To Butterfly: Oh, it gets better…
To Cesar848: That is certainly a possibility!
To Lyger 0: Considering how many times this particular building has been built and rebuilt since 1232, most likely it was just built over the hidden passageway without anyone realizing.
To yellow 14: This would be the final confrontation.
To StarDaPanda225: Those questions get answered in roughly the first and last paragraphs…
"Anne!" Iron Maiden's heart stopped, her eyes widening in shock on seeing the scene in the torch-lit room. Without another thought she charged around the corner into the room, her shoulder slamming into the doorframe with a rending screech. The two sets of eyes in the room immediately turned toward her.
"Help me!" screamed Anne, fear plain in her voice, straining desperately against the ropes binding her to the stake protruding from the centre of the woodpile. But for as much as she struggled, her arms remained tied fast.
Iron Maiden lunged toward the wooden pyre, her eyes fixed on her still-alive flatmate. The enormous, spread out pile of wood crunched under her feet. Before she could get beyond the outermost edge of the pile, however, her attention was drawn to the Ripper, who had raised a bone-handled knife. The same knife that had haunted her nightmares for the last week. "You will not interfere!" the Ripper shouted in a manic fury, flickering torch light dancing across his wild eyes. "The sacrifice must be offered! I have come too far to fail now!"
"The police are en route to your location," La Paonne Deux reported briskly over the communicator. "I'm sending you a senti-guard, but it won't be there for a while."
Iron Maiden's eyes widened in terror on catching sight of the man who had lived in her dreams for a week. His tangled, greasy hair spread out in a wild mane around his head. The clothing he wore looked not to have been changed in days – he had even worn that same shirt when he assaulted her! She could already smell his rank stench, despite the filtration system in her helmet that should have blocked it. Her limbs refused to move. She could only stare in horror at her attacker as he strode toward her. All her earlier confidence evaporated in the face of the dead look in his eyes. He was going to finish the job on her!
"Barkk, Ears back!" There was movement from behind Iron Maiden. Light flashed behind her, and the Hound leapt out, landing between her and the Ripper. "Time for round two, asshole!" he shouted, leash cracking in the air overhead like a whip. "This time there's no way in hell I'm leaving the job unfinished! Doggedness!"
Iron Maiden shook her head, pushing back the fear and panic that had gripped her on seeing the Ripper. Taking a deep breath, she tried to still her racing heart. She wasn't alone; she had her partner with her. She could do this.
"No!" the Ripper bellowed, his voice wild with derangement, sidestepping to avoid the lashing leash. "You can't be here already! I'm not ready yet." He grabbed his hair and tugged. "This is all wrong! It's happening too soon! I haven't completed the ceremony!"
The Hound dove at him, and the Ripper threw his torch at the pyre before stretching out his knife. The torch landed on the edge of the wood, which began to smoke and burn as the flames caught in the kindling. Iron Maiden gasped as the fire began to spread, expanding along the periphery of the pyre, surrounding the larger logs, Anne still tied up in the centre. Thick black smoke billowed up and flooded the room. Anne screamed again, coughing. Iron Maiden's attention was torn between her flatmate, still tied to a pole in the centre of the now-flaming pyre, and her partner. The Hound ran headlong into the knife, which turned aside on his miraculous suit, and drove his fist into the Ripper's gut, eliciting a pained grunt. Iron Maiden turned her attention back to Anne.
"Hold on!" she called, wading through the thigh-deep pile of wood as the fire spread all around her. "Send fire also!" she shouted into the communicator. The heat from the flames worked its way through her suit; sweat started dripping down her back and legs.
"Already done!" la Paonne Deux assured her, her voice calm and soothing. "You can do this, sweetie."
