Chapter 13

Report Everyone, No One’s Doing Their Jobs Right

Itha woke up, hello darkness my old friend style. As in, it was literally dark. Practically unseeable. And while she’s attempting to fathom the darkness all around, much like that within she soul, we shall contemplate the concept of ridicule.

Ridiculinesess, is, I truly think, one of the key elements of a proper life. Without it, where are you really? If we didn’t have such a strong pull towards the silly, where would Monty Python be with his Marathon for the Incontinent? Who would finagle the bagels? Where, I ask you, would those Tumblr posts that give you a stroke to read because quite frankly, words do not work like that, be?

Nowhere I answer, so I am here to erase the emotional trauma of last chapter by descending into utter malarkey and discord. Please re-read the title of this chapter. It’s funny, right? Right? LAUGH! Okay, maybe it’s not all that funny. But it will be!

Itha finished fathoming the darkness all around. Was she scared? Hellz to the yeah. Was she also incredibly fed up with life in general? Mmmm, starting to be. She made the monumental effort to sit up, which, considering the effects that tranquilizers leave on the body, was a pretty monumental effort indeed.

What did she get for her troubles? A smack on the head by the ceiling. Ow.

“Ow,” she muttered. (Guys, she said the thing). Hunching forward in a manner that was neither comfortable, nor comfortable, yet more comfortable than another hard whack, she tried to get a sense of her surroundings, or at least the dimensions.

A box. Oh, joy, oh, glory day. And unless she was mistaked, there was a potted plant to her left, which struck her as odd, but what can you do. She probably would need that to mix up some herbs with which to heal herself from the punishing blows of the goop monsters that undoubtedly were outside. Unfortunately, she had zero inventory slots.

Pushing aside the plant and it’s lack of purpose from her mind, she tried and largely failed to find a door, or anything that might signify a way out. She pushed on all four walls, and then when that failed, she tried two more. They didn’t open either. DisapPOINTING. Time to add the magic ingredient: force. It it common knowledge that if gently pressing the button doesn’t work, the next step should be to throw your entire body’s weight against it. Repeatedly. Until something happens, or you break something, which might constitute as something happening, but we’ll breeze on by that fact.

She did exactly that thing. Not the breaking, but the throwing. Again and again she drew back and tried to force open her confines with sheer weight alone. This wasn’t going to work for a few reasons, the prime of which being that she didn’t have enough sweet moves available to her to smash open any doors that may or may not actually be there. Other problems included the fact that the box was made of sturdy, you know, metal, and she would have needed to be Dwayne the Rock Johnson in order to even make a dent, and hey, well, what do you know, she was not that sir. Shockingly, and disappointingly she was NOT a 300 pound demigod. It was a good thing she wasn’t claustrophobic, or she might have been in a lot more trouble than she was.

Now, these wangings and doodlings weren’t entirely fruitless. After about five minutes of violent slamming, (and yes I’m well aware of the jokes I could be making, but I’m not going to because I am a not gutter soul), a slot opened in the side of her confines and a pair of very glary eyes with glary-er bushy ’brows peek-a-boo’d on in. Which, for the record he was expressly forbidden from doing, for reasons such as...

“Stop,” he ordered, all work and no play. Turns out it’s by no means a good thing to be a dull boy, because Itha, being a quickly think, poked him in the eye as hard as she could.

...such as that. Jack the dull boy was not a quick think, and backed away right sharpish, clutching his face and cursing.

Now, here’s the tea. These people, they were actually highly professional, and good at their jobs. But, and there is a big but, they were a little more lax at the bottom of the command chain. Their lackey’s and henchmen, for reasons of budget, were not exactly top par, and since most of the base operations were run by these people who were, to put it kindly, unintelligent, you might find yourself in one of those situations where some idiot has stacked the cannon balls right next to the cannon, so a blow from the enemy might just possibly send everything, and I mean everything, up into the fiery fires of oh my God we screwed up and are now dead.  Read that one out loud without taking a breath I dare you.

