It started with throwables.

  The raiders hurled a barrage of Frisbees and footballs from the entrance. One disc flew straight at Roy’s neck. Impressive. That was really an expert-level throw from a non-athlete. A surge of anger welled up as the shards of ultra-disc spun toward him. They’d destroyed a movie just so they could try to kill him with it. Not cool.

  He had his sword out in front of it before it could connect, and it went spinning off to the side. Roy had really wanted to slice it in two and watch the pieces fall either side of him. That would have looked cooler.

  The whole scene looked more chaotic than cool. The opening salvo had left the others largely unscathed. Tex had several nail-studded footballs embedded in his armor, while Kyle had jump-kicked another back at the raiders, only for it to be swatted to the ground by the man with the giant foam finger. Samantha had succeeded where Roy had failed and split a Frisbee right down the middle. Bastion had taken a graze to his arm, but he’d get over it.

  While the projectiles had been extremely accurate, a few had still missed and rebounded off the cage behind them, not leaving so much as a dent as the raccoon continued ferrying prizes to the drop box.

  One raider lunged for a javelin, but Bastion downed him with a crossbow bolt before he could reach it.

  The others took that as their cue to move into melee range.

  It wasn’t anything like a fair fight. On one hand, they were outnumbered more than two to one. On the other, their theming was way better.

  Three guys charged Roy, brandishing bats. He responded by drawing the Castle Maul from his back.

  “This... is my SMASH-STICK!”

  One swipe. All three went flying and slammed into the wall, shaking the building as shattered brick rained down alongside their crumpled bodies.

  “Whoa.” Roy hadn’t expected that to work so well. Their armor had caved in like soda cans. There’d been too many sounds at once to make out the crack, but he was pretty sure he’d collapsed some rib-cages with that one.

  Other Raiders stepped around Roy, not wanting to get in range of the Maul after seeing what it could do.

  Bastion retreated to reload, while Tex barrelled into another group of enemies, tanking hits and slashing wildly, his katana iridescent in the reflected light of the prize wall.

  Samantha had positioned herself in a dark corner, where the soft green glow of the bones on her costume really stood out. She leapt forward and ambushed the keg-wielder with her spine-sword when he stepped into her path.

  Kyle charged another javelin thrower, dodging the projectile by bending backwards like he was ducking under a limbo pole.

  Skeeter howled and rushed Roy, knives flashing. He ducked under the Maul to slash at his unarmored sides in a frenzied flurry of strikes. Roy back-stepped and watched the knives spark against each other. Once, twice, three times.

  Recovering his balance, Roy swung the maul again, sweeping 360 degrees, but Skeeter spun his knives and moved out of range so fast he became a blur at the edge of Roy’s vision.

  He howled again and attacked from the side. Roy didn’t even bother trying the maul this time. Instead, he dropped it and dove out of the way as Skeeter slashed. He tried to draw his sword, but had to pull his arm back when the second knife swung in. It slid along his vambrace, scoring a silver line in the paint.

  Skeeter clicked his blades together around Roy’s arm and grinned. Then he did it twice more.

  Huh?

  Roy threw a punch, but at the last moment before he could crack him in the teeth, Skeeter flicked his knife and was suddenly standing off to the left.

  There was that effect again. Motion blur. Did the knives control it? He’d need to test it out again to know for sure. The problem was that this kind of testing was lethal.

  Blood was pumping, resonance was flowing, but all Roy could do was dodge.

  “Bastion, shoot him already,” Roy called out.

  The reply came from behind. “There’s only one bullet left in the dragoon. I’m not wasting my last shot on this guy.”

  “Use your crossbow then.”

  A bolt thwipped, but Skeeter cut it out of the air.

  It did, however, give Roy enough time to draw his sword.

  Skeeter let out an animalistic scream and lunged at him again, whirling around in a frenzy.

  With his blade in hand, Roy moved faster. He tilted it into the knives’ path, twisting the hilt instinctively. Three hits again.

  Roy backed up, losing resonance as he went.

  Kyle stumbled between them, blood pouring from his arm. A raider with plastic vampire teeth lunged forward, and Roy punched them right out of his mouth. Kyle fist bumped the air in Roy’s general direction and head-butted the raider back out of the way.

