It was a morbid chant but it did the job, the remaining children roared and charged with fervour as the doors shut close behind Scratch, Flick, Pop, and Chip. Flick reached for the elevator panel, assuming that everyone wanted to reach the top floor like they agreed. However before he could press the gold framed sleek button, Chip and Scratch’s hands lunged for the controls and hurriedly mashed their fingers into it instead, with the two of them accidentally rolling over three floors worth of options in the process.

  Flick glared at Chip and Scratch, genuinely taken aback by their urge to do such a petty thing now of all times, he thanked whatever God existed that Pop was different. As he was looking away though, she slid her hand past and pressed the top floor button too, satisfied by the rewarding click it gave in return.

  All at once the elevator stopped. Scratch and Chip had pressed a lot more buttons than they needed to, but all of them were for higher floors than this. Someone had called the elevator, and it was anyone’s guess on whether they would get mowed down in the next second or catch them off guard enough to escape.

  The cables above groaned as the sleek metal box slid itself onto the next floor, it was still moving but only slightly, until it finally suspended itself still. Scratch Chip Flick and Pop all scrambled, deciding amongst themselves in a rapid fashion who would be first to brave the other side. Scratch was pushed first, but quickly receded in replacement by Flick. It made sense on paper, the man with the blowtorch should be enough to scare off any invaders but it was quickly decided against on the odd chance the guy on the other side got in a lucky hit. In the end Chip was chosen to be their shield.

  He pointed his weapon at the slits where the doors met, and gripped the upper hilt part of his blade ready to fire his draconic shell of steel at the first sign of danger. Abruptly they shunted open, being pulled apart by a pair of hands large enough to grab someone like Flick by the waist, revealing the figures of three more soldiers in the process, all of which being indiscernible from one other except for the mammoth of a man that stood centre. Again, Chip pushed into his handle and the room filled with pressure immediately, followed by the huge man in the doorway suddenly vanishing from sight.

  He was flung some ten feet back, sword firmly buried in the small cavity that was now his chest and yet was still standing despite the pooling blood gathering under his feet. The blade was only halfway deep in the centre of his body and for a moment he considered pulling at it with his fingers, but quickly decided against it. Instead, he shot his eyes back up at the elevator door and saw how the ant like people inside flooded out, feeling the anger surge behind his eyes.

  Flick watched the man with a gross combination of awe and terror as his dazed movements slowly faded away to reveal the fury of a creature that wielded pain like a sword. Equally terrified was Chip who, in the past, had seen his engine blade give bombs a run for their money in terms of sheer explosive power. To him it was like seeing a law of reality shattered before his eyes.

  The Soldiers massive hulking body began to lurch forward and charge, however it swung itself right towards a corridor completely unrelated to Chip. It was in that moment that Flick noticed Scratch and Pop missing behind him, only when he followed the warpath of the charging monster did he find the flitting edge of a red cape vanish around a corner. It was just Chip and Flick left in the room facing the other two soldiers, and it was plainly apparent how quickly the gap in power had been closed between them without the security of numbers to protect them.

  One of the soldiers, the only one of the two clad in a business suit instead of the usual tactical gear, pointed the tip of his engine blade at the space between Chip and Flick, scrolling some mechanism on his hilt as he did so.

  A torrent of fire erupted from a small, tennis ball sized, tube welded to the back of the sword and almost immediately grew large enough to encompass the both of them. Flick ducked away to the left, feeling the tapering tongue of heat just barely avoiding him. In a burst of energy he made a mad dash towards the soldier, fusion cutter already shuddering with a steady blaze, poising himself to strike. The well dressed man’s instincts kicked in involuntarily, stabbing lightly at where Flick would be in a perfect manner that in any other circumstance would’ve been a textbook defensive move.

  He failed to recognise Flick’s cutter, nor the nature of the blaze spilling out of it, but quickly realised once Flick lunged towards the attack. In a usual duel, between barbaric weapons such as engine blades, clashing steel against steel in an exchange like this would pose certain death for the attacker. In this case, if Flick was using a proper blade it would only take the soldier a slight movement to parry him and completely expose the tender midsection he’d need to end the fight. However, Flick’s weapon was anything but proper.

  He moved his body just slightly, enough to avoid the soldiers stab but not too far to put distance between them. His fusion cutters flame melded with the tip of the soldiers blade, completely ignoring its presence and scraping itself down the sword towards the man’s body. As Flick poured strength into his arms to pull them taught and cleave through the man’s torso the soldier suddenly hopped back, realising the danger just in time to avoid anything fatal. Even still, the very edge of the flame caught the fingers of the man as he retreated and singed them to their nerves ends.