Anyways, this is exactly the trouble they now found themselves in, along with some down-right unbelievable rotten/Godly luck, depending on who’s side you were on. So. Slow-mo time. Here we go. Get ready to Henry Stickman this shit.

Hit the road did Jack, not ever to come back, no more, no more, no more. As he fled out of range of the claws that were Itha, he just so happened to let go of the keys he had been holding like an idiot, and at the pinnacle of their arc, Itha caught them. Report Jack, bad guard. Possibly the worst guard.

When you have faulty guards, chances are the negligence will carry on to faulty gear. The slot, which Itha could easily fit her arm out of, was handily right in reach. Love it. And she was out. Even she could hardly believe it.

Cut to camera two! The other guard, equally incompetent, was currently facetiming their corgle, which for those of you who don’t know, is a corgi/beagle mix and is a mutt, therefore much more disease resistant than those purebreds. *Looks over doggy connoisseur glasses.* What this guard was not doing was watching the security as per their paycheck, and therefore entirely missed the point in time when the alarms started not blaring because they weren’t doing their job. Report them and their distracting corgle. Possibly a worse guard then Jack, who still hasn’t come back.

Back to camera one! Well, Itha didn’t waste any time. She sprinted. And I mean zooped. That girl was in track during high school, and was darn good at the four-hundred meter sprint. Out the door so handily left open by Jack, and up the stairs, a good three at a time, at least until she lost momentum, at which point that amount dropped down to two. But she still flew along at such a great rate that one (1) of the cameras actually registered her as a glitch and completely ignored her. And that’s how you get past an automated security system. Nevermind any of the fancy dancy stuff Ram and Osric were building back at home, which we will talk about later. I can’t tear myself away from this action right here. Report narrator again, I’m still bad at my job.

Itha screeched to a halt in a main room lookingish room and cast her gaze around wildly until aha! The exit sign. With a leap and a bound, that-a-way she went, at least until, back to camera two! Corgle person saw what was happening and three, two, one, pound the alarm.

Back to one! Instantly the guards started appearing as if melting through the walls, and Itha’s happy escape route was cut off by over *an amount* of people that she really didn’t stop and bother to count. Back the other way it was! With a sliding stop that would have made the top reining cowboys of the century jealous, she took her leave, ‘scuse and thank-you.

Le pursuit. But she wasn’t worried about that for right now, so neither should you be. Her only concern at that exact second was holy mother yeet yote dats’a lot of peepo. Yes, she actually thinks like that in times of stress, but, honestly, what cultured memelord wouldn’t? She became an insta Zen master and much like a river, chose the path of least resistance, which, little did she know it, happened to be that path of fire and screaming. Little did you know it also, before I told you that.

To the kitchen! Yes there’s a kitchen in this super-base. Hongry incompetent guards get hongry too, you know, even more than the competent ones. Slamming the door behind her, Itha took stock of this new situation and discovered some sketchy cleaning standards. And when I say that, I mean it was the food from Resident Evil 7 all over again. DESCOSTING! It wasn’t helped by the fact that one of the cooks happened to be doing just as his name might imply and upon Itha’s sudden, spooktastic appearance, gave a yelp of I’ve been found out and dropped every single egg he had been about to crack anyway. Three raw eggs slid along the grody floor and Itha was given the horrifying pleasure of witnessing the cook chase them around with his spoon as he tried to get them back into the bowl where they belonged. Report cook. Feeding poison to the troops. BAD COOK.

All of this came to a rather abrupt end when the door was blasted practically off its hinges as the two biggest, hunkiest, most rivalry-est guards in the entire building then stormed the castle.

And then began the fire and screaming. Itha, who took this as her cue to no longer care about the state of someone else’s kitchen, ran. The cook, hunk-bros and the rest of the cohort that piled so readily in behind the hunk-bros, all took this as their cue to care very much about the state of their own kitchen. The cook tried fruitlessly to hide the raw egg debacle behind his back, but the eternal screams of horror from those who ate from this kitchen every day rose to such a pitch and to such a mood of anger, that the cook decided maybe some self-defense was apt. Fortunately for him, there were some excellent tools for  f i r e  that just so happened to be laying around. As Itha barged into the next room, she was spared the sight of a cook living out his evil dreams of pyromania and blasting anything and everything that moved and screamed with his impromptu flame-thrower. Report the inspection crew, they missed a couple minor things.