Iron Maiden gave a jerky nod inside her helmet. Desperately she shifted through all the features on her suit, looking for one that could put out the fire, but nothing! Anne's screaming took on a higher pitch as the flames crept ever closer, crackling and popping as the green wood slowly burned only a couple metres from her legs. Smoke billowed, thick and black, hanging by the ceiling and descending to fill the room. Out of options, Iron Maiden pushed herself forward, holding her arms in front of her and pouring out a continuous stream of energy from both cannons to cut a path through the wood. The stone ceiling over her head was too low for her to employ her jetpack. The flames were mounting higher and higher, all around her.
The wood beneath Iron Maiden's feet shifted, as though moved from below. A green sprout appeared through the wood and instantly caught fire. A sapling appeared as if bursting from the ground and spread its branches before it could catch on fire. One branch of the sapling whipped out and pushed the wood pile apart in front of her. Iron Maiden quickly stepped into the cleared space before the sapling ignited, the water within it hissing as it boiled.
The Ripper and the Hound were locked in a furious battle on the far side of the room, dancing around on the edge of the pyre, flames licking at their ankles. The Hound tangled the Ripper up in his leash and threw him up to crash into the ceiling with a rumble, unleashing a spray of dust that filled the room, choking the others and turning the flames to different colours. The Hound released the Ripper, who tumbled down on his back onto the edge of the fire. He regained his feet almost immediately, but Iron Maiden could see flames licking across the back of his shirt and pants. The ends of his hair released acrid smoke. He leapt out of the fire, knife held in one hand, a crazed look in his eyes, and sprang at the Hound's head. The Hound ducked, sending the Ripper caroming over his back and into the stone wall. The Ripper shook his head once and threw his knife at the Hound's head. However, the Hound flicked his leash out and deflected the knife away, ricocheting off the ceiling before the hilt embedded into the side wall. A tree root protruded from the ground beneath the Ripper's feet, and he stumbled over it before falling to his knees.
Iron Maiden pushed further into the fire, trying to get ahead of the line of flames working its way steadily through the pyre from the outside toward where Anne was still trapped. Smoke had nearly filled the room; Iron Maiden shifted to her infrared view only to be overwhelmed by the heat coming off the flames. Anne was barely visible through the smoke, still struggling desperately to free herself from the rope binding her arms behind her back. The knots were so tight, however, that she only succeeded in turning herself to the side. Iron Maiden narrowed her eyes and adjusted the settings on her arm cannon. "Don't move!" she bellowed, raising her arm and aiming carefully. Anne stilled instantly, and a thin beam of energy cut cleanly through the rope tying Anne's wrists, which unravelled and fell to the ground.
She couldn't watch what happened next, however, as an anguished scream reverberated through the room from where the Hound was still locked in battle against the Ripper.
His hair by this time entirely engulfed, his skin charred black, fuelled by desperation, the Ripper lunged at the Hound, knocking him to the ground and landing atop him. "If I'm going, I'm at least taking you with me, you son of a bitch!" the Ripper shrieked, grabbing the Hound around the throat, the burnt flesh peeling away from his fingers to reveal the bones and tendons beneath.
"Like hell you are!" screamed Iron Maiden, shooting her grappling hook at him, catching it around his torso, and retracting it, pulling him off of the Hound. A tree branch shot out of the ground at the Ripper's feet and tripped him. He stumbled, and Iron Maiden swung him back around to slam into the wall. The Ripper let out a guttural yell as the blade of his own knife emerged from his chest, blood blossoming from the spot and dripping down over his burning shirt, trying and failing to extinguish the flames. A pair of tree roots pushed their way through the undressed stone wall and wrapped around the Ripper's outstretched arms, pinning him in place. His head haloed by his own burning hair, his mouth opened in a final anguished scream as another root looped around his neck and pulled tight.
"What the hell is going on here!?" the Hound wheezed, covering his mouth with his arm and coughing weakly against the smoke that had by now almost entirely filled the room. He spun his leash in a tight circle, pushing the flames and smoke away from himself.
Iron Maiden shook her head and turned, finally able to see the centre of the room where Anne had been. Her jaw dropped.
