Sara checked the street. Small battles still lit up the dark skies, but she had no way of knowing who was winning. Hopefully the freelancers were killing the Dark as they tried to get to the gates to the tower.

She wondered what an army of freelancers would look like in a city like this.

“Everybody ready to go?,” asked Wayne. He rubbed his wrists, then cracked his neck.

“Yep,” said Bob.

“We ready also,” said Sheira. She glanced at Nasser. He nodded in agreement.

“All right,” said Wayne. “The goal is the roof of the star building right there.”

He pointed at a shape in the distance. The shape of the building couldn’t be seen from where they were, but it was a little taller than the ones around it. That made it stand out against the light pulses running up from the tower and vanishing in the dark sky.

“We’re going to flank right and try to get ahead of it before it can rotate away from us,” said Wayne. “Once we have that position, we’ll look for the nearest gate we can use. Then we go home.”

“It sounds simple,” said Sheira.

“There will probably be freelancers and Dark powers all over and in our way,” said Wayne. “If we can get them to team with us, that will be great. Otherwise, they’ll have to fend for themselves.”

Sara frowned. Her first instinct was to help others in a bad situation, but they were going to be in a race. There wouldn’t be a lot of time if they were running for their own lives.

“All right,” said Wayne. “Let’s go while the going is good.”

He led the way into the street. He veered right and kept to the edge of the buildings. Nasser and Sheira followed afterward. Bob and Sara followed at the end of the line.

Sara knew that she could sprint ahead of her group. The rabbit made her faster than a speeding bullet. She didn’t because they had an implied contract. All for one, one for all ran through her head.

She smiled at that. They would overcome the problems in front of them with

teamwork. How many others were learning these lessons, or falling apart and failing?

Wayne held up a hand. He paused to listen from the looks of things. Then he pointed them to go down an alley to get off the street. Sara let Bob go ahead of her. He could create walls and spikes of stone which would be useful in case they had to fort up. She had the smuggler’s pistol and lion sword in case she had to shoot someone.

Something was in the air. She could feel it behind them. She ducked in the alley. Wayne stood in the shadow, almost invisible. He raised a hand to caution for silence. He watched the street.

Something like an octopus with wings soared by at head level. One large eye passed over them. It started to swerve to latch on with its tentacles. Sara shot it with the blaster. It hooted at the hole in its side blowing smoke and fire before it crashed into the street.

Wayne stepped out and kicked the thing across the street as hard as he could. He stepped back into the shadow. He waited and listened. He finally nodded.

“Double time,” he whispered. “We killed a scout. We have a bit of time before the rest show up to find out what happened.”

Sara frowned at the thought of more of those things descending on them. A second thought bothered her more. Why did they all have wings?

Wayne picked up the pace, trotting along the next street. He hopped over any

obstruction in his way and kept going. Nasser put on his helmet and picked up Sheira to carry her on the air. Bob slid along the ground.

Sara wondered at the sudden need for speed over stealth. She supposed they were still silent. The only sound she could hear from her group was the shifting of asphalt as the street carried Bob along.

She used the rabbit to blink from corner to corner. It allowed her to keep up with the group, but also allowed her to guard their backs. That’s why she saw the winged kraken first.

“You have got to be kidding me,” she told herself.

The smaller variants rode the air around it. All of the large purple eyes seemed to lock on Sara as they floated along the street. She backed up as she considered her next move.

She decided she wasn’t just going to leave the others to fight. That just wasn’t the way she was. So she needed to draw them off.

The only was to go to her left. Then she could lead the octopi back toward the Light campus. Once there, they would have to give up the chase.

The others would be able to get to the star, or the tower without her. She could use the rabbit to navigate the streets on her own and get to the tower before the Dark even knew she was running.

“Come on, Sara!,” called Bob. He waved from an alley further along the street. “Let’s go.”

She groaned. If she fled, part of the pack would follow her. The rest would go after her friends.

“Don’t worry,” said Bob. “We got this covered.”

Sara relented and crossed the intervening space in a second. She followed the stone master down the alley. Would the octopi fly over the alley? The big one almost had to if it wanted to get at them.

“Roof,” said Bob. He slid out of the gap and boosted himself across the street.

Sara found a fire escape and sped up that with the rattling thump of boots on metal. She stepped on the gravel covered roof and was glad the thing hadn’t disconnected from the building and dropped her back to the ground. She pointed the blaster at where she thought the kraken would appear.

“All right,” said Wayne. “Everyone ready?”

