Katherine pulled Lurka by the hand as she led them down the edges of the pitch-black passageway, he stumbled a few times, but her grip was strong enough to keep him upright as they stumbled along. She could only faintly hear the sound of their footsteps echoing back at them. It made her push Lurka to move faster.

It was not that they were making an effort to hide their footsteps as they ran, just that the sound of their feet was lost to the greater din chasing them.

Ever heard a rat scrabble around on a hard floor? It can be surprisingly loud.

Multiply that by a hundred and increase the size of the rats to a small to medium dog, and that would be about what was chasing them.

The noise of the rats scrambling over themselves behind the duo was filling the tunnel, and anything else was near impossible to hear.

"I thought you said it's safe down here!?"

"Haha!" Katherine laughed at the statement, "We're perfectly safe! Don't you feel safe?" Taking a right turn at the intersection, towing Lurka behind her, forcing him back in line behind her.

He mumbled something under her breath, but she wasn't paying attention. Katherine was more interested in ensuring they were going the right way and that he was doing so well at running in the dark. Sure he was stumbling, and Katherine was mostly carrying him the times he struggled to get his feet back under him, but that was only half the time.

The other half, he had his feet mostly under him. Not a small feat, all things said.

"If you think this is dangerous, you would be surprised at what we'll find down here! This is the first rat swarm we've encountered, and I don't even hear a second one in front of us! This is as good as it gets!" Shouted Katherine over the din.

Spotting the bridge over the sewage canal she was looking for, Katherine raced down the passageway, pulling her burden along with her.

"Okay," Katherine said, turning to look at Lurka, "Jump and grab hold."

Following her words with action, Katherine looked up and jumped, grabbing hold of one of the bars passing over the bridge. Pulling herself up, she looked down to see Lurka still standing there.

"Uhh, move it or lose it, Lurka. They'll be here in seconds."

Lurka locked eyes with Katherine, then squinted at her in exasperation. "How the fuck am I supposed to grab what I can't see? And do you really think I can jump that high?"

"Uhhh~ yes?"

"No, I can't fecking jump that high!" Lurka said, throwing his hands up in the air in exasperation, "You understand how weird you are, right?"

"Well, that's un— Jump!"

The urgency and shout of her voice caused Lurka to react, jumping into the air and throwing his hands up.

He was right. He couldn't jump that high. He barely made it a foot off the ground. He did get the part of him reaching up towards her right.

Maybe it wasn't all that good of arm placement. He needed his arms to be more out angled more outwards than up to grab the bar, but it was good enough for Katherine to loop her legs around the bar and swing upside down, grabbing hold of his arms.

Grabbing him by his forearms, Katherine tried to lift him with her body but found a burst of strength was unwilling to appear.

All things considered, she would appreciate her spontaneous bursts of strength from her bloodline getting with the program.

She could hang here all day if she had to, but with the massive tentacles of a craptapod waving around in the air and worming over the bridge, she would like to get higher sooner than later.

The longer they stayed like this, the more likely that one or both of them would come into contact with a tentacle. And no one would like what would happen then.

"If you would be so kind as to start climbing up me so we can get out of reach of the craptapod's tentacles, I would appreciate it. I'm not planning to spend any more of my time in people's waist. Done that enough, thank you very much."

“Uhh…"

"Might want to hurry, the tentacles are getting close to your feet, and I'm not sure I like you well enough to dive into crap."

With a jerk as he lifted his legs and widening of his eyes in fear, Lurka freed his right before twisting his body to reach up higher on her body, searching for a handhold.

"Ahh~! Hey!" Complained Katherine, "Watch where you're grabbing!"

"Sorry, sorry." Lurka apologized, "Can't see anything here, remember. Thought I was touching your back…"

Squinting her eyes at his chest in annoyance at the last mumbled words, Katherine asked, "What?"

Lurka froze for a second before quickly climbing higher, “Uhh… nothing?"

"Yeah, thought so."

Once Lurka had climbed up her body to the metal bar she was hanging on, she folded herself up until she was sitting on it again.

Looking down, the tentacles were still waving around. A fact that the craptapus would soon come to regret.

"What are we sitting on?" Lurka asked as he carefully felt the metal bar under them with one hand while the other was clamped firmly on the lip of the overhand.

"Don't know," replied Katherine as she inspected the twin bars hanging a few feet from the ceiling. There were two plates on the top and bottom connected by a solid bar sever inches thick connecting the two.