Anne stood where she had been tied to the post, but was now wreathed in a thicket of green vines which continued to sprout and grow even as the flames licked at their outer edge. As Iron Maiden watched, the vines spread and shifted to form a tiny opening, and Anne ran out of their midst just as the vines succumbed to the fire. Iron Maiden shot her grappling hook, caught it around Anne's chest right below her armpits, and pulled her out of the fire to catch her, holding her tightly in her arms. Throwing her over her shoulder, she carried Anne out of the room with the Hound bringing up the rear, still using his leash as a fan to hold the fire and smoke at bay behind them.
"We need to put out the fire!" shouted the Hound, pulling the rough stone door shut once they were all out of the room. "Otherwise, the whole building could go! But without water, our only bet is to cut off the oxygen."
"I don't have foam or anything like that to seal it," Iron Maiden groaned, setting Anne on her feet.
"I–I think I can do something," gasped Anne. She closed her eyes and flexed her fingers, and vines began growing out of the bare earth in front of the door, growing thick and fast and filling in all the cracks around the doorframe.
Iron Maiden examined the door closely with her helmet's built-in scanners, looking for any trace of air leaking into the room beyond, but found nothing. With a quick calculation she announced, "It should burn itself out in a few hours from lack of oxygen, unless it burns through all its fuel sooner." She let out a breath and finally turned to take a closer look at Anne.
She still wore the same clothes from the day before, the tips of her hair were singed, and she was covered in soot, but miraculously she appeared to be in one piece. Iron Maiden threw her arms around her and hugged her tightly. "I was so worried about you, girl! You were gone more than a day!"
Anne hesitantly patted Iron Maiden's back. "Um… I'm sorry but… do I know you?"
Iron Maiden laughed in relief, held Anne out at arm's length, and opened her helmet. "It's me!"
Anne threw her arms around her neck and sobbed with joy. "I should have guessed! I thought I would never escape that room, but it turns out I had nothing to worry about; my sister's a savage superhero!" She sighed as Bri squeezed her more tightly. "You've no idea how glad I am to see you, girl," she whispered.
"Likewise," Bri whispered back, finally allowing herself to shed the tears she had been holding back for more than 24 hours. "I thought I'd never see you again. You're okay?"
Anne nodded jerkily. "Yeah." She was quiet. "He… actually took pains not to hurt me – said the ritual required an 'unblemished sacrifice' or some such nonsense." She fell silent and sniffled before clearing her throat and letting go of Bri. "So I suppose this was your 'special project'?" she asked, gesturing to the suit. "Or was it him?" She jerked her head in the Hound's direction, raising an eyebrow suggestively. "When you said your fella would be dressed as a dog for Halloween, I didn't know you meant it quite so literally!"
The Hound arched an eyebrow at the two before he de-transformed in a flash of light and held out his hand to Anne. "Felix," he introduced himself, shaking her hand firmly. "I'm glad to meet you… again."
Bri rolled her eyes. "The Hound is my friend," she explained. "He's the one who found me after I was attacked and who brought me home. And he helped me find you."
"So what the bloody hell happened in there?" Felix demanded, cocking his head in confusion.
"I–I'm not sure," admitted Anne, frowning. "I'm pretty sure he was trying to carry out some ritual to sacrifice me to Danu so he would get superpowers – or at least I think that's what he was saying. He was speaking the ritual in horribly-inflected Celtic, so I could hardly tell what he was trying to say half the time."
"Huh," observed Felix. "I guess it didn't exactly work out for him."
"Not so much," Anne agreed, shaking her head.
"But what was with the plants in there?" Bri asked. "Was that you?"
"I… think so?" Anne answered, furrowing her brows. "I mean, something must've happened during his ritual. It's like I can hear them speaking to me somehow now, but I can't really explain it…"
Felix shook his head ruefully. "How is this not the craziest thing I've ever heard?"
