Madeline was panting and heaving as she sprinted down the old rotting hallway. She could only barely hear the monster-ghost thingy chasing her over the sound of the cramp in her side yelling at her to stop. She was one again the bait.
Screw you Roma, I swear if I make it out of this alive- oh crap, what was that noise-
Maddie looked around desperately seeking the source of the unsettling groaning noise that seemed to be coming from beneath her feet.
Oh no, if it happens again, why does this always happen to me!
It was indeed as she has suspected, the sound of the floor giving way. it really should not have been all that much of a surprise considering the alarming regularity in which seemingly stable floors gave collapse beneath her feet, but Maddie refused to become adjusted to the occurrence. It would mean she accepted the fact that she was forever doomed to having floors fall out from under her. Maddie was not one to give in that easily.
Bracing herself Maddie speed around a corner only to smack hard into a wall. She cursed the building. The old house that they had been call to investigate was a match for the Winchester Mansion in America, complete with tiny rooms within rooms, trapdoors, staircases that went nowhere, and apparently fake corners. The whole mansion was in a state of disrepair, the walls were rotting, the wall paper was peeling. There was no electric lighting and Maddie's candle had long since been blown out during the desperate chase. However it now appeared that the chase had ended and she had been caught.
God, If I die to a giant freaking centipede made out of human corpses, I hope Kiku goes with me, traitor! Why did he have to offer me up for bait!
Maddie watched as the Monster-Ghost thingy dragged itself towards her at a very alarming speed. She reflected on how, after being trained since birth, learning hundreds of spells, meeting her hero and making a hunting team with her, defeating hundreds of ghosts and monsters (including a FREAKING MINOTAUR), and finding and busting the secret society of necromancy, she was about to be take down by A. FREAKING. WEAK. SECOND-RATE. CENTIPEDE. MONSTER! All because she had lost her way in the maze of a house. She was supposed to have lead the thing back to the rest of her team where they had set a devil's trap for the thing, but she had gone up one flight of stairs too many and ended up god know where. To make matters worse, both magic and electricity had trouble working here, so she had no way to get in touch with the rest of her team, let alone fight back efficiently. She stood up and faced the thing. It spotted her motion.
Okay Mads, let's make this last stand awesome.
Madeline drew the sword strapped to her back. It was a broadsword, with a simple hilt but had a elegantly carved pommel and wickedly sharp blade. Roma called her old fashioned for wearing it, and Arthur had questioned how it was even practical as it was too large to be sheathed at her side and had to be carried on her back, unlike Kiku's slender traditional blade. But it was her sword, a family heirloom that had been given to her and was as light as a feather in her hands. Her family was the blood of dragon slayers, so the sword had to be huge, and shape to penetrate the beast's hides. So what if the sword was as big as her, and dragon slaying had been outlawed for centuries. Maddie would not give up the sword for the world itself.
The centipede pounced, hurtling towards her at a speed no natural creature of it's side could reach, Maddie braced herself.
It was at that exact moment the floor gave out.
For a moment Maddie was weightless in a halo of splintering wood. Time seemed to slow down as she and the monster hung mid-way between the upper-floor and the well lit room below. Then time snapped back making everything move faster than should have been possible as Maddie found herself landing not on hard oak and possibly plummeting down several more floors, but landing on a bony flesh bag instead. Needless to say, this was only slightly more comfortable. But what was by far more astonishing was that the Ghost-Monster thingy had landed in the center of a well placed devil's trap.
Around the trap and monster were Kiku and Arthur, both open-mouthed and staring. Looking down, she had landed on the third member of their team, her previous hero and best friend, Lovina Vargas (nicknamed Roma).
"Well, that was convenient..." Maddie said, slightly apologetically, in her perpetually soft, shy voice.