Where am I? Itha thought desperately. Back in the dark was the answer. She groped around until she found the light switch, then flicked it with all the bravado she didn’t have. Aha! The pantry! Not helpful in the slightest, and no other exit except the one she had just come through, and well, she didn't really have any other choice but to go back into the world of fire, flying bodies, and one cook really badly scream-singing Light ‘em Up at the top of his lungs as he stood upon the counter and attempted to burn down everything around him.

Another door! Surely this one would lead somewhere important and escapy-y. She darted, ducked, dodged, and hopped her way across the room, a couple screams of her own joining the cacophony of the damned. Really, out of all those options, almost everyone in the room was hopping, probably because most of them were on  f i r e. And the were all broud that they were punnies and had lunch and harched on mome. She desperately grasped at the handle, pushing the surprisingly heavy door open with all of her might, throwing herself inside and leaning all her weight on it to close it again.

Why was it so cold? Ah, because it was a freezer. A great place to hide from a maniac with a flame-thwewew, as six or seven of the guards had discovered. Itha stared at them. They stared at her. They gave her a hard pass because quite frankly they had bigger problems right now. Report them? Bad guards?
Itha, for her part, made the realization that there still wasn’t a proper exit here, and she’d have to brave the chaos of the other room yet again to try and get back out from whence she’d came. Not for the last time she wondered how the ever-living daylights she’d wound up in this exact situation.

She didn’t really know. The events of the past since-she’d-woken-up were a bit of a blur. The only thing she did know is that she was not going back out into the raging fires without protection. And if you don’t like the fact that most historical African warriors didn’t wear metal armour, ignore it. That’s what she chose to do. Her parents had moved to America only twenty years before she was born, making her the first of the family to be born outside of the county. Her grandparents had been agast. What was the point of having rich relatives if you didn’t live near them, was their general opinion. Who in this case are the rich relatives? All, I answer. Itha’s family could probably buy you.

But anyways, the point still stands about ignoring history when you yourself don’t have any rules you quote on quote need to follow. Itha exited the freezer armed to the teeth by a giant sheet of metal she’d found stacked in the back. A perfect weapon, you might say. And I agree! Haven’t you heard of the unbeatable tactic of escape called “I am the environment, you will not see me if I do not move and am behind a mobile object such as a giant sheet of metal?” Works every time.

The cook caught motion out of the corner of his eye. He whipped around, flames at the ready! ...To find nothing, just an innocent slab of metal leaned up against the wall. Funny about that, I guess. He turned his attention back to the rest of the room, which mainly involved trying to keep whole droves of more-or-less on fire people from scurrying into the freezer like rats. There were an unfortunate few who found the raw egg patch and one by one slipped and ate dirt, a little too literally. The sat there, groaning and wishing for death to relieve them from this disgusting fate, but when death came their way in the form of  f i r e,  they were all quick to find things to enjoy about life again as they scrambled every which way with one collective howl.

Movement again! The cook whipped around, but there was nothing except that ordinary piece of metal, still propped against the wall. Maybe it was just him, but he felt like it had moved, maybe just a little. This is the point in time where I start crying because this isn’t visual and I can’t just show you a picture of the kitchen with a little glowing dotted line showing how Itha had scoot’d her boot more than halfway around the kitchen.

It must have just been his imagination though. The metal, if it had moved at all, really hadn’t moved that far. Glowing dotted line intensifies. Report cook, observation zero.

In this manner, Itha crept her way through the volatile kitchen, and as soon as she reached the coveted door, she shoomed. Now that she was out of that particular section of H-E-Double Toothpicks, she found that the calamity of the kitchen had largely been contained to said kitchen. A few seats in the cafeteria would have had a prime view of fire spurting across the ceiling, but no one was there to witness the event. Everyone who had responded to the alarm was currently trapped in the madhouse.

