Max did his best to stay calm, but that was becoming increasingly difficult. He was completely trapped, he couldn’t see, and he had probably just k-

 

He stopped…“No… Not now.” Max said to himself with tears in his eyes

 

And it was noticeably hard to breathe. But still, he did his best to stay calm.

 

He was trapped in a sort of pocket, for some reason the rubble and concrete had collapsed, but none had hit him, instead, it had all landed beside him creating this little clear space. It was big enough to stand in, but not much room for pacing, which was too bad because Max was quite fond of pacing when he was thinking.

 

“Don’t yell for help” He told himself, “There’s no point, there’s no one out there”

 

Though there was a small part of him that wasn’t entirely sure about that.

 

From what he could feel, the rubble was weaker behind him, and there were a couple of spaces that felt like maybe he could fit through, yet he was hesitant, he couldn’t see anything, and he might end up just getting lost considering he had no idea which way to go... But he had to do something. Slowly he looked to the spot where the exit was and finally decided. If he was going to survive, he was going to have to do it himself…Just him.

 

“… Ok then… Let’s do this”

 

And with that, he started to fumble his way out of the little nook.

 

                                                                          --------------------------------------

 

“Heads up!!” Isaac yelled

 

Chase snapped his head around but it was too late. Somehow he had managed to sneak up and used the side of the small clearing made up of some of the bigger pieces and

 

“ARGH!” Chase grunted as he was slammed into a concrete wall piece by the stronger teen, Chase drew his claws and aimed them straight for Isaac’s head, but Isaac saw it coming and grabbed it in a bone-crushing grip, twisting it the wrong way. Lightning-fast Chase jammed his knee into Isaac’s stomach as hard as he could, causing Isaac to release Chase and stumble back.

 

Chase didn’t take advantage just yet, mostly because he had the greatest disadvantage.

 

“WOW!” Isaac laughed righting himself but making no move toward Chase. “This place is cool right?”

 

Chase said nothing, he only glared at him.

 

“Ok so maybe not so much for you” Isaac chuckled looking at Chase’s arm, or lack of one, while taking off his mask “You look like crap…But in general! It’s created this little maze of really big pieces leaving just enough space to get through!”

 

“Oh shut up!” Chase growled swiping five extremely sharp claws at Isaac’s face, missing by only a half inch as he spun behind Chase to attack. But Chase had expected that.

 

“Laaaammmeee-ACK!” Isaac yelped as he was kicked into the same spot Chase was only a couple of seconds ago.

 

Chase wasted no time swinging around and plunging his claws straight toward Isaac’s chest.

 

Mistake, he was too unbalanced.

 

Isaac knocked this hand off course with his own, causing Chase to dent the concrete beside his head, and slammed his fist into the bottom of Chase’s head in an uppercut, and was about to land one more blow to his head when something stopped both of them.

 

The sound of an explosion rocked and echoed throughout the rubble!

 

Both Isaac’s and Chase’s head snapped toward the source of the noise, it was muffled, but close. Both looked at each other, but Chase was the first to react. Though unbalanced, he kicked Isaac as hard as he could, slid his mask over his face, and dived through the small exit created by two pieces of concrete as the space behind him collapsed.

 

That was a bomb, he was sure of it.

 

As quickly as he could he squeezed and maneuvered his way through rubble, rebar and concrete slabs toward the source of an ever louder struggle. Man, he hated this, he much preferred space to run, not the twists and turns of this maze.

 

But finally, he reached the spot. It was like a wall of concrete balancing on top of each other, creating little spaces between them, and without thinking twice, and without skipping a beat, Chase dove through the biggest space.

 

                                                                          --------------------------------------

 

BOOM!!!

 

“AAGGHH!!!” Max yelled as he was thrown back by the surprising force of the blast. There was suddenly light, a lot of lights, and although he couldn’t see the faces behind them on account of being in the dark for as long as he had been, he had a pretty good idea that they weren’t there to save him

 

They had blown a hole in the opposite side of the wall that he was fumbling in, thank goodness, causing him to be slammed into the side of the concrete that now started to shake.