"But you can find them all over the place down here. There are always two a few feet apart. The other is a few feet forward; we could jump to it if you want?"

Doing just that, Katherine got up and bounded to the other strip of metal. Foot setting down, Katherine turned and plopped down, facing Lurka.

"But what are they? They have to be used for something."

"Well, duh, but I've never seen them used for anything. Doubt anyone has. Usually, they run right along the ceiling in the wider passageways. They only lower this far down where the bridges over the canal cross their paths." Shrugging, not that he could see it, she looked down at the technicals still searching, "It's the only way to avoid the swarms and craptapuses. Though you don't wanna be up here when the screamers are around."

"What are the screamers?" Asked Lurka.

"They're these— Ohh, it's about to start. You're gonna wanna shield your eyes… And don't fall." Katherine said as an afterthought as she settled down to watch the rat swarm approach.

"I really think the craptapus has got his one," Katherine noted to Lurka about the approaching din of the rats. "The swarm doesn't look that big, and a lot of them are injured."

"You remember I have no idea what you are talking about, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, yah," Katherine said, waving him off. "It's about to start."

Katherine said with a hint of excitement.

"What in the ever lovin— Ahh! Mother fecken… bitch!"

Lurka shielded his eyes as the corridor exploded in light.

The shade of light changed by the moment, while the intensity changed from barely any illumination to nearly blinding.

In the light-starved tunnels of the sewers, any amount of light is blinding. This was not a small amount of light.

The once pale white of the craptapuse's tentacles began pulsing in a multi-colored rainbow of light.

It was not a constant glow, with the light coming every other second or so and on one or two of the flailing tentacles.

"Holy shit…" Whispered Lurka as he looked down at the now visible spectacle.

The rat swarm rolling down the sides of the passageway was attracted by the tentacles flailing in the air and collapsed on them from both sides of the bridge. That was when the flashing light of the tentacles began.

"The lights disorient the rats. They could get used to a single color and brightness in a few seconds, but with it constantly changing, it throws them off. Or that's my guess, at least. The older the craptapod, the fewer colors they show. They're bigger and have more tentacles, but size can only do so much against the numbers of the rats." Katherine began commenting on the fight.

"Thought they were called craptapuses?" Lurka asked with a cheeky grin.

Katherine gave him a flat stair before turning away, "Does it really matter? The crap part is the only important part."

He chuckled, turning back to the fight, as a small smile tugged at her lips.

Rats jumped at the tentacles latching onto them and gnawing away at the flesh with their jagged teeth. Some of the rats missed, but they quickly turned around and swam back to the tentacle to attack them.

Other rats dove into the water and swam down, disappearing from sight into the black water.

The water began to boil and churned with movement. The bodies of smashed and broken rats began to surface on the water, mixing with the luminescent blood dripping down the flashing tentacles into the water staining.

A dozen or so smaller tentacles rose from the water's surface in the center of their mass. These tentacles wrapped around a single rat and would shift back and forth as they squeezed, sawing through the creatures.

The tiny tentacles would not go all the way through the rat. They would just go to the point where the rat would stop moving. It was usually about halfway through the creature.

They would then disappear into the water and find another rat until they came back up with another rat.

"The smaller tentacles are actually the first ones grown on their young. Little bastards will latch onto your arm and saw their way down to the bone within seconds if you let them. They won't be able to cut the bone, but they will rip the flesh from them and make you wish they would just sever it." Katherine rubbed her left arm at the memory.

The large tentacles were lifting up into the air flashing in light before smashing into the bricked-lined corridor. Or they would sweep just across the walkway, throwing back a living wave of rats. Not that the craptapus tried that many times.

Of the seven giant tentacles, only one was still doing that.

That was because the last sweep a tentacle made got stuck in the mass of rats and was already three-fourths of the way chewed through.

Three other tentacles smashed down atop the trapped one, smashing into the swarm and scattering them like a handful of gravel thrown into the air.

When the three tentacles lifted, the fourth lifted into the air along with them.

The limb only made it a few feet off the ground before a rip and tearing of cartilage sounded, echoing off the tunnel's walls, making it sound like the blast of many bolts of lightning.

Flinching, Katherine shook her head in disappointment, "Should have known better. Rookie mistake."

A mass of rats was still attacked to the end of the damaged tentacle. When the wounded tentacle tried to lift up, the halfway chewed-through limb near the water line could not take the strain any longer.

