Smoke was already beginning to filter up through the cracks between the library floorboards. Moment by moment, small fires burst into life as the spilled books caught alight from the rising heat. The T-Rex was returning to the front of the building, and I saw Cris tense.

“What do we do?” she asked. “We can’t outrun it.”

“We don’t try and headbutt a train,” I replied.

“What?” she exclaimed, staring at me in shock.

“I’m not a train. I need to stop thinking like a train,” I said, gently pushing her into some shadows. “Stay there until I’m committed to the fight.”

“You need to be committed!” she hissed as I walked out to meet the monster.

“We’ll soon find out,” I said, offering a prayer to the patron saint of idiots. “Be ready to rain hell on them.”

The insane idea had come to me as I was dropping the cathedral from my pack in the basement. I was still struggling to detach from the fact that I was a two hundred pound human going up against tons of reptilian fury. I mean, I was over two hundred pounds now, but I wasn’t strictly a human. At least not in these worlds. The T-Rex approaching was the train. I was the doomed driver, holding up my arms in a vain attempt to save myself. Or that was how I had seen it until a few minutes ago.

“Hey there, big guy,” I said as the terrifying figure stomped towards me.

I’m not going to lie, my guts were churning in terror, but a small part of me was cold and calculating. I couldn’t stand toe to toe with the dinosaur, so I didn’t. Its head angled, ready to take me in one swooping bite. I vanished with shimmer strike, appearing on the T-Rex’s back. My hands were already transformed into their wolf form when I dived for its neck. The control box was much larger than the ones I’d seen on the phase 1 tyrannosaurs. I wrapped my legs painfully around the thick neck as best I could, almost reaching full splits that made my tendons scream. Digging my heels in, I buried the claws of my left hand deeply in the skin to provide a little more purchase.

The box might’ve been indestructible, but the flesh around it was just that; flesh. I began swiping just above the unit, tearing deep furrows in the thick hide. My enemy realised he had an unwanted passenger and tried to buck me off. I slashed again, exposing meat below the thick scales. The tyrannosaur tried to bite me off, but he had no angle to get at me and the vicious fangs snapped on nothing. The puny little arms thrashed, achieving less than nothing. Its tail whipped, smashing into cars and buildings while it stumbled around in a frenzy.

I was the doomed train driver, except this time I was able to jump to safety.

I was a million pound torpedo, trying to sink a billion pound battleship.

I didn’t have to butt heads with a foe well out of my league.

I just had to work with what I had.

My claws tore deeper through the layers of solid muscle. Blood began to spill from the wound in thick rivulets. I caught Cris out of the corner of my eye and nearly shouted at her to back off until I saw her focus was on something behind me. She fired off a salvo of magic missiles that zipped past me, narrowly missing as they arced up into the sky. I heard the shrill caw of pain as at least one of the Pteranodons was hit by the homing missiles. Its pained cry was abruptly cut off when it hit the road twenty feet away and broke apart in a spray of blood.

My initial fear that Cris would become the target of my mount didn’t bear out. The T-Rex knew who the main threat was, he just couldn’t do anything about it. I continued to tear and dig at the spurting meat, finding the first wires.

“Mark! Look out!”

Some deep instinct told the creature I was perilously close to something vital. He thundered towards the burning library. Turning at the last moment to throw himself sideways into the wall, he meant to crush me flat. I jumped aside at the last second, slamming painfully into the upper section of the sundered wall. I dropped like a stone, bouncing from its stomach before landing in a heap amidst the rubble. In a daze, I tried to pick myself up. The thrashing legs kicked me brutally, sending me skidding across the road. I activated my health potion to heal the various bones that had been shattered and took a few seconds to gather myself.

Lifting my head, I saw Cris firing off missiles like a machine gun, left, then right, then left. The Pteranodons were zipping around cautiously after losing two more of their number. Though magically guided, the missiles were still avoidable if the predators banked hard at the last moment. Her head snapped in my direction, eyes widening. I saw the incoming dot and rolled aside just as the talons raked at the asphalt where I’d been laid.