Well, most everyone. As Itha sprinted for the finish, there was still one layer of defense that she didn’t have a plan for. Not that she’d had a plan for any of this, but the fact remains. As she took a slightly more cautious approach to the supposed exit, a great rumbling shook the ground. Cue the slow motion paired with aggressive gregorian singing. As Itha slowed and turned, she saw the flat out biggest maybe-a-human-maybe-not she ever had, and likely ever would, unless she took to hanging out with pro basketball players, and even most of them would have been dwarfed by the sir in front of her now.

Aptly titled VV Cephei Titan, he was one of those hush-hush government experiments and will have his own book eventually. So look forward to that. For now, just know that Itha gave a scream, hiked up her metaphorical skirts and took off as fast as she could considering she’d already been running, ducking, and generally being a panicked mess for the last fifteen minutes. Panic really will suck out your energy, as you may or may not know, and unlike Ram, Itha had never received any training on how to keep your cool when people are trying to do you a concern.

And doing her a concern Titan was. He was fast. Faster than her, and, as she found after executing a few 10/10 evasive maneuvers, also incredibly agile. She had time to note that his skin was an incredibly unhappy shade of grey as his hand passed a mere five centimetres over her head.

Terror! :)
She did manage to evade him, though let’s just say that it was more down to luck than skill. I’m not here to bash Itha, she is amazing, but she really shouldn’t have been able to escape, considering the extent of Titan’s training and abilities. Say it with me; Report Titan, bad at defeating luck-based opponents.

As Itha scrambled back to her feet, she cast desperately around for something, anything, she could do that might give her an edge over this titan. That’s funny because she doesn’t know his name. In case you didn’t get it. Nothing like someone explaining their own joke.

She saw one thing, which gave her one idea, which meant one chance. She took it.

In perfect mimicry of Ram a few weeks ago, she took an adrenaline fueled yeet up the wall. A discombobulating move to be sure. It worked as she intended. Titan reached up for her, and she, rolling a nat twenty dexterity check, grabbed the pipe she had been aiming for and used it to propel herself back the other way, over Titan’s head and in a face-first dive towards the floor. There was a euphonious crunch as she did something bad to her arm upon landing, but she didn’t feel it for more than a second as she rolled away and began, you guessed it, back the other way. It took Titan a full half second after she’d started running to turn and follow her, and that was the only time she needed. By the time he reached the door, she was gone.

(Cue narrative switch, we POV some other characters for a while)

Jumping back to where it really matters, the place you know we all want to be, Good ol’ Itha and the Cephei Titan. Both are confuzzled, but both about vastly different things. Titan was just confuzzled about life in general, but also as to where this lady had disappeared to, and Itha was VERY confuzzlement as to where the heck she was to go from here. She had managed to bypass the thirty-seven or so guards as they trucked out of the kitchen more or less cooked, having finally subdued the, well, cook. Job listings would be posted by the coming Tuesday, as none, not one of the guards there actually wanted to make their own food.

Anyway, having bypassed those guards, Itha then took off down YET ANOTHER corridor, until she came to a door that looked important and also super strong, so she figured if she could get in and lock it, she might have a much better time collecting her thoughts and formulating an actual plan with which to escape. We’re time-lords, by the way, it’s about six hours in the future of the last time we checked up on Ram and Boys, and later we’ll go back in time again to deal with that, so yeeerrrrr.

So whilst Itha was doing that, Titan had taken his self and after thinking very deliberately about his predicament, had decided the methodical approach was best. And whilst he was stalking through the facility, checking, hunting, and locking down every inch of the place, Itha had managed to get through the door with a combination of light fingers and a passing guard who had suffered a little bit heavily from the smoke inhalation and hadn’t noticed Itha snitching the keys from where they half-hung from his pocket. Once she was inside, fairly confident that he held the key to all her troubles, she re-locked the door, and then shoved a right heavy bookcase in front of it as well, just for extra comfort and security. The thought of that grey man breaking open the door with ease made her shudder, but she’d done as much as she could. Time to take a lookie aroundie and figure out where and what she was.

