They say your memory can permanently tie a smell to a trauma. I’m about to find out if my brain survives long enough to hate what’s coming next.

  The Garbodor isn’t just blocking the exit: it’s become the hallway, every inch of wall and ceiling stitched into its flesh, a kind of mural made of misery. In its shadow, the Trubbish go silent, rolling flat against the ground like they’re hoping to play dead and actually mean it this time. The kid I’m propping up stops breathing entirely, lips blue and eyes wide, as the Garbodor’s mouth opens and dumps a sound I didn’t know could exist: a roar so huge it stutters the air, then drops into a wet, bassy burp that nearly knocks me to my knees.

  Then comes the gas. It rolls off the Garbodor in a single, visible wave—the colour of spilled iodine and rotting eggplant, moving fast enough to peel the paint from the pipes overhead. I feel it on my skin before I even get a chance to flinch; it’s like stepping inside a microwave full of old bandages and bleach. Luna yelps, backing up fast, and Beldum throws a pulse at the wall, punching a hole through drywall and venting a little of the fog with it.

  “Puncture it,” I spit, voice barely making it through the haze. “Put holes in it—whatever you got.”

  Beldum doesn’t need a second ask. It cranks up its own internal field, drawing every loose wire, steel bracket, and even the broken railing off the stairs into a humming, shrapnel halo. Garbodor sees it, but it’s got the IQ of a bucket of nails and the emotional intelligence to match. It lifts one sludgy arm and tries to swat Beldum out of the air, but Beldum’s already cycling the debris into a perfect, whirling shield. The first hit splatters against it, sending a wave of needles and rebar into Garbodor’s midsection. The impact is organic and awful: the trash-rot flesh caves in, then rebounds, spraying a dozen Trubbish off like confetti.

  Beldum launches—Take Down, but meaner and faster than any I’ve ever seen. Metal shrieks to Beldum’s body, transforming it into a bullet with a dozen rusted blades. The collision is obscene. The mass of Garbodor shudders as Beldum punches a hole straight through its shoulder, the metal fragments following like angry bees. The Garbodor’s arm, the size of a grown man, just separates and flops to the concrete with a splash of battery-acid ichor.

  For a heartbeat, the Garbodor just… stands there. Then the gas comes even thicker, pouring from every hole Beldum left behind. The air is purple and sticky, and for a second, I can’t see anything at all.

  I clamp my hand on Luna’s scruff and run, dragging the kid behind me. The best we can do is zigzag through the few open spaces, coughing so hard I can barely count my own steps. Luna keeps low, eyes almost shut, feeling out the gaps in the gas. The kid manages a few hops then just collapses, forcing me to drag him the last six feet to the next stairwell.

  Beldum’s thought cuts through the gas like a hammer: "OPEN SPACE." I stagger up the stairs, hauling the kid, Luna wedged against my shin. We burst out onto a landing that must’ve once been a generator room: concrete, steel, and a godawful tangle of wire and old machinery stretching the length of a warehouse. At the far end, there’s a wall-to-wall pile of scrap, the kind of stuff a scavenger might fight a pack of Mightyena for—exhaust pipes, rebar, full engine blocks, some of them rusted together into solid sculpture.

  I jam the kid down behind the first dead generator, then scan for options. The Trubbish that made it up the stairwell are already crawling after us, half-melted and screeching, but the Garbodor is another problem: it’s moving up the stairs slower, but the whole stairwell bows under the weight, concrete hissing as the thing sloughs off clumps of itself like a rolling mudslide.

  Luna’s at my side, claws biting into the floor, eyes wild and shining. "Over there," I tell her, pointing at the heap of scrap. "Fling. Anything you can lift, you hurl it at whatever follows us in." She hesitates, but then something in her face clicks—the old mountain logic, the joy of lobbing rocks at things that pissed her off. She sprints for the pile and starts digging, coming up with a ball joint and a steel washer, then a whole oil filter that she chucks at the nearest Trubbish with a growl.