The Pteranodon had missed.

I didn’t when I cast shimmer strike, flashing forward and dropping onto its back.

My sudden weight killed the creature’s attempt to regain height stone dead. We hit the road and tumbled. Even as the world spun, I tore at its back and neck with my claws. The creature lacked any kind of protection from the raking blows and was a bloody mess when we came to a stop. The T-Rex was almost free of his library cocoon. Even though I’d exposed the nerve centre, the value of the damage I’d inflicted was only akin to a flesh wound.

“Mark!” Cris yelled, pointing behind me as she pelted the T-Rex’s struggling form with chaos orbs. They spotted his underbelly with burns, but couldn’t strike a mortal wound.

The two blood-soaked raptors had finished their meal and sprinted towards me across the square, eager for dessert. I was done with running and tossed out my spider grenade. The silken sphere burst, coating the two creatures in webbing. I took full advantage of their immobility and spun round, heading for the T-Rex as it finally twisted free.

“Plan B it is!”

The cooldown ended on my holy shield and I activated it just as my huge enemy extricated himself from the rubble. I charged full tilt, forcing my crackling energy right into its face. It reared back, smashing into the remains of the shattered wall. Pinned in place, the T-Rex tried to bite me, only to have its fangs blacken and fragment on the crackling shell. The damage caused by the contact of my spell was minimal, but that wasn’t the point of my plan. With nowhere to go, it writhed against the weakened structure, forcing itself awkwardly back into the impact hole to try and escape the pain. I dropped more lumps of cathedral stone, encasing the retreating monster as best I could to prevent retreat. Fire raged throughout the whole building, the flames tearing up through the failing roof. The rubble of our impact had extinguished most of the blaze where we’d hit, but the seething cauldron of the basement inferno was still eating at the heavy timbers beneath.

I heard the first splintering cracks as the weakened floor began to give. Jumping clear, I rolled in the dirt and came to my feet. The T-Rex’s roar of fear and agony was cut off as the structure collapsed completely, dropping him into the eager flames. Its health bar dropped rapidly, swiftly greying out in death as it was burned and crushed. The corpse’s loot dropped into my pack.

I turned back to the ensnared raptors. My blood was up, and I wanted to go to war.

“Keep them off me!” I yelled to Cris who was already doing a remarkable job of thwarting the bird’s attempts to attack.

The soft webbing under my feet had no effect on me as I hit the first raptor at full speed. Its lightening quick bite clamped over my raised left arm, worrying at the armour to get at the soft meat beneath. The pain of my compressed limb washed away any pity I might’ve had for the creature. I slashed at the eyes, blinding the monster as it gnawed. The jaws let go, and it began mewling pitifully, shaking its head to try and banish the pain. My razor sharp claws opened up the back of its neck, revealing the wires which were far closer to the surface than the tyrannosaur’s. Another swipe and the connection was severed, along with most of the stringy nerves and glistening sinew.

I let the web-tangled body drop and went at the second raptor. This time I raked at the face when it tried to bite, tearing away most of the lower jaw with my enhanced power. I moved in closer to finish it off and copped a deep furrow in my armour for my trouble. Its arms flailed, trying to eviscerate me with its huge claws. The chest plate held out against the assault while I grabbed the creature’s neck. Twisting violently, I felt the crunch of bone vibrate through my grip. The raptor flopped limply in my grasp and I let it drop beside its kin.

“What now?” asked Cris, walking over. A pair of glowing missiles swirled in her open palms, ready to fire at any overeager Pteranodon.

My paws returned to their human form and I did my best to control the fury surging through my veins.

“Any more trains to headbutt?” she continued.

I snort laughed, and the thrilling tension ebbed away until I could finally unclench my jaw and talk. “Not right this second, but I think the 12:15 to Newark is rumbling down the tracks.”