  Tex was knocked back from the other direction, his heavy armor blocking the next of Skeeter’s flurry attacks. The knives left no marks, but something had made a nasty-looking hole near Tex’s navel.

  Roy’s question was answered when he looked over and saw smoke rising from the foam hand’s pointer finger.

  Further behind, Samantha tore the keg open with her spine-ripper, pouring beer all over the floor.

  He couldn’t let the others have all the fun here.

  As soon as Tex stepped out of the way, Roy stuck. Taking wild swings that hit empty air as Skeeter blurred out of the way again.

  Roy thought he knew the pattern now. Howl. Three Strikes. Reposition.

  He slowed his attack slightly, deliberately leaving an opening.

  Skeeter took the bait and started screaming.

  He launched himself toward Roy, who twisted his body, but didn’t try to dodge.

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  The knives struck his brigandine, denting it, hammering his chest but not penetrating. One.

  Roy braced and raised his sword, up and over the knives as they hit again, drawing deeper gouges into his armor. Two.

  He plunged straight down, between Skeeter’s arms. His enemy couldn’t retreat. Couldn’t even flinch. He’d magically committed himself to the next strike. Roy’s sword sliced his bare chest down to the waist. Then Roy stepped back, just before the final strike that would have cut through to his ribs. Three.

  Skeeter staggered backwards, clutching his stomach. “Urgh.”

  Still standing. Not deep enough.

  He warp-stepped back with his knife’s power, and more raiders got in the way before he could strike him with a finisher, retreating toward the entrance while more poured in through it. A whole new group must have come back from a raid.

  Oddly, the newcomers started backing up too.

  That was when Roy noticed flames reflected in their armor. He looked back—Bastion was holding a lit stick of dynamite.

  Roy raced back to the prize wall, grabbing the Castle Maul on the way and holding it over his head.

  Boom.

  The entrance collapsed, burying the Raiders standing closest to it. A wave of heat rolled out from it, and the building rumbled as cracks spiderwebbed across the ceiling. Roy braced, struggling to keep the maul raised as debris rained down on it.

  Something bopped him on the head, but it was light. Without thinking, he reached down and grabbed it.

  A foam tower. It had shattered like hard stone, but it was only soft foam now. The Castle Maul felt near-weightless.

  Roy felt a pang of loss. He hadn’t had the weapon long, but he’d really liked it.

  “Why the hell did you stop to grab that thing?” said Bastion. “You could have been crushed just like those raiders.”

  “I wasn’t thinking right—and wait, did you get them all?”

  “No. Skeeter and about a dozen others made it out. We’ve got to go. There’s bound to be another exit, and we need to get to it before they do.”

  Tex scooped up the pile of dynamite sticks in his arms. The raccoon was still fetching more.

  “Still no guns,” said Bastion. “Why’d you press the dynamite button so many times?”

  “They were cheap, OK,” said Roy.

  They pushed through into the arcade, where Raiders spilled out of a back room, awoken by the blast and wielding whatever weapons they’d had to hand.

  There was a fire exit on the other side of the room. Unfortunately, a gauntlet of game machines and enemies lay between them and it.

  Roy led the charge, vaulting over a pinball machine and stabbing a guy through his weakly themed chest protector. To his right, Tex bodied a bulky cabinet, upending it and crushing a raider’s shins.

  Two came at Roy at once, and he dual-wielded his sword with a whack-a-mole hammer that looked like a mace. It turned out to be very effective, crumpling armor with ease. He tried to take it with him, but another group of enemies charged before he could cut its wire.

  Five this time.

  Two dropped instantly. Bastion had picked up a light-gun and shot them in the knees.

  Kyle knocked another in the head with a basketball from a game shaped like a high-tip shoe.

  Roy tore through the remaining two raiders with his sword, sending them running for the exit, leaving trails of blood behind them.

  The fire door burst open, and even more Raiders poured through it. Skeeter was back, clearly having chugged an elixir at record speed to heal his wounds. He looked just as pissed as if the wound were still fresh.

  More projectiles. Roy barely dodged a javelin, and a razor-blade football went into the basketball game’s hoop, causing it to spit out a few tokens.

  They quickly took cover behind a huge four-player light-gun game.

  “What now?” Tex asked.

  “Light more dynamite,” said Roy. “They’re all bunched up together.”