  The Trubbish swarm, two dozen strong, funnel toward her, but she’s ready this time; the first volley knocks the lead one into a tailspin, the next hits two in a row and leaves a streak of black on the wall. There’s not enough pleasure in it to call it fun, but Luna’s throwing harder now, teeth bared, every muscle in her body working with a kind of furious math.

  I pop Muse’s ball and he lands on top of the generator, blinking at the world like he’s never seen so much metal in one place. “I need you to watch Luna’s back,” I say. “If any Trubbish comes close, you hit it with Water Gun, like this—” I make a sound and a gesture, neither of which conveys anything to a plant with no lips or hands. Muse just stares, then, with absolute confidence, lets out a tiny spray that arcs exactly three centimetres and lands on my shoe.

  I press two fingers to my temple, as if I could will him to understand. “Bigger. More pressure. Like… a hose, but angry.”

  Muse nods, which I realize is a dangerous precedent, but I leave it. I plant myself between the kid and the oncoming wave, Beldum at my shoulder, who’s already spinning up every ferrous particle in the room. The air goes static, the edges of my vision flickering with tiny motes as Beldum draws power from the generator’s old bones.

  The Garbodor hits the top of the stairwell and splits the frame. For a moment it just looms, then bellows again and spits a Sludge Bomb the size of a gym bag straight at my chest. There's no time to dodge—Beldum slams into me from behind and shoves me out of the way, taking the hit full-force. The impact splatters sludge across the generator room, the poison hissing and bubbling as it eats through exposed wiring, dissolves rubber insulation, corrodes the painted surfaces—anything even remotely organic vanishes in seconds. Beldum hovers in the centre of the poison mist, unfazed, the filth just dripping off its shell in slow-motion gobs. It looks almost majestic, if you can get past the fact that the whole air is now solid with toxic mist.

  Then the Trubbish, emboldened by their boss, start hurling their own shots: smaller, but fast, like a hailstorm of rotten tomatoes. Acid blobs smack the concrete, sizzle on the broken tile, paint the world in streaks of purple and green. Luna’s already hunkered behind an engine block, popping up to launch a counter-volley of metal shards and old ball bearings. Her aim is perfect, but there’s just too many of them; they swarm in, bodies layered, screeching in stereo.

  Muse, bless his aquatic heart, does something I wouldn’t have bet on: he climbs to the highest point of the generator, unfurls his lily pad wide, and starts blasting. Not a trickle, not a nervous spray—he’s throwing high-pressure Water Guns like he’s been saving it for this exact moment. The stream slices through the first rank of Trubbish, bowling them over like empty cans. The next wave gets the message and starts to flank, but Muse swings the jet with a precision that makes Beldum glance back in something like professional respect.

  If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  I risk a look at the kid. He’s staring at the oncoming horde, eyes so wide I can count every vein, but he’s not screaming. That’s either a good sign or the last flicker before total collapse. I grab him by the collar and drag him lower, shielding him behind the generator’s mass. “Stay down,” I tell him, “and if you have to puke, do it away from the wires.” He nods, but his teeth are chattering so hard I’m afraid he’ll bite clean through his tongue.

  "I thumb the radio clipped to my collar, the line crackles, and I speak: "Control, do you read?"

  The supervisor's voice comes through, flat but tense: "This is control, go ahead."

  “Sublevel three,” I rasp into the mic, “we have a Garbodor the size of a truck and about a hundred Trubbish. Need evacuation now. Out.”

  There's a pause, then: "Copy. Barricade yourself in—Rangers are being called in for the assist." Static crackles through the line before the voice returns, harder now. "Do not engage. Contain only until backup arrives. Over."

  "Yeah," I mutter, watching the chaos unfold through the observation glass, "like I have a choice." I let the radio drop and focus on the three-ring circus in front of me.