  He struggled to keep grip of his sword but eventually managed to remain in control despite the pain keeping his body wringing in sweat. Flick was disappointed that the man caught on so quickly but nevertheless got himself in a much more defensive position. Duelling so often with the SMILE kids made him surprisingly aware of the fight in front of him, and even more aware of how to utilise his fusion cutter. It had become an extension of him, and moving it was as easy as moving a finger. In some way or another he had become better suited to combat, a thing he would never have considered an option for himself just a week ago.

  His fusion cutter whirred still, the tremendous heat slowly filtering out of one end until it eventually became stone cold. Flick forgot to reload.

  The soldier twitched, some alien signal in his body telling him to strike, and suddenly the full length of his engine blade swung itself towards Flick’s side. He moved his cutter in the way of the blade, trying to diminish the force of the attack with the handlebar-esque trigger.

  It worked, to a degree, in preventing his death but the swing was just too heavy for Flick to deflect easily, whilst the blade bounced off his handle it still managed to slice relatively deep into the muscle of his arm.

  In terms of a trade it wasn’t a bad exchange, but the cut still burned. Flick felt the urge to grab his arm in pain but refused to relent, turning on his heel and diving over a nearby cubicle still cluttered with paperwork and knick-knacks. He thumped the ground hard only barely sticking the landing, but it didn’t matter, his hand dived into the pockets on his side and scrambled to find the smooth milky grey fuel for his weapon.

  The top half of the cubicle flew off its hinges in a fit of blind fury as the soldier sliced through its thin walls with ease. Flick jumped up the moment his defence was obliterated, a fuel rod in the same hand as his fusion cutter. He didn’t have time to exchange the fuel between his hands and there it sat taunting him just inches away from being reloaded, prevented by it being in such an uncomfortable position.

  The man stabbed once more at Flick, who yet again slipped narrowly to the side with both the adrenaline from pain and fear pushing his reflexes to the limit.

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  The soldier anticipated this however, as the second Flick was clear of the sharpened edge of his blade he immediately twisted it on its axel and pointed back at Flick. Now only the small tube stared at him, and a flash flood of hellfire was soon to follow.

  Flick didn’t know what to do, there was nothing he could do against something like this. He more than anyone knew how undefeatable fire was, how it bore through anything that did provide complete unparalleled cover. In a moment of pure human fear, the death throes of someone who knew their demise soon approaching, Flick put his hand over the tube’s nozzle.

  Flick was a cutter. His job, currently, was to cut up carbon ice and deliver it to the welcoming arms of Pillar seven. Every aspect about his work attire was designed around this job; a ladybug for heat retention, a tinted helmet to protect his eyes from the lights of the fusion cutter, and even gloves intended to resist the intense heat that turned the fusion cutter into a molten brick of metal that would otherwise be un-wieldable. Gloves that were designed to protect against the heat of the fusion cutter.

  He hadn’t realised it in the moment, nor did the soldier, but Flick had worn his gloves. It had become so routine that even outside of the job whenever he went outside the pillar he made sure to wear them, today was no different.

  The full force of a fireball slammed into Flick’s hand and scattered through the gaps in his fingers and the edges of his palm. A light show of sparks and spewing fire deflected from his hands all around him. Flick, without missing a beat, dropped the fuel rod he was still gripping alongside his cutter. The moment it fell from his grasp he pulled at the ring on his weapon with the knuckle of his thumb, pushing the bottom outwards and revealing the empty chamber inside. As the fuel moved in the stillness of the air Flick slammed his hand down catching it inside his fusion cutter in one smooth motion and pulled the trigger twice, the first to close it and the second to ignite.

  With the pillar of fire revived, he sliced it cleanly between the soldier’s eyes before he could pull his sword away to retreat. His helmet fizzled in a puff of smoke as all its internal mechanisms began failing in an instant, not long after the man’s body collapsed to the ground.

  * * *

  Chip rolled out of the way of the hurricane of fire the moment a glint of red was visible. He tumbled to the right before steadying himself and checking his surroundings, immediately seeing the second soldier of the two bringing his engine blade down onto his head. He brought his own to meet it, keeping it at a slant so as to get rid of any force he could whilst still defending himself.

  However, even doing this didn’t stop the axe head of the man’s engine blade almost breaking him in two, the strength of the swing was unsurmountable the moment it collided with his blade. In his head he swore it would snap in two.

  Luckily it didn’t, the blow deflected into the ground next to Chip carving a groove into the matted carpet the size of a small limb. As Chip stood up he got a better look at who delivered such a huge blow, but was surprised to find it was just a relatively skinny man adorned in a loose-fitting sweater. It was strapped to his chest by the military vest he wore on top of it of course, but didn’t do much to disguise how disproportionately large it was compared to his body.

