The Advance Team was being pushed back, step by brutal step. The tide of Shoggoths seemed endless, a churning, shrieking wall of flesh and talons that filled the narrow hallway from floor to ceiling. Every severed tentacle seemed to be replaced by two more; every creature burned only made space for another to clamber over its smoldering remains.
"Leave the dead!" Luna's voice cut through the chaos, sharp and commanding. "Take the injured back to base—now!"
Those still standing scrambled to obey, grabbing the nearest wounded—some groaning, others eerily silent—and began a stumbling retreat down the corridor. The floor was a treacherous slick of blood and ichor.
"Zara," Koby called out, his voice hoarse. "Burn the corpses."
Zara, her face smudged with soot and sweat, shot him a confused, exhausted look.
"The Shoggoths might take their forms," he explained quickly, blocking a slashing limb with a hatchet. The implication hung dark in the air: the fallen could rise again, turned against them.
Understanding dawned in Zara's eyes, hardening into grim resolve. She turned back to the heaped bodies of their comrades, raised her hands, and summoned a rolling tide of fire.
"Flame Storm!"
The air roared as the inferno consumed the fallen, a brief, terrible pyre that cast hellish, dancing shadows on the walls. The stench of burning hair and flesh was overwhelming. With the ghastly task done, the remnants of the Advance Team fled back down the hallway, toward the secondary position held by the Recon Team.
The Recon Team had transformed the next junction into a killing zone. They'd stacked furniture—broken tables, heavy cabinets, splintered bedframes—into a ragged, chest-high barricade. It wasn't a wall so much as an obstacle course, forcing anything that came through to climb slowly, awkwardly, making them perfect targets.
The injured Advance Team members were half-dragged, half-shoved over the barricade. On the other side, the Recon Team stood ready, weapons glowing, faces set in lines of tense anticipation.
"Hold the line!" Clifford shouted, his voice raw but steady. As the first Shoggoths reached the barricade and began to haul themselves over, the defenders attacked. Blades flashed, elemental energy crackled. The stacked furniture worked—it slowed the onslaught, broke the Shoggoths' momentum. For a moment, it seemed manageable.
But the numbers. That was the cold, sinking truth. For every Shoggoth that fell, three more swarmed to take its place. The sheer volume was suffocating.
"Take the injured back to the healers at base," Rory ordered, his calm tone a stark contrast to the surrounding bedlam. He struck his palms together, releasing a concussive sound wave that rippled outward. The advancing Shoggoths shuddered, disoriented, their coordination breaking for a few precious seconds. It was enough time for others to haul more wounded toward the relative safety of the great hall.
"I'll help you out," Koby offered, turning to Rory, his breath coming in ragged gasps. "Luna can take the injured."
Luna glanced at him, her eyes dropping to the deep gash on his forearm and the dark bruise spreading across his ribs. "You're injured too, moron," she said flatly.
"It doesn't hurt much."
"Stop trying to act tough and get treatment," she snapped, her worry translating into anger.
"Rory can handle it," she concluded, grabbing the arm of a dazed fighter.
Koby looked to Rory for confirmation.
"I can," Rory said simply. Then, with a surprising gentleness, he put a hand on Koby's chest and pushed him firmly toward Luna. "Go."
Reluctantly, Koby fell in with Luna and the small group of wounded, supporting a boy who could barely walk. They moved as a slow, vulnerable cluster down the dim hallway, away from the cacophony of battle.
They were almost to the next turn when it happened.
A Shoggoth—smaller, faster than the others—had slipped past Rory and Clifford in the confusion. It moved with silent, skittering grace along the ceiling, then dropped directly into the path of the retreating group, between them and safety. A barbed tentacle lashed out, aimed straight for Luna's exposed back.
Koby saw it in a frozen sliver of time. There was no thought, only instinct.
He shoved Luna sideways with all his remaining strength.
The tentacle meant for her spine struck him instead, a brutal impact to the side that lifted him off his feet. The world spun. He felt a sickening crack, then the sensation of flying. He crashed through the wooden banister of a nearby staircase and plummeted down into the open space below—the ground floor, now a seething, shadowy sea of Shoggoths. He hit the hard stone with a breath-stealing thud, disappearing instantly into the roiling mass.
"Koby!" Luna's scream was pure anguish.
From the barricade, Clifford saw the opening. With a roar, he summoned a boulder of condensed earth and hurled it. It smashed into the lone Shoggoth, crushing it to pulp.
"Koby is dead!" Luna shouted back toward Rory and Clifford, her voice breaking.
"Get the injured to safety!" Clifford yelled back, his face a mask of fury and focus. "We'll hold them here!"
Luna, tears of rage and grief streaking through the grime on her face, did the only thing she could. She hauled the injured up and stumbled with them toward the base, the image of Koby vanishing into the horde burned behind her eyes.
At the base in the great hall, the atmosphere was one of controlled panic. Healers—those with mending magic or just steady hands—worked frantically over rows of groaning wounded. James arrived, supporting another injured fighter. Kai spotted him and hurried over.
"Is it very bad at the front lines?" Kai asked, though the answer was written in the blood on James's clothes.
"Whatever you're thinking," James said wearily, "triple it."
"Where's Koby?" Kai's eyes scanned the incoming survivors.
"He should be coming in with Luna."
As if summoned, Luna appeared at the entrance, an injured girl slung over her shoulder. Her face was stone.
"Where's Koby?" Kai asked again, a knot of dread forming in his stomach.