  Muse picks this moment to up his game and starts launching jets of water at the Garbodor directly. The first shot hits the main body, carving a slow groove through the outer shell, but it’s like shooting a garden hose at a landfill. Garbodor soaks it up, the water collecting in pockets that bubble and churn, until it suddenly heaves and launches the whole mess back out—a tidal wave of poison water and garbage slurry.

  I duck, but not fast enough. The leading edge of the spray catches my shoulder, soaks straight through the hoodie, and starts to burn with the kind of pain that doesn't even register as pain. I tear the hoodie over my head in one violent motion, feeling the acid-soaked material catch and pull at my skin. The chemical smell burns my nostrils as I fling the disintegrating garment away, watching it smoke and bubble on the concrete like some dying, toxic creature. The kid catches some on his pantleg and screams, a high, honest panic that makes my ears ring. Luna and Muse both flatten to the floor, but Beldum just absorbs the blast, shuddering once, then resuming its orbit. The only thing that seems to bother it is the extra mass; it adjusts, then resumes whirling shrapnel with a new edge of violence.

  “Keep pressure on it,” I shout to Muse, “but aim for the holes. Force it to leak.” Muse doesn’t answer, just rotates to face the nearest wound in the Garbodor’s flank and lets loose a water jet with enough force to peel paint off a car. The water jets straight into the wound, and for a moment I think he’s just giving it a free rinse. But then the water floods the cavity, and the Garbodor’s arm starts to convulse, chunks of congealed trash sloughing off in sheets. It shudders, then collapses a full third of its body mass in a wet, gelatinous heap.

  The second wave of Trubbish, seeing their god bleed, lose all organization and stampede straight at us—a mass of limbs, teeth, and plastic wrappers. Luna switches from sniper to melee, barrelling into the nearest three with jaws open and claws wide. She wrestles the first Trubbish to the ground, slashing with her claws, then pivots to bite another across the stem. The third is already retreating, oozing a string of apologies in Trubbish-speak, but Luna shreds it anyway, flinging bits of bag into the air like confetti at a parade.

  The burn on my shoulder is getting worse. I grit my teeth, squint through the haze, then grab Muse by the rim of his lily. “Water gun, here—on me, as cold as you can make it.” He doesn’t hesitate. I brace myself, expecting lukewarm or at best a garden variety splash, but Muse delivers a freezing jet that nearly blasts me off my feet and deadens the pain instantly. I gasp, then clamp both hands over the wound, feeling the caustic sting fade to a numb throb. Good enough.

  The kid is out. His head’s lolled back, mouth open, a string of drool pooling down his chin. I check his pulse—he’s alive, barely—but the leg is a horror show, the acid having eaten through the cuff and straight into the soft part behind the knee. I yank one of the cleaner rags from my pocket, wrap it tight, then bark at Muse to hit him with another shot of cold. Muse obliges, and the kid shudders awake, eyes wild, then immediately blacks out again. He’s not going anywhere, even if the Rangers do show up.

  Beldum floats closer, its red eye dimming at the edges. I can feel its exhaustion through the link—something like the taste of copper and static, the knowledge that it’s running on backup and doesn’t know when the next recharge will be. Across the room, the Garbodor is in agony, mass slumping. It tries to rally for one last attack, but Beldum is already moving, pulling every scrap of loose pipe and rebar into a final, brutal spear. It launches the makeshift javelin at the Garbodor’s core, the point punching through the centre mass and pinning it to the wall. The thing lets out one final, gurgling sigh, then deflates in on itself, collapsing into a heap so dense it cracks the floor tiles.

  A few Trubbish remain—maybe a dozen—but they stop fighting, frozen in place. Luna hisses at them, and they scatter, scrambling up the walls and into the ductwork, leaving only the slick residue of their passing behind.

  It’s over. For now. I stagger upright, hauling the kid with me, adrenaline making my vision white out at the edges. Muse flops down, spent, his lily pad wilted and leaking water onto the floor. Beldum slumps, the field gone, eye barely flickering. I shuffle to the wall, prop the kid up again, then sit, knees to my chest, staring at the carnage.