  Tex lined up the fuses and moved his lighter along them in sequence. Roy grabbed one and threw it, bouncing it off the ear of another automaton raccoon.

  Samantha had led a group of Raiders to the unlit bowling alley, where her theme would be more effective. She leapt across the lanes while her pursuers slipped and slid. Roy threw another stick over there when he was sure she was clear of the blast radius.

  The two blasts shook the building.

  Kyle was thrown toward them, covered in plaster dust but immune to the explosion he didn’t look at. “Hey, give me one of those. My theme’s perfect for it.”

  Tex obliged, and Kyle hurled it with an underarm swing, taking out a support column and a bunch of Raiders who stood nearby. “Yes. That’s it. That’s real action hero stuff.”

  “Hey,” said Tex, still cradling an armful of dynamite. “Throw the rest of these already. Before they blow up in our faces.”

  They each grabbed a stick and let loose. Bastion’s went the furthest, bolstered by his perfectly matched costume. Kyle's throw was good, too. Roy was fairly proud of his own effort, considering he was relying on pure physical power instead of theming.

  “Duck!” shouted Bastion.

  A stick of dynamite sailed overhead, speared by a javelin. It looked ready to explode at any moment, but it kept going—out of the arcade and toward the prize cage.

  Chunks of plaster began falling from the ceiling. Beams groaned as the building started to come apart.

  “Exit’s clear,” shouted Tex. “Go go go!”

  Roy peered past the cabinet. Tex was right. Beyond the rubble and raider remains, the door stood empty. Maybe fire exits got a magical boost that kept them intact.

  He looked back at the prize cage, which now had a hole blasted in it.

  The exit could stay standing a little longer.

  “I’m going back for the car,” said Roy.

  “Awesome,” said Kyle.

  “I get the first ride on it once we’re out of here,” said Samantha.

  Bastion scowled. “Roy, you’re going to get killed in there.”

  “Nah. I’ll live.”

  Roy took off, navigating around upturned arcade machines and chunks of ceiling, stepping over the raiders near the collapsed front entrance. One of them was still groaning on the ground.

  The car was sitting right there, and the dynamite had even opened its box for him. Bastion didn’t know what he was talking about.

  He started climbing the tiers, all the way up to the grand prize. Resonance surged in his muscles, making it easy. He gave a passing thought to why this action specifically worked with his theme. Something about questing after the holy grail, maybe?

  Reaching out a hand, he grasped it.

  It was his.

  Rumble.

  The shock nearly made him lose his grip. Roy looked down. The whole wall had collapsed, sealing up the second exit. The remaining lights went out.

  The ceiling shuddered above him.

  Roy grabbed the car and pulled, sliding it off its shelf, then took the controller in one hand. He would not allow Bastion to be right about this.

  Fumbling in the dark, he pressed buttons at random until the RC car whirred to life. It was beautiful, lit from below in neon green, with bright orange-white headlights and flames shooting from its exhaust.

  That solved two problems.

  First, he could see what he was doing now—well enough to grab a stick of dynamite from the middle tier.

  Second, he could use the flames to light it.

  The rest was just a matter of timing and panache.

  He sat on the RC Revus Bandit, waited until the dynamite’s fuse burned down to the smallest sliver, threw it toward the cage, and gunned it.

  The engine roared to life, and the car rumbled beneath him as he surged toward the cage wall, just in time for the dynamite to blast out its base and send it tumbling forward.

  He drove over it, using the mesh as a makeshift ramp, up and out of the prize room and over the rubble, landing at the arcade entrance without losing any speed.

  The ceiling beams groaned louder, wrenching apart. It looked like that prize had been the final thing keeping the place standing.

  Now the roof came down in sheets, but the RC Bandit was shockingly fast. Rubble piles and machines blurred around him, becoming streaks of color as he shot past. There was no time to think about steering, but he didn’t need to think. Every twist of the wheel was instinctive, his reaction time instant.

  The exit door started collapsing as he reached it, but he was riding high on so much resonance that he ducked under the debris in a fraction of a second. Lying flat against the car, he shot through the gap like a bobsledder.

  Outside, he skidded around in a spray of blue sparks, popping a wheelie and doing donuts.

  Bastion should know better by now.

  There was nothing he couldn’t do.