The group except for Sara gave their assent.

The smaller flying mollusks drifted out of the alley. They looked around for the

freelancers. They paused as they considered their next move. The giant pulled itself on a roof opposite the group and hooted a command that filled the air.

“Give it to them, Nasser,” said Wayne.

The screams of birds filled the air as Nasser raised his hands. Light split the air in front of him. Glowing shards flew on wings of their own. They resolved into hunting sea birds that descended on their flying prey with greedy gullets ready for feasting.

“Let’s go while they’re trying to figure out what we just did,” said Wayne. He ran and jumped to the next roof. He waved at them to follow as he moved to drop down to street level and use the buildings for cover.

Bob carried the rest with a slide made out of the building they had used as a staging area. He followed after Wayne with his glide. The others had to keep an eye on things since he was concentrating on moving them across the boiling asphalt.

“They’ll be after us when they fight off the gulls,” said Nasser. He looked back,

maybe measuring the status of his flock as they tried to eat the octopi.

“Some other freelancers will be coming through there before they become a problem for us again,” said Bob. “We’re not the only ones making things miserable for the Dark.”

Sara didn’t know if she agreed with that. She was relieved that she hadn’t lost any of her group in a fight. She would have felt better if they hadn’t left an enemy to chase after them while they went about their business.

She wondered what any other freelancer group would think if they did stumble over the half-eaten monsters in the dark.

Wayne pointed the route he wanted Bob to take before he led the way. He barreled down the street toward what looked like a park in front of a building with wings. The street shifted, and that pulled the building closer to them.

Sara thought this building did stand out from the rest on the street. Most of the rest of the cityscape was regular stone blocks with various windows and doors. One shape, one dark color, emphasized the sameness and made it easy to get lost.

This building seemed to have a cylindrical core. As the group got closer, she saw that wings extended from that core. Dark plants grew in beds around the wings. Bob had called it a star. That must be what it looked like on the wall maps, and from the air.

“Are we taking the inside, or going to the roof?,” Sara asked.

“Depends on if Wayne can open the door,” said Bob.

“I can open the door,” said Sheira. “If there is a door, and not a facade.”

“All right,” said Bob. “I don’t see any of the Dark.”

Sara looked behind them. The kraken and its followers hadn’t followed them.

Everything looked clear.

Bob brought them to a stop. He turned and smoothed out the street as far as he could reach with his power. The enemy might know they came down the street, but they wouldn’t know where they had gone from where the asphalt had been fixed unless they had better trackers than what they had shown so far.

Wayne hit the door with the palm of his hand. It opened from the impact. He waved the group into a spacious lobby with a tiled floor, columns holding up the ceiling far overhead, and sharp light from lamps in alcoves.

“This is different from what we have seen so far,” said Sheira. She frowned as she turned in place.

“Almost like it belongs to a different city,” said Bob. “The material is different too.”

“What do you mean?,” asked Sheira.

“Most of what we’ve seen has been made of some kind of stone,” said Bob. “There’s concrete here, but it’s around a core which I’m going to say is steel, or something like it. I can’t do anything to the skeleton of this building if things get touchy.”

“We should block the doors until we’re ready to go,” said Sara. She made sure she still had her blaster. “I doubt they’ll stop a charge from anything heavy enough.”

“I can do that,” said Bob. He covered the glass windows and doors with a sheet of thick material stripped from the floor. “That should buy us some time if we need it.”

“Let’s take a look at the roof,” said Wayne. “I can’t hear anybody else in here. When the barricade is knocked down, that’ll be the signal that we need to hurry up with our plans.”

“The gate is out of sight, isn’t it?,” asked Sheira.

“I don’t know,” said Wayne. “That’s why we have to look around. We might only have a few minutes to rush it before it’s out of reach again.”

“I can carry everybody to the edge,” said Sara. “The rabbit and the ox can do that if nothing happens.”

“How likely is that?,” asked Wayne.

“Not very?,” said Sara.

“Still it’s a good backup plan if the first plan goes up in smoke,” said Wayne. “Sheira and Nasser should go first, then Bob. The three of them can hold the gate on their own. I can go last. I’m a lot better fighting the Dark on my own.”

“We all have good transportation skills,” said Sheira. “I don’t think we’ll have to rely on Sara unless things have gone so bad that we’re unable to fight.”

“Let’s look at the battlefield before we engage,” said Wayne. He went to a door marked emergency steps and started the five floor climb to the roof access.