  “Luna,” I say, and she pads over, still trembling with aftershock. I dig a berry from my pocket—miraculous, it survived the hit—and offer it to her. She takes it, more gentle than I expect, and leans into me, fur sticky with the residue of battle. I scratch behind her ears, then collapse, my back to the humming generator, Luna pressed so tight against my ribs I’m not sure where her fur ends and my own wrecked skin starts. The rest of the world is nothing but garbage, noise, and the stink of chlorine from Muse’s last stand.

  For maybe five seconds, there’s only our breathing. Then the stairwell fills with new sound: boots, shouts echoing, the crackle of radios and the low, basso growl of something canine on the stairs. Luna’s ears go flat; my pulse jumps. Help might be good news for the kid, but it’s the worst for me.

  I snap Beldum’s ball from my belt, thumb the recall. Beldum doesn’t resist; it just vanishes, mid-drift, in a red shimmer, the metallic taste of relief lingering in the back of my head. Muse, too spent to so much as gurgle protest, goes quietly in the return beam. I look at Luna and mouth, “Now,” and she’s already halfway to the far door—a side hatch by the floor, the kind of “emergency exit” designed for people not worth remembering.

  I want to bail, but the kid’s leg is deadweight, and if I try to carry him I’ll just end up on the floor again. I make a choice: I lean him against the generator, grab a pipe from the pile, and bash it twice against the metal. It howls like an air raid siren.

  “Help!” I yell, voice hoarse but loud. “I’m hurt! I’m in the generator room!”

  From the stairwell, a voice answers—female, hard-edged, maybe the supervisor or someone higher up. “Don’t move! We’re coming!”

  I’m up and moving before the rescue even makes it through the stairwell. Luna’s already at the hatch, pawing at the bent lever. I slide in next to her, grit my teeth, and throw my full weight on the bar. It gives with a shriek that could wake the dead, and we tumble through into a side corridor, the light harsh and blue and every surface slick with condensation.

  We run. Behind us, the generator room comes alive with voices—at least three, probably four, one barking orders, the others scrambling for the kid. I hear a gasp, then a choked “what the fuck,” and I know they’ve seen the mess I left them: Garbodor pancaked and crucified against the wall, kid half-conscious and bandaged with whatever I could find. I hope they buy the hero routine, at least long enough for me to disappear.

  The hallway is a maze—side doors, pipes, stacks of broken pallets. I squeeze through the first door that isn’t welded shut, drag Luna in behind me, and listen for pursuit. Nothing yet; they’re still counting bodies.

  Emergency lighting turns the world into a sequence of red and blue strobes. I follow the universal arrows—always a safe bet in a public building—and within three flights we’re back to ground level, behind a gutted maintenance room with an exit to the street. I peer through the safety glass: the alley outside is empty, and the sky’s gone flat and bright. I wipe my face, taste something metallic, and hope it’s just blood and not the start of a long, slow unravelling. Luna paces at my heel, jaw set, eyes locked on the shifting shadows of the street.

  “Hold up,” I whisper, and she freezes. I snap her ball from my belt, thumb the switch, and she dissolves in a ripple of red light before she can even whine. I count to three, try to get my breathing under control, then yank the hatch and slip into the alley.

  Just like that, I'm nobody again.

  Another shape drifting through the city's arteries, hands buried deep in pockets, skin still prickling from the chemical dust that burnt through my hoodie. I keep to the shadows, sliding past dumpsters tagged with stories both old and new, their colours bleeding together in the dim light. The alley narrows, then widens, then finally spits me out onto the main thoroughfare like something it couldn't digest.

  I merge with the crowd—head down, shoulders hunched, just another anonymous body in the current. The city doesn't even glance up. Why would it? The only witness to what I've done is probably strapped to a gurney by now, being tended to by professionals who've mastered the art of selective amnesia when it comes to their employer's questionable hiring practices.

  Nobody saw anything. Nobody ever does.