  They sauntered about each other in circles, gauging each other’s next move. To the soldier Chip was at a vast disadvantage, he recognised the engine blade he wielded and understood that half its use was the ability to fire its tip like a rocket, a tip that was now embedded within a man running far, far away. Chip understood this too, and found it strange how light his sword had suddenly become. He had essentially lost part of own body, and adapting was proving difficult.

  The man stepped forward, probing Chip to react, before poking lightly in his direction. It was just enough to reach Chip but extremely easy to avoid, simply a method to keep the boy on his feet. He was getting impatient, the constant jabs from the man in front of him were summoning an odd tightness in his chest from anticipation that was alien to him.

  He knew he couldn’t just plainly swipe at the air, that would almost certainly spell his doom, but he had to do something. Just then, he noticed as they circled each other that a pillar of marble was quickly approaching behind the man. Just as he crossed the threshold of the column Chip stepped forward, pushing his blade out to stab at his enemy, however just as the soldier came to bat his sword away he stopped and pushed into the handle.

  A roar erupted once more and the air around the man cracked with electricity. All at once his body slammed back into the post, his head jolting off the unrelenting surface of the marble behind it. Chip saw his opportunity and took it, pushing off his back-foot to cut clean at the exposed neck of the soldier in front with as much force his small arms could carry.

  The soldier, stunned by the wave of energy that sent ripples through his being, stepped forward just in time for Chips blade to cross his path. Except, unexpectedly, he effortlessly bent underneath his blade in a hypnotic way that made him appear like his whole body was repelled by it’s existence. He rolled himself underneath while standing in an exotic dance that twirled him onto the other side of the attack, and pointed the spike of his halberd at the point where Chip’s arm met his shoulder.

  The spike flung itself outward mechanically, imbedding itself in Chips shoulder with so much force it pinned him against the wall. He howled out in pain, not entirely realising that he was even attacked in the first place, and instinctively reached for where the stake had stabbed him.

  The man twirled his Halberd about himself, bringing it high up into the sky, holding it only by a single hand’s worth of space and in one clean movement brought it careening down into Chip.

  In an instant there was no movement, silence perforated the room and all its crevices.

  Flick watched his opponent fall to the ground and turned to face Chip on the other side of the room.

  Only to meet a corpse of a small boy, almost severed in two.

  The soldier brought his halberd back to him, wiping off the excess blood on its bladed edge and turned towards Flick. He brought the axe up, positioning it in a war pose and prepared himself for whatever stance his new opponent was about to take. Oddly enough however, the man in front of him stood completely unguarded, in fact he wasn’t even looking in his direction. He took a step closer and finally Flick looked up to meet his eyes, provoking a grin from the battle starved soldier.

  Flick walked forward.

  He was still unguarded, yet his fusion cutter burned as bright as it ever had. The soldier glanced at his enemies posture, anything that could give him any hint of his intention, but found nothing of use.

  Finally, the two were within range of one another. He saw this, tensed his halberd, and tried to initiate a saunter not dissimilar to the one he used with Chip prior.

  Flick, however, wasn’t in the mood.

  He kept walking forward, still completely unguarded and still well within the Soldiers range. Instantly the spike of the halberd lunged itself towards his torso, just as quickly Flick stepped to the side of it with ease. He tensed his wrist and whipped it forward, the flame of his cutter burning the tendons in the man’s arm, turning them into useless char.

  The halberd fell to the floor haphazardly. As its steel clunkily came still on the carpet Flick moved again this time more dynamically. He hopped to his right slicing at the other arm in the process, faster than even he could recognise. Then, the left leg burned at the man’s thigh followed by the right calf.

  Before the soldier could react he was already pushed up against the giant paned window at the back of the room, with Flicks arm forcefully pressing against his throat. He choked out some monstrous scream of pain as the burning nerves started to settle in his mind, just as Flick brought up his fusion cutter one last time.

  He slammed it square into the chest the soldier and finally made some kind of noise. Some visceral scream of anger and frustration tore through Flick’s throat as he pushed the fusion cutter further into the man’s chest. The flame screamed and squealed, struggling against being so close to another object, however it wasn’t long before the noise subsided. By the time it did, only a gaping hole remained in the soldiers chest, with the flame having bore straight through his body and melting the glass behind him. A stream of smoke escaped through his mask.

  Flick didn’t feel any different though, he still felt angry, still frustrated, still overcome with grief. It had happened again.

  Chip was dead.