The snap and ripping of flesh left the limb flopping to the ground and the rats surging forward, severing the last few scraps of flesh.

All of a sudden, the depths of the water began flickering with light, and the boiling water cast strange indistinct shadows across the walls and ceiling.

"This is my favorite part," whispered in excitement, Katherine's eyes flicking over to Lurka for a moment before looking down again, "and where it will all be decided."

“…I- is… it. Okay, for us to stay here." Lurka stammered out as his eyes flicked from Katherine to the battle happening below them.

"Can't go anywhere." She pointed off to the sides down the tunnel, "All the noise and blood attracted the nearby crocs and rats, and I would bet my life other craptapuses are swimming around down there too. Gotta wait until they stop fighting and start feeding, but not to the point they start defending their kills."

"You sound like you've seen it a lot."

Katherine shrugged, "Spend enough time down here. You learn how things work."

"Won't they chase us if we run past them?"

"Not if we're fast and unthreatening. And very few things chase anything any distance." Katherine said.

The light in the water grew as the water boiled from the fighting creatures. A shape was just beginning to take form.

Like a popping bubble, water surged up, washing away from the main body of the craptapod.

It was a fleshy lump of rolling folds and rippling skin. The center was the thickest and led up to a beak that snapped at the air. Around the beak were five bulging black dots. They were the creature's eyes. The smaller tentacles sticking out in every direction like whiskers were scattered around the mouth and eyes.

Starting from the beak, the pulse of colored light radiated throughout its body. Lighting up the tunnel more than before.

The beak of the craptapus opened, and it let out an ear-piercing screech.

Sticking a finger in her ear, Katherine worked her mouth as she wiggled it around, getting rid of the ringing.

As she did so, she looked up, glancing at Lurka.

Falling forward, her feet planted against the narrow bottom edge of her seat, she threw herself forward across the distance between the other metal bar.

Stomach impacting the bar, Katherine folded over it, her legs catching on the bottom. Reaching down over the bar, she grabbed hold of the toppling Lurka.

A few seconds passed, and the large craptapod let out another screech before Lurka could steady and pull himself fully back onto the bar again.

“Thanks…" Muttered Lurka.

"Yeah, it's disconcerting the first time. Told you not to fall," Katherine said, rubbing her stomach.

"I thought you meant the light," griped Lurka.

“Well… now you know."

Katherine looked back down at the battle of attrition going on below her.

Of the hundred and something rats that first charged and started throwing themselves at the craptapod, slightly more than two dozen were left.

The craptapod itself had chunks of its body missing from the rats eating it.

Its blood spread out across the water, shimmering like a glowing oil stain until it faded off into the darkness of the sewage at the edges.

Movements becoming sluggish, the tentacled monster weakly tried to fight off the last few rats as they tore into it.

Seconds passed as Katherine watched the pulses of light fad and finally stopped with the craptapod's death.

With the stopping of movement, the rats seemed to shake themselves and look around.

The bodies of their brethren floated upon the water along with the splayed-out white fleshy corps of the craptapod. Its large arms looked like they were around fifteen feet long, with its main body being six.

It was a pretty good-sized craptapus.

And now there is a lot of meat and blood scattered around.

Without warning, a croc surged from the growing shadows along the walkway, clamping down on a tentacle.

It bit and tore at the flesh until it was able to rip free a chunk throwing its head back to swallow it.

The reptile was the first, but not the last.

Other crocs came out from shadows that seemed too small to hold them. Some brave crocs burst out of the water, grabbing a rat or two before clambering to shore.

From what Katherine had learned in the sewers, the general rule was the craptapods ruled the waters. Everything else was just visiting until they showed up.

More large rats appeared, crawling down from the walls and appearing from the dark corridor. They were not picky as they started eating anything nearby before scurrying off again.

Katherine waited a few minutes for the scavengers to get into the full swing of things and for the light to dim, then grabbed Lurka by the hand.

"Time to go," she whispered to him.

They needed to leave soon or wait for the whole feeding frenzy to die out. There was also the off chance that more large craptapods or screechers would show up, causing another fight to start.

Though the large craptapods were spread out in the sewers, if one happened to be around when another of their kind was attacked — or being eaten — they would attack.

The screechers attacked anything when they were flying around and were a pain. Only way to make them back off was a flash of bright light. Or diving into the sewage. Neither was all that practical.