Cris was about to ask what I was talking about when she too felt the tremors carrying through the asphalt. A quick zoom out on the map showed the size of force descending on us. The sky was filling with more Pteranodons and there was no way Cris had the measure of dozens. In a similar vein, I couldn’t hope to fight off the ground based creatures lumbering towards us that consisted of at least two more tyrannosaurs.

“Back to class?” asked Cris.

“I was never very good at school, but I think I could give it another try,” I replied.

We took off, utilising the silkweb skill to phase with our surroundings. Running at full speed with no shadows to utilise, the effect wasn’t stellar. Our forms were a flashing kaleidoscope of changing colours as we sprinted down the street.

To save her breath, Cris jumped into my head. You should change and get out of here. Use cover to fly away.

You’ve got zero chance of me leaving you behind. We’ll find a way.

Mark, we have to pick our battles. This isn’t one of them.

I grabbed her hand and pulled her faster. We can use the school building. Try and lose them in the halls and basement. Something!

I could feel the resignation emanating from her in black waves.

We’ll make it.

She didn’t reply.

Tattered chain-link lined the street, fencing off the huge sports field which bordered the school. The building was just like any I’d seen in a hundred movies. Flat roofed, boxy, soulless. A place to crush hopes and dreams. To create compliant automatons. I’d once heard of schools as the only place where violence against children is the norm, and I couldn’t argue with that. If the environment of pain and harassment inflicted on some of the kids was repeated at home, they would be taken in to care. But in those loveless halls, it was the law of the jungle. A mad dash from one place of tentative safety to the next for the friendless, awkward prey. Dodging predators who sought to inflict wedgies, humiliation, and worse.

I’d started school as a disinterested observer. We all had our own path to walk, and I wasn’t immune from the bully’s attention. It tapered off fairly quickly when they had moved on to the softest targets.

Over the passage of months, I realised my attempt to remain detached was a form of complicity. I’d see them bleeding, or crying, or banging on the locker door, pleading to be let out. I’d kept my head down and walked past. My silence had helped it persist.

My breaking point came when we’d been walking between two blocks and one young boy called Steven had been picked as a spittoon. To this day I can’t remember his surname. The back of his blazer was covered with saliva, but when he hadn’t responded to the vile goading, they’d picked him up and tossed him over the fence into the bushes. The already filthy blazer tore, bringing more laughter from everyone watching. You could tell by the nervous lilt that most were just going along to get along, hoping to remain invisible.

There was a look of such utter misery on his face that my heart physically ached. A complete questioning of where he even belonged in the world as he tried to straighten his broken glasses. The feelings were too alien for someone so young to analyse in depth. I just knew it was wrong, and I’d snapped. I took two steps forward, and sucker-punched Martin in the back of his head. It turns out that my blow was only sufficient to annoy him, and I’d ended up battered and bruised alongside Steven in the bushes.

I’d fought Martin and his group four more times before I was moved to another school for being a troublemaker. My record was five straight losses, but they bled with every beating they gave me. I never found out what happened to Steven after I’d left, but I like to think that they left him alone.

“You’re an angel,” said Cris, dragging me back to the present and also through a gap in the fence.

“I’m an idiot who doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut or keep out of other people’s business,” I replied.

“And I’ll bet Steven saw what you did and it changed him.”

“The wedgies changed him,” I replied. “I didn’t know fabric could embed itself that deeply in an arse crack.”

Cris slowed to a full stop and looked around. “Underwear physics aside, why are they not attacking us?”

I looked up to the circling Pteranodons who seemed happy to just sail the winds. The red dots of the ground forces weren’t in any hurry either. “Probably because they know they already have us. Why bother rushing in?”

“We should get inside before they do start swooping in,” said Cris, heading for the smashed windows of the closest building.

I heard the rumble of a powerful engine and a clattering of metal and slowly turned back to the town.

Cris staggered to a halt. “What is it?”

I’d heard the rhythmic patter before. It’s source rolled into view, along with its advanced entourage. “Milley,” I groaned.