"We lost him," Luna said, her voice devoid of inflection as she lowered the girl to waiting hands. "In a horde."
"What?" The word burst from both Kai and James in unison, a shared strike of disbelief.
"You have to be lying," James said, taking a step forward. "He was right behind me."
"James, hold up." Kai grabbed his arm.
"Koby needs us, bro," James said, his voice cracking. His eyes were already glistening.
"It won't help Koby if you get yourself killed," Kai said, his grip tightening on James's shoulders. He forced his own voice to stay level, a dam against the rising tide of panic.
"But he needs us."
"I know he can handle himself," Kai insisted, the words feeling like a prayer. "You just have to focus on surviving for now." He pressed a fist to James's chest, a grounding gesture.
"How sure are you that he'll survive?" James whispered, the hope in his eyes fragile as glass.
"Zero percent," Kai admitted, his own fear laid bare for a second. "But I guess now is one of those times to have faith."
James swallowed hard, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. The grief didn't vanish, but it solidified into something harder, fiercer. He nodded once, tightened his grip on his sword, and turned back toward the hallway to the front lines.
"You kept a really level head," Luna observed, watching Kai.
"Being disoriented now won't help us," Kai replied, his gaze fixed on the door James had just passed through. "And Koby would have done the same thing."
"I do hope he's okay," Luna said softly, giving Kai's shoulder a brief, hard pat before moving away to re-arm herself.
The moment she was gone, a single, hot tear escaped down Kai's cheek. He wiped it away angrily. "If you die," he muttered to the empty air, to his friend somewhere in the darkness below, "I'll be so disappointed, Koby."
Back at the front, the situation was deteriorating fast. The Shoggoths, sensing weakness, pressed harder. Rory was crouched behind an overturned desk, Zara beside him, using a focused jet of flame to cauterize a deep, bleeding gash across his abdomen. He hissed in pain.
"Man, this sucks," Rory grunted, a strained chuckle escaping him. "We're being pushed back."
"There's not much we can do," Zara said, her voice tight. "The heads of the close-range fighters aren't here yet, and we've lost one of them already."
"Please tell me this isn't how I die," Rory said, his humor brittle.
"Hold still, would you?"
Clifford slid behind the furniture next to them, dodging a swipe that tore a chunk out of the wood. "Rory, we're gonna have to abandon those safety protocols we were talking about."
"No sign of Koby yet?" Rory asked, peering over the desk.
"There's no way someone survives the hordes down there," Clifford said, irritation sharp in his voice. "You have to let loose, or they'll overwhelm us."
"And if Koby is alive," Rory reasoned, his eyes calculating, "I'll probably kill him in the process."
"That is a huge 'if,' Rory!" Clifford yelled back, gesturing at the crumbling defensive line.
"Clifford's right," Zara said, finishing her work and sitting back. "You can't put everyone's fate on an 'if.' You have to let loose if we're to have a chance at surviving."
Rory let out a long, weary sigh. "Man, this is such a drag."
Then he moved.
He vaulted over the barricade, landing lightly in the midst of the advancing Shoggoths. He planted his feet, took a deep breath, and clapped his hands together with explosive force.
"Sonic Boom!"
The air itself seemed to shatter. A visible shockwave, concentric rings of distorted space, erupted from him. It hit the front ranks of Shoggoths like an invisible freight train, blowing them backward, pulverizing those at the epicenter into wet chunks. The advance halted, stunned.
Seeing the opening, Zara rose to her full height. She poured every ounce of her remaining energy into her flames, merging them with a violent gust of wind.
"Turbulence!"
A cyclonic river of fire roared down the hallway, incinerating the scattered, injured Shoggoths, turning the pieces to ash.
"It's time to get serious, everyone!" Rory screamed, his usual calm shattered into battle fury. He pulled a long, wicked-looking dagger from thin air. "Put your all into this!" And then he did the unthinkable—he sprinted forward, diving into the heart of the stunned Shoggoth ranks.
His courage was a spark to tinder. Others, seeing their most powerful fighter charge, found their nerve. With ragged battle cries, they surged over the barricade after him, attacking with renewed, desperate fury.
For a few minutes, they pushed. They gained ground. It felt like a turning point.
But the Shoggoth tide was deep. For every one they felled, more poured from the shadows. The sheer weight of numbers began to tell again.
Just as a Shoggoth reared up to deliver a killing blow to a overwhelmed fighter, a silver blur intercepted.
"Second Technique: Moon Sweeping!"
James was there, his sword a crescent of light that severed the attacking tentacle. He kicked the endangered survivor out of the way and faced the horde, his expression a storm of grief and rage. He channeled his aura until his blade glowed white-hot.
"First Technique: Thousand Strikes!"
A blinding flurry of strikes pierced through multiple Shoggoths, clearing a temporary pocket in the press.
"Watch yourselves," Luna called, appearing at his flank, her greatsword cleaving through another creature. "The cavalry is here."
From behind them, Kai stepped into the hallway, his bow drawn. Energy arrows hissed through the air, picking off Shoggoths trying to flank the melee fighters. "These things are not as hard as they seem," he shouted, his voice fierce with forced confidence. "Let's finish them!"
And with that, the reinforcements from the Base Protectors streamed into the fray, joining the battered Advance and Recon Teams. The line stiffened. The retreat stopped. The battle for the hallway, and for their survival, raged on, its outcome hanging by a thread woven from desperation, fury, and fragile, stubborn hope.