Katherine slipped off the bar she and Lurka were sitting on, letting go of Lurka's hand as she did.

Thumping against the metal bridge, Katherine crouched and stepped to the side, ensuring she was out of Lurka's way.

Continually scanning the area around her, Katherine made sure nothing approached. All the animals were busy feeding, but that did not mean they wouldn't take the chance to strike at something weak and unaware.

The sewers did not abide weakness.

"Come on!" Katherine hissed, "We need to go!"

"It's not easy to fall in the dark!" Lurka mumbled back.

Glancing up, Katherine started snickering. Lurka was slowly lowering himself until his arms were fully extended.

Once he was as low as he could get, even dropping his grip to the lower section of the bar for those few inches, he fell to the bridge.

With a slight grunt, he bent his knees to take the shock of the fall. He then turned to Katherine with a smile on his face.

"Proud of yourself, huh?" Katherine asked, her voice bland and uninterested as she looked for their path.

“Well…" Lurka mumbled, scratching the back of his head. "I didn't hurt myself…"

Katherine clapped slowly, making Lurka jump and look around at the growing darkness around him.

The sounds of eating filled the tunnel. Flesh ripped, and bones broke as the teeth of the various animals clicked together.

Occasionally a hiss or scrabbling of claws would make itself known.

"You want to wait a moment for them to give you a pat on the back or something?" Katherine said, mocking his overly cautious descent from the bar. "Oh, I know! How bout we go back up, and you can come down again."

"Har Har," Lurka said, "It ain't easy to jump down ten feet in pitch black darkness."

"It ain't pitch black though, look," Katherine said, pointing off to the side, "There is still some glowing blood."

"Are we going to move yet or not?" Lurka complained.

"Not," Katherine said, breaking out into a smile, "Some crocs moved into our way. Need to wait a bit for them to move… Oh! Let's go! Be as quiet as you can."

Grabbing Lurka's hand, Katherine started forward at a steady, quiet walk.

Running would not do them any good, not yet anyway.

Moving past a predator fast and close usually results in an attack. And with your back to them when they turn to face you, that is an invitation most predators could not pass up.

Moving carefully, Katherine kicked a rat out of their way that snarled before settling down to feed on another corps.

Sticking to the edge of the tunnel, Katherine lashed out at any rat that looked like it was getting ideas about their passage.

They were passing quite a few bodies of dead rats and walking through pooled blood, but it was better to deal with the rats than anything near the water.

The crocs liked to eat the craptapus remains and were fighting one another to get mouthfuls. Not that they would get to eat it much longer.

Some of the crocs were already exiting the water with cuts on their thick hides.

Katherine could make out infant and juvenile craptapods occasionally surfacing as they attacked the crocs. Eventually, they would get so dense that the crocs wouldn't dare to enter the water.

They would then turn to the bodies of rats scattered around.

Once it got to that point, the already grumpy crocs would be more annoyed at having their good meal stolen, and passing them would be nearly impossible. They would have to wait until the crocs were done, which could take hours, and you never knew what might show up.

Lurka stumbled over the smashed and twisted rat carcasses as they went down the sides of the passageway. He was making noise, but it was not above the din of the eating animals.

The light of the craptapus's blood had faded to the point that it was more like imagining one could see objects than seeing them. At least for those without her ability to see in the dark.

Feeding rats darted out of their way as Katherine kept up her assault of rocks on any of them nearby and returned once they had passed.

She left the crocs alone and carefully edged forward around them as they turned to hiss at them. The noise was surprisingly cat-like, but having an eight-foot scaled creature able to bite off her leg and hiss at her and a house cat hiss that the worst that could happen was a scratch was entirely different.

Inching past the reptiles, Katherine didn't stop.

She had done this enough to know when they were about to charge. Them giving her the side eye was just a warning.

Glancing over her shoulder at Lurka, Katherine flashed him a smile he could not see and squeezed his hand in reassurance.

He was walking through a pitch-black passageway with the sounds of predators all around him, and he was not falling into a panic or locking up. She doubted many could do the same.

His skin was ghostly pale, and his eyes were wider than she as seen before, but that was to be expected. She was impressed that he was still moving forward under control.

Reaching the next intersection, Katherine carefully looked around for anything that could be a danger to them. Not seeing anything, she turned off the main corridor onto the intersecting one.

The sounds and blood of the fight had drawn everything it was going to except for the craptapuses swimming in the water.