Ah, a library. Hence the right heavy bookcase. Go figure. Why the hell these bumpkins would have a library was quite beyond her, but, lo, there it was.

Helpful? Not really. But it was what it was. She’d have to make do.

Meanwhile, what she didn’t realize, is that the Cephei ran off some strict orders, and one of those was, for reasons of size and clumsiness that were incorrectly assumed, to stay out of the library. Not a single foot could be set in there under any circumstances. And, well, as he stood outside the door, reflecting upon his orders, this definitely qualified as a circumstance. So with what might have been a sigh, he turned away and sat against the wall. He wasn’t allowed inside, but he could make sure the person who was supposed to stay in the facility never left it. Fascinating wallpaper to be sure.

Like I said, Itha was unaware of any of this, so she spent the next three hours hunting feverishly for a way out, or some means of contacting her family asides from origami carrier pigeon. She found neither. Granted, she could have smashed a window, and took a flying yeet, but she didn’t for many a reason, the most prominent of which being she wasn’t pro trained how to survive a fall from three stories up, and climbing was completely out of the option in this cement square, perfectly smooth building. Eventually her feverish fear of death dwindled as she realized no one was coming for her, and much like the iconic Frozen scene, she took a leanie on the bookcase she’d shoved across the door, an unbeknownst five feet away from Titan, who hadn’t moved hide nor hair since he’d taken his sitty downy. Quick, someone make it snow so we can get some singing all up in here.

Here they stayed while Itha watched the sunset, thinking about whatever her options might be, and Titan watched the wall, thinking about nothing much, because he hadn’t been built with those parts of his cerebral system. Neither of them really were fond of the idea of building a snowman together.

As far as not much, there was not much, but in the way of options, great things hast’d’v there be. Itha considered that she could make a break for it, try and gun by all the guards and the Grey Man of Doom, which, considering everything, didn’t seem like a half-bad plan. Except she wasn’t considering everything given that she didn’t know about the dude-bro himself right outside. Other options did include throwing herself from the window and hoping and praying that death her way did not come, but that didn’t seem realistic either (though given what she’d just been through, who was she to make bold claims about realism?) She supposed she could try option B but with a little flare added in the form of tossing a bookshelf out of the window first, and then climbing down it to the ground.

She ditched that one for multitudinous obvious reasons. What she needed was a plan, a solid, point A to point B plan that was well thought out, and sure to work.

And if there was one thing she didn’t have, it was the means to formulate such a plan. Back to square one. With a sigh, she went to the nearest shelf and perused the books upnit, trying to find anything that might aid her. A guide to Norwegian Idioms and Thoughts? No. Edward Alsbeck’s Formulative Theory of Tachyphylaxis? She didn’t even know what that was. The Creative Mind; A Guide to the Inner Thoughts and Voices of- No, no, and no. What even were these books anyway? And what did Norwegian thoughts and idioms have to do with Tachyphylaxis and creative minds? Again, not a clue.

Now maybe she could have tried a bit harder; searched a different bookshelf, perhaps, but really, she was just feeling quite down at this point, and didn’t really see much purpose of searching the entire library shelf to shelf if these were the kind of contributions offered immediately. Not that she knew what else to do, but whatever she decided, it wouldn’t be that.

On to next. Another sitty downy and another sigh. She had absolutely no idea what to do, and it seemed that would remain the case for a while yet, until she was struck with some magic implication of inspiration that she honestly couldn’t imagine striking her any time soon.

So the time passed...

(Cue another narrative switch, we POV some other characters for a while again)

Itha had made a decision, and we are no longer time-lords. Both good in their own special way, much like those flawed creatures: humans. Decisiveness is jolly well awesome, and all, and to be frank, I’d have to change my name.

