Finlay's chest heaved in and out as he took rapid breaths to fill his depleted lungs with air. He reached up to wipe the blood tricking from his cut lower lip with the back of his hand.

"Damn it!" Rigel screamed out loud in frustration. He slammed the end of his bat into the floor and leaned against it. "There were way too many prisoners in this room to deal with!" he complained with clenched teeth.

Finlay chewed the inside of his cheek in annoyance because he couldn't disagree with Rigel. Two prison guards dealing with an entire room filled with dangerous prisoners was nothing more than a plan doomed for failure. Luckily, that hadn't been the case for Rigel and him.

Finlay let out a loud sigh once he caught his breath. "To make matters worse, we aren't even close to the landing dock yet," he said, looking over at Rigel.

Rigel furiously stomped his foot on the ground. "Damn Warden, treating us like his punching bags today! This is all Aster's fault," he hissed.

Finlay shook his head in disbelief before placing his palm against his face. "The Warden wouldn't be pleased hearing you say that. But I agree, he is going over the top today compared to how he usually behaves," he pointed out as he walked ahead into the next hallway.

Finlay could hear the sound of Rigel's bat scraping across the ground as he got closer. Please let the next room be cleared; he chanted inside his mind. After reaching the end of the hallway, he froze in his tracks. His mouth hung open, and his eyes widened in shock.

"Why are you stopping all of a sudden?" Rigel asked with a puzzled look. He moved closer and peered over Finlay's shoulder. "Shit," he breathed out after seeing the state of the room they were about to enter.

Finlay swallowed the vomit, threatening to leave his throat. The scent of iron in the room was churning his stomach more than he would've liked. Corpses of both prison guards and prisoners littered the ground.

Bang!

"Look out, idiot!" Rigel yelled as he shoved Finlay forward without any hesitation.

A gasp escaped Finlay when he felt his weight shift forward when Rigel pushed him without any warning. He clenched his jaw when he collided with the cold floor with a loud thud, sending pain coursing through his veins. He spat out blood after having accidentally bitten the inside of his cheek.

Damn it, that hurt, Finlay whined inside his mind. He used his elbows to lift up his upper body and tilted his head to the side to see what was going on.

Bang! Bang!

Finlay watched as Rigel swiftly moved his bat upward to block the incoming bullets. He leaped backward to move closer to him. "All the prison guards in this room are dead, and the prisoners stole their weapons," he explained, while not taking his eyes off the man who was aiming a gun at him.

You have to be kidding me. Looks like our luck is getting worse by the second, Finlay thought. He pushed himself off the ground and stood back up. His eyes flickered around the room. He noticed about ten prisoners, each with a different weapon.

Zap!

Finlay shifted his head to the right. An electrified dagger attached to a thread whizzed past him. He gripped it with his metal glove and harshly tugged toward him, causing the man holding the weapon to tumble off the railing on the above platform.

"Die!" a man screeched. He rushed toward Finlay with a knife in hand, aiming to kill him.

Rigel spun around Finlay with lightning speed and kicked his leg upward, knocking the knife out of the man's hand. When the man attempted to punch him, Rigel swung his bat, striking the man underneath his chin.

The man let out a pained groan as he stumbled backward, falling to the ground unconscious.

"Thanks, Rigel," Finlay said softly before his eyes widened. A pained yelp escaped his throat when a bullet sank into his right shoulder, staining his uniform with crimson.

"Finlay!" Rigel yelled as he turned around. He sucked in a breath when something moved quickly toward him, in a blurry mess in the corner of his eyes. A gasp left him when something heavy slammed into the back of his skull, causing him to stumble forward.

Not good, they're closing in on us, Finlay franticly thought, looking around the room. Looks like knocking them unconscious won't be an option, he thought, narrowing his eyes.

Finlay took a step back, moving closer to Rigel, who was struggling to stand up straight due to his wobbling legs. "You're not going to faint on me, are you?" he asked, briefly glancing over his shoulder.

Rigel clicked his tongue in annoyance. "Who the hell said I was going to pass out!" he growled, despite blood running in a small stream from his forehead.

Finlay flickered his wrists backward. The threads moved out of the sockets of the gloves, preparing for what he planned to do next. He gracefully moved his hands in a circular motion, forcing the nails to fly around.

"Crap! I..." one man yelled out. His words were silenced when the nails glided across the front of his throat, ending his life in an instant.

"Shoot him now before he takes us all out!" another man barked. His eyes soon widened when Rigel appeared before him. The man felt the bat crack into his face, turning his world completely black.

Finlay ground his teeth when the pain in his shoulder increased, forcing him to stop his attack momentarily.

"Idiot, don't leave yourself open!" Rigel shouted. He soon dove out of the way of the attack range of a man holding a knife. He swiftly struck the man harshly in the stomach with his bat. He paused when a dizzy spell hijacked his senses.

This hurts; I can tell that the bullet was a special one. It's digging into my muscle, Finlay thought. He gripped his shoulder and attempted to pull out the bullet, only for tears to form in the corner of his eyes when it refused to leave his flesh. Rigel's starting to struggle too; I need to do something fast before one of us gets killed, but what? he thought, with concern in his eyes.

"Looks like you two boys could use my help right about now!" a woman called out sweetly, causing Rigel and Finlay to look up at the top platform.

A woman lept off of the railing. Her long honey-blonde hair swirled around in a mess as she descended down, landing perfectly on the ground. Light shined across the surface of her black metal knee-high boots and matching gloves.

"What are you waiting for? S-shoot her!" one man screamed at the other with pure fear painted on his face.

The other man, with a shaky hand, aimed the gun at her and pulled the trigger.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The woman reached up with both of her hands, her gloves deflecting the bullets, sending them bolting around the room. She moved forward and slammed her fist into the gunman's stomach, causing him to drop it. Her glove emitted a tiny surge of purple energy, amplifying the strength of her punch.

The man cried out in pain, feeling the contents of his stomach get rearranged. He knelt close to the ground, holding his stomach. Her eyes darted over to the man who charged toward her with a knife.

A devilish grin formed on her lips when the man planned to attack her without thinking about it first. "Recklessly coming at me is the worst idea you could've come up with," she claimed. Fear crawled across the man's face when she gripped the blade part of the knife.

Crack!

The man howled out in pain and collapsed to the floor when her boot struck the knee of his left leg, shattering the bones in it. She dove forward and followed up with a small punch to his face to knock him unconscious.

"Damn, show off! Where the hell were you earlier, Evelyn?!" Rigel barked, causing her to turn around.

"Me? I was in the Warden's office. He sent me out here to assist in any way I could, which you clearly needed," Evelyn teased at the end. She barely tried to hide the grin on her face when a deep, irritated frown formed on Rigel's face.

"Don't expect me to say thank you!" Rigel hissed at her.

Evelyn was another one of Warden's right-handed prison guards, who typically dealt with dangerous prisoners on higher floors. "Trust me, I wasn't," she said, walking past Rigel and toward Finlay.

"Here, let me see," Evelyn said as she softly removed Finlay's hand from his injured shoulder. "Your problem is that you're hesitating. That's why the bullet isn't coming out." She reached forward, yanking the bullet out by force.

Finlay yelled out. His body trembled as pain shot through his body from where the bullet was lodged. "A warning would've been nice," he complained. Just my luck, she's crazy just like Brett and Irene, he thought, while she smiled, not seeming to care about what she just did.