guard—the one I'd seen knocked down earlier—limped into view, one hand pressed against his ribs but the other holding his flashlight steady. Behind him, two more security personnel appeared, probably called in as backup.
Mr. Wickles's shoulders sagged in defeat.
I quickly moved to Fred, who was groaning and trying to sit up. "You okay, man?"
"What... happened?" Fred mumbled, touching his head gingerly. "Did we... win?"
"something like that," I said, helping him to his feet.
Velma and Daphne were calling out, still trapped in the net, and Fred fumbled for his knife again, but this time I grabbed a piece of the broken armor, using its sharp edge to saw through the ropes with quick cuts.
The net fell away, and both girls dropped down. I caught Daphne's arm to steady her while Velma landed in a crouch.
"Are you guys okay?" Velma asked immediately, her eyes scanning Fred and me for injuries.
"We're fine," Fred said, though he was definitely going to have bruises. "But we should—"
"Go," I finished. "Like, definitely go. Now."
We could hear more voices coming, the security team was calling someone, probably the police, and Mr. Wickles was stammering explanations that nobody was listening to.
The four of us moved quickly and quite to the still-open window, helping each other through one at a time.
As Fred climbed out last, he looked back at the disaster we were leaving behind—the broken armor, the flooded hallway, the captured teacher—and grinned despite everything.
"Looks like we've solved ours first mystery gang," he said, his voice carrying that classic Fred Jones confidence.
Then we dropped into the night and ran, leaving Crystal Cove High behind us, four teenagers who'd just caught their first real case. And somehow survived it.