Sorry. To be frank, all this time-jumping around was getting to me, it really was. Terrible for the digestion, you know. *Twirls moustache*

Anyways, Itha made a decision, and to that she stuck. She can’t have known about Titan right outside her door; he’d made zero sound ever since he’d gotten there, and she couldn’t have known about three battle ready bois flying her way at the top speed of sound, or something to the effect of. So she also couldn’t have know that this was utterly the best, most helpful and amazing choice she could have made, despite immediate regerts as she unblocked the door, unlocked the door, and hurled it open to face the Mighty Titan in all his surprised at her appearance glory; sitting against the wall and wholly unprepared. Or something to that effect.

There was a shriek of frustration heard throughout the lands, but Itha recognized her chance. While Cephei was taking his sweet-ass time getting up, she repeated some of today’s earlier actions, and bolted.

Oh, it was glorious! Oh, it was wild! How rested she was, how rested HE was! How completely tied and even they were for the first five seconds as she got the jump on him and boogied on down the hall, determined to lose him as she had once before, and he, determined to follow orders properly this time, darted after her with so much more speed than his size made him seem capable of.

Meanwhile, the infiltration bois were getting to work. As has been a major flaw for the past lifespan of ventilation shafts, they were roughly people sized, and Osric could shimmy on in with room to spare. So he did that, at the back of the building, Carson watching for guards in a faraway brush covered hillock that made for a perfect shot anywhere along the back half of the facility.

Ram, after Osric had wiggled on through the tunnel, began his own sneaky entrance, using some of those fancy knicker-knackers we talked about a long time ago and then never brought back up, oops. Ah, well, there’s always the second draft.

Grapple guns are cool, Ram thought as he used one of those things to climb up the sheer side of the building to the nearest window. He didn’t so much care to smash the glass and cue every alarm in the vicinity, so he chose instead to just remove the panes all together. A bold feat for someone dangling from a super strong string halfway up a concrete block, but he had the power of a superheated laser cutter and some pretty fly gift-wrapping skills to boot. In the amount of time it took Osric to find a cord that connected to the security system, hack in, and create the necessary looped feed, Ram was climbing in through a neatly cut out window, the glass hanging from more of that super strong string outside, tied with a neat bow and everything.

“I’m in, Fourteen,” Ram said, looking around. The hall empty, but the predicted air duct ran through the ceiling and a grill was set a little ways away.

“Roger that, Twenty-Four,” Osric replied, his voice crystal clear over the comms. “Camera’s looped and noses booped, I’m heading to you.”

“Okay, Twelve, you moved?” Ram asked, ignoring the faint thumpings from above as Osric crawled along.

“Out and covering the exit,” Carson replied. “Good luck to you guys, I’ll be here if you need me.”

“Yup,” Ram said. “Hopefully we won’t though.”

Cue a grunt. Cue a creak, and a curse and an ungainly scrambling. Osric dropped from the grate with slightly less grace then he’d been intending, but landed on his feet and still looked more fabulous then Ram or Carson ever could have managed. Such was his histrionic personality, that allowed him to look good no matter what. No, Ram was not jealous.

“Okay, so according to the blueprints, the basement is down those stairs, and through the main room. Take the third door to your left, don’t get spotted, and that’s where Itha should be,” Osric said, joining Ram as if he’d never had a single slip up in his life. “You go that way, I’ll head along to secure the exit.”

“Alright.” Ram adjusted his watch and paracord on his wrist. “Are we synced?”

“To the heartbeat,” Osric replied. “Let’s go.”

They went their separate ways, moving more quickly and quietly in boots then you would have thought possible. Osric found the fact that the route he had chosen was remarkably free of enemy humans odd, but who was he to complain. Just hike up the alertness levels a touch and carry on, all there was for it. He mentally reviewed the map identifying the library as off, down the stairs to his right.

He snorted. The library, huh? Well, at least that was one place he could check off his chart of useful places. Undoubtedly nothing of interest could be there, or at least nothing of use. It was amazing how wrong one man can be, and how right he thinks he is.

So you can imagine that it was a bit of a surprise, a little shock to the old system, when as he rounded a corner after hearing a soft sound, moving as slowly and carefully as possible, assault rifle in hand, he saw one Titany boi, just turning around.

Of course, when you are a ripe old height of heccin’ short, and a nine foot tall dude with grey skin and blank blue eyes turns around and nails you with a stare that is enough to freeze hell over, you do one of three things.

