Chapter 13- Breakout
The inside of the ship was coated in blood. There were dead bodies every few feet. Apparently the fiends had massacred the crew when they had gotten out of the shadow realm.
"This doesn't bode well." Matt said.
" 'Doesn't bode well?' Flynn may as well be dead before us!" Keith said. "Look at all the bodies! Do you think there is even the slightest chance that they missed Flynn?"
"Yes, as he is behind metal bars and would probably have enough sense to stay out of their sight. Remember, these fiends don't have particularly good eyesight. They are mostly attracted to the smell of blood, but their senses of smell aren't great shakes either."
"How did you figure all this stuff out?" Drake asked.
"I gathered all of this data last year through observation and recorded it." He slid a PDA out of his pocket. "I keep it all in here. Pretty useful."
"I see." They turned a corner and walked down a staircase.
"Where will Flynn be anyway?" Julie asked.
"He'll probably be somewhere pretty deep down." Matt said, peering through a doorway that had been forcibly opened. "Any ideas to where he is, Bentz?"
"I think he's supposed to be held somewhere near the stern of the ship, on the third sublevel." Bentz said. "There are some stairs here, I think…" He opened a metal door. "Yeah, here's a set of stairs." They walked through the door and down the stairs. The third sublevel of the ship was dark and damp. Water was dripping from the ceiling. Pipes ran exposed on the walls. Several of them had been broken and steam was issuing from them.
"Wow, kinda creepy." Drake said.
"The fiends seem to have destroyed most of it." Keith said. Bentz took a step forward and the floor he stepped on gave. Bentz jumped back as water came splashing up through the hole in the floor.
"Yeah, I would think so." Bentz muttered. Matt stepped around the hole.
"Stay close to the walls. That's where the floor will be stronger." They walked along the walls for the length of the ship, and met a heavy, locked door.
"This has gotta be it." Keith said. "Heavy and very locked."
"How are we going to get in?" Julie asked.
"Oh, come on." Drake said. "Matt's a ninja, he's gotta know a way in." Drake turned to Matt. "Do you?"
"Yeah, of course!" Matt moved closer to the door, pulled out a small silver cylinder and pointed it at the clamp of the first lock. He pressed a button on the side of the barrel and a laser shot out of the tip and melted through the lock. He proceeded to do so with the remaining three and then stored the laser in his cloak. "I'm a high-tech ninja." He said as he did this. Keith stuck his hand in between the doors, pulled them apart, and rushed in.
There was a small bank of cells, three on each side of the little hallway. Flynn was seated in the backmost one. The moment they came in, he jumped up.
"You guys made it!" He said.
"Yeah." Keith said. "I thought you would have been killed by now."
"The fiends never got in here." Flynn said. "Despite them bringing in those stupid dog-things-"
"Shadow hounds." Bentz said.
"You named them?"
"Yeah."
"Okay. They brought those Shadow Hound things in, and then these other things that looked kind of like Despair and Fear from the Dark…what did you call those?"
"Shadows." Matt said, and sliced the lock with his laser. Flynn stepped out of the cell.
"So…what's been going on outside of this little cellblock?" He asked.
They all took turns telling him what had been going on outside, aided in part by each other. Flynn didn't interrupt. After they had finished, he sat back, scratched his chin, and though for a moment. Then he spoke.
"Okay, so what are we going to do now?" He asked.
"Well, that's open to debate." Matt said. "What should we do know?"
"That's difficult to say." Keith said. "We have no information if they've gone to the mainland yet."
"Let's assume they have." Flynn said.
"That would be rational." Matt said. There were a few scraping sounds above them.
"I think the fiends have found us." Drake said.
"Okay then, we have to plan quick. Let's go with that and assume that the fiends have gotten to the mainland." Matt said.
"That would mean that they probably have started stealing the souls of the world by now." Julie said.
"Do you think that they'll use the Vault again?" Drake said. "I left the key in the Shadow Realm; I never took it out of the door." The scraping got louder.
"Before I forget, Flynn…" Matt withdrew Flynn's rifle from his cloak. "You'll probably need this."
"Yeah." Flynn took the rifle and slung the rifle over his shoulder. "I probably will, since it sounds like they've sent an entire legion after us."
"Quickly!" Bentz said. "What are we going to do? The things are coming down the hall."
"Everyone agree that we need to go for the vault?" Matt said.
"Yeah." Everyone said in semi-unison.
"Good." Matt pulled out a kunai. "Now let's blow this peanut stand."
"I like peanuts…" Drake said.
"Haha." Julie said. "Very funny." She locked and loaded her rifle. Three more weapons were readied. The door was torn open and three Shadow Hounds came in. No one except Flynn shot, knowing that they would be unable to do anything. Matt jumped forward and shoved his fist through the frill that protected their necks, multiple kunai knives between his fingers. The Hounds went down fast.
A wave of normal fiends followed the hounds. Matt ducked and allowed the others to cut them down.
This is too easy, Drake thought, as the fiends fell to his deadly machine gun fire. His arm still hurt, but it was far better than when they had started. The last fiend fell in less than three minutes.
"So much for a legion." Flynn said, reloading his gun.
"Don't underestimate them." Matt said. "That might not have been all of them."
"Yeah, we need to get out of here before they figure out we're here and send a whole lot of fiends after us." Drake said. Everyone prepared themselves, and then, led by Matt, they ran out of the prison block and out into the ship's gloomy corridors.