The side passageways that connected two of the main lines of the sewer running to the sea had little to no water running through them except on a triple and occasionally double tide.

As long as they made it over to another passageway, they won't have to worry about riled-up craptapuses. No way for the blood to make it over there.

Once they turned onto the new passageway and walked a bit, Katherine let out a small sigh, "We should be fine following this passageway. And it's not much farther, with the detour, about another twenty minutes?"

"There is no way we can use this, Katherine. This is ridiculous. How is my gang supposed to make this safe." Lurka hissed in annoyance and fear.

"Sacrifice and blood for a shit-ton of money?" Katherine joked.

"I'm serious." Lurka said in a severe tone, "The danger down here is ridiculous. We would need a mage to make this route safe. Or an elementalist. Shit, I'll even say we'd have a chance if we had a shaman of a beast-man tribe, but we don't have shit."

"You have me," Katherine said as she looked and then to the side up.

"And what can you do agains—

Twisting her body, Katherine pulled Lurka across her chest and threw him across the tunnel. Her body thrummed with the power of her bloodline, filling her with strength.

This side passage wasn't that big, with it only being ten feet across. It was quite smaller compared to the fifty feet of the main tunnels.

She heard the thump as he hit the wall and the grunt he let out as his breath was knocked out of him from the impact. He should probably be fine, but she did not really care at the moment. She had prey to kill.

Her body was already moving on instinct.

Kicking off the ground, she twirled in the air, grabbing her knife from the small of her back.

As she hung in the air, a tentacle larger than her leg swept past where they were just standing.

Lashing out with her hand, she caught the fleshy limb with her blade as it passed, slicing into it.

She put no real force into the slash. It was not something she needed or wanted.

Grip firm, she twisted the blade slightly, catching it in the flesh.

Jerking to the side, her body trailed after the limb meant to swipe her off her feet, thanks to her caught blade and firm grip.

Behind her, she heard the unmistakable slap as another tentacle slammed into the ground.

The tentacle she was trailing behind began lifting into the air as it swung, and she was finally able to see the main body of the craptapus. She needed a little bit of an angle down to see it.

From what she assumed was just another alcove, she heard then saw the creature move.

The bricks making up the wall were broken and half hanging in the open air from the large hole in the shattered wall.

Within the now exposed room, the luminescent light of the craptapus began to light up the area as the creature moved, uncovering pools of blood it had been covering with its body.

As the creature shifted, more of its tentacles could move through the hole in the wall. And the full extent of the creature's wounds was revealed as the blood and wounds were exposed.

It was already half dead, and how it ended up where it was would remain a mystery. But even with its wounds, this monster of a craptapod could easily kill them.

Using her knife as an anchor, Katherine rotated her body planting her feet on the tentacle she was riding, then ripped her knife out of it as she threw herself backward.

Planting her hand on the ground, she continued her backflip, passing over another tentacle swiping at her.

Boots smacking into the ground as she stuck her landing, she raced towards the hole in the wall and the tentacles sliding through.

A shriek shook the air, jabbed her knife into a tentacle that spired out at her, and continued running forward, holding the knife deep in the flesh, slashing open a glowing wound as the blood seeped out.

More and more tentacles lashed out at her for every step forward she took.

Her arms wielding her knife flashed on one side of her body and then the other as she slashed at the tentacles trying to wrap around her.

Those tentacles Katherine could not completely dodge or cause to slightly recoil as she slashed them with her knife and then dodge, she used as springboards to change directions.

Katherine had fought craptapods a few times. The ones she had fought before were about the same size as her, barely into their adult forms, but she figured the lessons she learned remained the same.

The lesson was simple, if you can't run away immediately, you aren't getting away. Then you have to get close, just not close enough for the tiny whisker tentacles to get you.

Going to the outer edge of the craptapods reach was not a bright idea. Katherine learned that the hard way.

The tentacles acted as whips.

At the edge, they hit like a son of a bitch and were hard to keep track of as they lashed around one another.

She had to get close enough that the large tentacles couldn't be used to their full potential but not so close the smaller ones could be used.

Then hope she lasted long enough and caused enough damage that it bleeds to death.

That is a rule of thumb when they are out of the water.

The one time she had to fight one in the water, she dove at the center of the tentacles and stabbed until it stopped moving.

It was not something that she would recommend. Or want to repeat.

Staying five feet from the craptapods main body — which was the reach of its inner arms — she danced.

That was the only way to describe what she did.