1. Drop everything and run, inordinate screaming all the while, or

2. Unload as many rounds of lead as you can into the guy, inordinate screaming all the while.

3. Or you can do what Osric did, which was consecutively both, firing a whole clip at Titan with zero effect, then deciding that maybe a better option was to get the hell out of dodge.

He did exactly that. There are times to hold your ground, and this was not one of them. As for Titan, he swung around, making the tired realization that this person was also not supposed to be there, so he was obligated to chase them down and kill them brutally. What a life.

Meanwhile, Ram had been moving a lot faster than Osric. Not anymore, now that Osric has breaking a few laws of physics, but at the time. He’d reached the basement with no incidence, which he thought odd, considering he traipsed straight through the main hub of the building. But oh, well, down the stairs, I guess, and into the oh my God that’s a lot of people.

He pulled back right sharpish to avoid being seen, and peered back around the corner.

Where were all the guards, you may ask? Where were those tasked with preventing people like Ram from breaking and entering?

All currently pointing as many weapons as they could collectively hold at Itha’s old prison, which now housed the errant cook. Though Ram had no idea who was in the metal box, he was about to guess Itha and report a need for back up, when a sound at the top of the stairs made him whip around, gun raised.

Itha froze with a squeak, hands in the air. He recognized her and lowered his weapon making frantic shushing gestures. She didn't recognize him and turned to run. Fortunately Ram was able to creep-sneak run up the stairs fast enough to catch her arm as she paused to make sure she wasn’t about to run into Titan.

“Itha, it’s me,” he hissed, activating the speaker in his helmet. She stopped trying to stab him with a knife she’d picked up from the kitchen and stared at him in shock.

“You...what?” she asked. “Ram?”

“Hi,” he said, allowing a quick grin. “Fancy meeting you here.”

These niceties didn’t get given the time to continue, for there was a sudden huge crash, followed by many more, smaller crashes, ultimately rounded off with a final thud which sounded quite like someone breaking through a wall and falling down some stairs. Being thrown, might be a more accurate description.

The door at the far end of the room burst open and in shot Osric, who didn’t even pause as he charged around Ram and Itha.

“I HAVE ERRED!!!” he screeched as he hurtled by.

“Wait, what do you…” Ram’s voice faded as the door Osric had come through a little bit of esploded. Enter VV Cephei Titan. One of the two people in this situation was expecting that, and Ram felt his eyes bug out of his head. Again I bemoan the lack of visual effects here. I would love to insert a lightning bolt effect with crashing thunder to accentuate the shock and raw horror Ram was feeling at that exact juncture. But I can’t, so just imagine.

Well, that was the plan scarpered. As with those two acronyms relating to fear, (you know the ones, F.E.A.R. and F.E.A.R.), they chose F.E.A.R., which in this instance was Forget Everything And Run, as far away and as fast as possible.

Legs are but toothpicks to the Cephei Titan. Before he even knew what was happening,  Ram was flying through the air, and had he been any less concussed upon punching through a wall and a half, he would have made the time to send a brief tip of the hat to whatever forces be that had encouraged the architect of the building to give it thin walls. As it was, he merely forced himself back to his feet and scooched on towards what he hoped might be the exit. Run boy run and all that.

Two notes of interest:

One: Itha, now a qualified expert at escaping Titan, did it yet again by utilizing those same air ducts and ventilation shafts that her would-be rescuers had earlier. Fortunately for her, Titan was a tad confused as to who he should chase, and sort of lost track of her. Cut him some slack, he’s only three months old.

And Two: Remember those guards in the basement? Well, all that crashing and screaming had not gone unnoticed by them, and they realized that though they maybe didn’t want to have any part in the action, they were going to have to, or possibly risk the Mighty Wrath of their employers. Spoiler, they already have to face that, but at least they don’t have ‘cowering in fear in the basement’ to add to their strikes.

(Aaannnnd some footage of her in her prime, having fully realized and accepted her prowess. This isn't until a whole book later.)