 

“Asset contained!” One of the men yelled, he was pretty sure that he was aiming a gun, but before he could even stand up on his own he was pulled to his feet and yanked through the new space by one of the men.

 

“Proceed!” He demanded shoving Max ahead. He was shoved through the maze of the collapsed building, its path’s now made much bigger by the explosions.

 

“Ok, Ok!” Max retorted as he was once more shoved forward,

 

Eventually, they came to what Max figured was the end of the blast radius, it was much bigger than Max expected, and at that end, they came to a tunnel, it was long, and it looked like it went on for a while.

 

“Proceed” One of the men instructed gabbing his arm and forcing him forward with him

 

There were six of them in total, but now that max was starting to be able to see, thanks to the lights on their heads, he started to notice something strange. The eyes, they were glowing.

 

Suddenly it hit Max, and considering what else had happened today this wasn’t that strange, they were mechanical!

 

“Robots?!” Max exclaimed in shock as he struggled to escape its grip. Yeah, he knew how stupid and silly that must have sounded, to just suddenly exclaim ‘ROBOTS!’ out loud like he was in some really bad 60’s movie, but this wasn’t like that… Because there were actual robots dragging him down a dark and mysterious tunnel.

 

“Oh come on!!” He yelled struggling to break free of its impossible grip, and he got his wish.

 

It threw him to the wall with a lot of force

 

“Aaugh!” He yelped as he hit the wall, it was concrete.

 

“You will remain quiet” The robot that held him demanded as it aimed its other hand at him, a hand that Max soon figured out was a gun… a big gun.

 

“Do we have you-“ It started, Max was pretty sure it was about to say cooperation, but something made its head turn

 

BANG!!!

 

Every head, including Max’s, turned toward the source of the blast that everyone felt. One of the bots had blown, and judging by the silhouetted figure standing in front of the flames, it wasn’t an accident.

 

“I was wondering when I was going to see you guys,” The figure said

 

“Stand down,” Every robot said in unison aiming their weapons at him.

 

The figure sighed as the fire behind him died, “I’ve had a pretty crummy day, so you have like…” He paused considering something “Three seconds to stop and just power dow-“

 

Every single one fired its gun, it was extremely loud, especially in a concrete tunnel, the sound was penetrating and invading Max’s ears, and he was not staying put. As fast as he could he stumbled up and took off down the tunnel, fast as he could, down the tunnel, toward the light…Except there was a slight problem… There was no light at the end of the tunnel, it was just pitch black all the way down, just black, but still, he ran

 

Then it was quiet, and he didn’t know why, but that fact made him freeze in his tracks. All firing just stopped.

 

Almost numb to fear at this point, he turned around, honestly not knowing what to expect. He saw all the bots, they were standing, but just frozen. Then slowly, all at once, they fell backward.

 

“What the…” Max whispered

 

“Hey”

 

“Holy- What the!” Max flipped out, spinning around to the source of the voice.

 

“Look its ok, I’m here to help” The masked figure in front of him huffed, he was bent over and breathing heavily, obviously out of breath… And, as Max suddenly noticed, he was missing an arm.

 

Now Max was about to say something, though he had no idea what, but the figure in front of him beat him to it

 

“Look I’m sure you’re extremely confused and have no idea what’s happening, but you're just gonna have to trust me, I’m here to help you, and if you wanna live, we have to go now.” The figure said, he didn’t sound like an adult

 

“Uhh…” Max stuttered

 

“Great let’s go!” He suddenly said grabbing Max’s arm taking off down the tunnel, he was surprisingly fast

 

“Hey!” Max yelled now just really annoyed, he was so sick of being yanked all over the place “Slow down!!”