The creature shook the air with screeches and flashed in an increasingly fast and chaotic series of colors as its tentacles tried to touch her. They never touched more than her knife or a kick.

Her ears bled.

Her vision was occasionally blinded by a bright flash of light.

And she had never seen a craptapod so large, but none of that mattered.

She was power. Strength. And her bloodline screamed in her veins.

This creature could not compare to her, no matter its size.

She kicked off a tentacle and caused the limb to halt its movement and bow outward.

Raising her left hand, she slapped it down on top of another tentacle, throwing her body up.

Rotating her body, she pushed off the ceiling, propelling herself down, slicing halfway through the tentacle with her knife on her way back to the ground.

Landing her a crouch to another scream of pain on the craptapods part, she shot forward, slashing at another tentacle, causing the splattering of more glowing blood onto the ground.

The blood joined the ever-growing pools.

With the creature's frantic movements, other nearly sealed wounds across its body began opening up and weeping blood.

Katherine began to chuckle to herself as she continued to flip and dance around the creature.

"Ahhh~!" Screamed Katherine in exhilaration when a tentacle finally hit her.

She knew it was a risk, but she had to cut off the half-severed limb.

It was worth the hit that came in from the side.

"Haaa!" Katherine breathed out when her back hit the wall.

For a moment, she began to slow as she hit the wall, but it was only a moment.

With a crack and clatter, she created a second hole leading to the side tunnel that Lurka and her were traveling through minutes ago.

Bouncing off the ground a few times, she splashed to a stop.

Shaking her head, she looked up and flashed her teeth at her opponent. The entire room was lit up with its blood.

All of its frantic flailing to catch and smash her had only ushered in the creature's death faster.

With a grunt of effort, she rolled to her feet and breathed deeply in through her nose. She smelt it. It permeated the air of the tunnel.

It was not its blood, though the stench clung in the air, and she could feel it hanging on her skin. It was fear. Fear of death. Fear of her.

The craptapus had a reason to fear her.

She took a step forward before stopping and looking to the side.

Head rolling to the side, she looked at the creature that had stopped her. That dared to stop her from claiming her rightful prey.

It gripped her arm, fingers coated in the blood dripping down her body.

Not all of the blood on the creature's hand was glowing in the darkness of the tunnel. Some of it was red.

Sniffing the air for the creature, her eyes traveled up from the hand wrapped around her upper arm, looking into the creature's eyes.

He stepped back, a spike of fear flashing across his face and entering his sent.

His face quickly cleared, but he could not stop the smell from leaking out of his skin.

Eyes darting to his mouth as they began moving, it took a moment for the words to register past the ringing in her ears. Even then, the words were distant, "We need to move, Katherine! I can hear something coming up the tunnel!"

She wanted to fight. The power pumping through her veins called for her to fight.

Body clenching from the strain of holding herself in place, she fought the rushing and constant beating in her ears, calling her to throw herself back into battle. To rend her opponent limb from limb.

She could do it. She knew that she could.

Stumbling to the side, her mind was wrenched from her thoughts.

Head snapping up, Katherine locked eyes with Lurka.

He blanched from her piercing stair for a moment, but his face grew even whiter as he threw another glance over his shoulder.

Yanking on her arm, she stumbled after her as she threw another glance back at her screeching prey. She knew that it was going to die.

It had too many wounds. Bleeding out was only a matter of time; either it would die or pass out and wait to die.

That was without the mass of rats and crocks pouring into the side tunnel from the far end.

Her prey would die, but she felt slightly hollow as she stumbled away, following Lurka in the dime light. I wanted to kill it…

As they turned the corner and the sounds and light of the blood from the battle faded away, Katherine's mind began to clear.

The blood lust that had overcome her as she fought… she had never felt such a thing.

Every time her bloodline decided to fill her with power, it drove her to act.

It had never been this strong before. And Katherine wasn't sure she liked losing control like that.

A shiver ran through her as she remembered the raw power coursing through her body. It made her feel like she could reduce mountains into dust with sheer bodily strength.

When Lurka paused at the next intersection, Katherine stepped past him, continuing down this branch of the sewers. All they needed to do now was go straight.

They didn't say another word as they traveled and arrived at their destination soon afterward without any more setbacks or distractions. Everything in the area must have been drawn to the fights.

Centering herself a again with a deep breath as she stopped next to a ladder, she turned and smiled at Lurka, saying, "Ready to enter West GateTown?"