 

But he never slowed, which was really annoying to Max, until he started to realize that there was someone behind them, a little ways, but still.

 

And suddenly they stopped

 

                                                                          --------------------------------------

 

Chase stopped as fast as he could, just nearly avoiding slamming into the dead end of the tunnel.

 

The world stopped as he considered this… It couldn’t just end the D-1’s had to come from somewhere… Wait! They were underground! Duh!

 

And sure enough he looked up, and through the cracks in his mask’s lenses could see light, really far up there.

 

“Right,” Chase thought “one hundred fifty feet underground” Annoyed he looked around

 

“And no ladder!” He exclaimed this time out loud.

 

The Kid eyes grew, “What!?” He exclaimed looking up coming to the same conclusion that Chase did.

 

Chase looked down the tunnel, Isaac was approaching, fast.

 

“Grab on!!” he yelled throwing the kids arms around his neck with his one arm. This was going to be hard.

 

“Wait, what!?!” He exclaimed, but it was too late, Chase had already jumped. The kid grabbed on for dear life.

 

As fast as he could he dug his toe claws in and rebounded to the other side of the shaft, then dug his claws in there and rebounded, repeat, repeat, repeat, you get the idea.

 

“Are you insane?” The kid yelled

 

Chase paid no attention, they were getting closer, closer to the exit!

 

“Almost there!” Chase exclaimed seeing the hole of light getting bigger. He made one last powerful jump! He had never been so happy to end up behind a restaurant in his life, or he would’ve been happy, had he not felt the kid’s hands separate. The rest happened in slow motion, Chase was rising higher into the air, but the kid was falling, he had a look of absolute terror on his face.

 

                                                                          --------------------------------------

 

He was falling, he was going to die.

 

Max fell, seemingly in slow motion, as he watched the person he had been clinging to for dear life exit the hole, he was falling into it. Below him, he knew, was the other person who, Max assumed, was not there to help him.

 

“AAGH!!” the other guy yelled as Max slammed into him, but fortunately, he still remained on the wall, claws firmly in place. And fortunately, Max was able to take advantage of this, grabbing his ankle as he nearly fell to his death.

 

“Hey!” the other kid (Wait, kid??) Yelled in surprise. But Max didn’t care, from what he could tell he was the bad guy, so he yanked his ankle closer and started to climb

 

“Dang kid! What the heck is wrong with you!!?” The human ladder yelled

 

And that’s when something interesting happened, instinctively the human ladder kicked Max Square in the jaw, and Max fell…

 

But here’s the thing…

 

He wasn’t falling the right way.

 

                                                                          --------------------------------------

 

The kid “flew” out of the drain and into the sky, and without a seconds thought, Chase, with only the arm, jumped up as high as he could and grabbed his foot just before he went out of reach, pulling him down.

 

“Oof!!” Both grunted as they hit the roof of the restaurant, much harder than Chase would’ve liked, especially since he had used Chase as a cushion, but they were ok, still, they had no time for rest.

 

“Get up!” Chase winced, it didn’t take much to make the kid comply

 

They were on top of a one-story restaurant, Waffle House, and still in the city.

 

“We have to go, now!” Chase ordered getting up and surveying their surroundings

 

“Go?!” the kid shot back, “Go where!?”

 

With his one arm, Chase scooped the kid up off the ground,

 

“Really sorry, but hang on!” he yelled as Isaac landed on the roof

 

“What! No!”” The kid tried to protest, but it was too late, Chase had already jumped. “This is so humiliating!!!” He screamed, grabbing on for dear life… again.

 

With the full force of gravity trying to kill him, they landed in the parking lot of the ‘House’ and Chase started running, something the kid was not at all prepared for.

 

He took off at 50 MPH, racing past all the other cars and onto the highway gaining speed fast.

 

“Holy CRAP!! Are you INSANE!!!!” He yelled in terror

 

But Chase paid no attention, he had to keep running