The mechanical hum of the elevator filled the awkward silence as the metal cabin climbed sluggishly toward the fourth floor. The space was claustrophobic. Five people, with the sweat of their recent escape still fresh and armed to the teeth while wearing ridiculous welding goggles, were crammed into a two-by-four-meter steel box.
Alex, leaning against the metal wall with his arms crossed and the thick dark goggles hanging around his neck, broke the ice.
"So... are we absolutely sure Mr. Saturday is on the fourth floor?" he asked, shooting Eli a look with a raised eyebrow.
"Yeah," Eli Shane replied, watching the digital numbers on the panel blink: 2... 3... "Millard Milford said this is the only sector of the entire mall he couldn't access. The security shutters are pulled down from the outside. The guy responsible is most likely barricaded on this floor, controlling the horde from above."
Alex let out a short snort and looked up at the elevator ceiling, counting the tiny fluorescent lights.
"Not that I doubt his word, kid," Alex said in his usual cynical tone. "I'm just saying I don't have a whole lot of faith in his reasoning skills."
"Oh, yeah? Got a better plan, genius?" Trixie snapped instantly, crossing her arms and glaring at him from across the cabin. "Because I haven't heard you contribute any brilliant ideas since we got in here."
"I'm just voicing my operational concerns, Cherry," Alex defended himself, shrugging with infuriating calmness. "Call me ungrateful if you want, but I have a hard time trusting the tactical judgment of a guy who, barely ten minutes ago, unnecessarily offered himself up as a human sacrifice to a mall zombie horde. The guy jumped at them like a willing piñata."
"He was being brave!" Trixie tried to defend him, though even she knew Alex had a point about the sheer absurdity of the situation.
"He was a lucky idiot," Alex corrected.
The atmosphere was on the verge of turning into a heated argument when a high-pitched, drawn-out, and terrifyingly wet sound interrupted the fight.
Pbbbbbbt... frrrrrrt.
The echo of the gas bounced off the metal walls of the tiny elevator like a death sentence.
The silence that followed lasted barely a second—just the time it took for the air to turn toxic.
"Oh, for the love of God!" Alex yelled, dropping his relaxed posture to cover his nose and mouth with both hands, coughing violently.
"Pronto! What the hell is wrong with you?!" Eli, Trixie, and Kord yelled in unison, pinching their noses and pressing themselves against the elevator walls, trying in vain to escape the lethal, invisible green gas now filling the cabin.
The Molen stood in the center of the elevator, rubbing his round belly with a smile of pure relief, his eyes closed beneath his massive welder's helmet.
"Pronto is deeply sorry, my brave companions..." the Molen apologized, though he didn't sound the least bit regretful. "It seems the double-patty burger I ate this morning had a bit too much spicy chili. My magnificent metabolism is simply doing its job."
"Please, mole!" Kord groaned, eyes watering as he tried to fan the air with his massive blue hands. "Couldn't you at least wait until we got to an open space?!"
"You guys preach about ethics and crimes against humanity..." Alex muttered, squinting at Eli and Trixie through the sting, "and you travel with a walking stink bomb! This isn't funny! My corneas are melting before Mr. Saturday can even hypnotize me!"
Ding!
The elevator doors finally slid open on the fourth floor. The five of them shot out, coughing, stumbling, and gasping for fresh air. They looked less like a lethal tactical squad and more like the survivors of a toxic spill.
The air on the fourth floor still smelled faintly of the elevator "incident," but the group quickly forgot about Pronto's toxic gas the second they saw what was in front of them.
"Well... at least we know he's here," Alex muttered, pulling the thick welding goggles over his eyes.
The fourth floor was a disaster of epic proportions. Dozens of hypnotized people wandered around like worker ants, carrying ripped-out cash registers, jewelry, designer clothes, and appliances. In the center of it all, sitting atop a mountain of flat-screen TVs and stacked safes, rested a makeshift throne.
And sitting on it, petting a Hypnogriff slug that emitted a soft, hypnotic glow, was their target.
The horde of "zombies" stopped dead in their tracks, dropping their valuables as they noticed the five people who had just spilled out of the elevator.
Eli Shane took a step forward, striking his best heroic pose and pointing a finger directly at the villain.
"Saturday! This ends here!" Eli shouted, his voice echoing across the floor. "Release all these poor people from your mind control right now and turn yourself in!"
"Hahaha!" Mr. Saturday mocked, slowly rising from his throne. He was wearing an outrageously extravagant suit. "Who are you supposed to be? A bunch of circus clowns in welding goggles?"
The villain leaned on his cane, analyzing the group from his high vantage point with an arrogant smirk.
"Do you really think you can stop the magnificent Mr. Saturday? Look at you..." he began to list them off with disdain. "A kid playing hero, a clumsy Troll, a woman too small to be a threat, a hideously ugly Molen, and... ooh, well, well... Dr. Blakk's new lapdog."
Alex, leaning against the elevator doorframe, rolled his eyes behind his dark lenses.
«I am Eli Shane and I'm going to stop you... The magnificent Mr. Saturday will destroy you... blah, blah, blah,» Alex started to ramble in his own thoughts, completely tuning out the dramatic scene. «Here's where the hero-villain banter kicks in. Why the hell do people in this world talk in the third person so much? It's ridiculous.»
Alex did some mental math. His stomach growled.
«Well, at this rate of theatrical speeches, I won't make it back to base until tomorrow. And I promised Valentina a pizza. Better speed this up.»
As Mr. Saturday drew a breath to continue his grand, evil monologue, Alex—wearing an expression of utter boredom—pulled a capsule from his belt, loaded it into his blaster's barrel, and raised his arm with total indifference.
"Sorry, lovebirds, but I'm in a hurry," Alex said aloud, shattering the room's dramatic tension.
And he pulled the trigger.
ZAP!
An Electroshock slug shot out at blinding speed. Before Mr. Saturday could even react or finish his sentence, the slug slammed square into his chest.
A surge of thousands of blue volts coursed through the villain's body, making him vibrate like a cartoon character before he collapsed backward, crashing into his throne of TVs and dropping his cane with a pathetic groan.
Alex lowered his blaster and scratched his head with the barrel, genuinely confused.
"Wait... that's it?" Alex asked, blinking behind his goggles. "He didn't even dodge? Lord, this level was on the tutorial setting."
But Alex's premature celebration was cut short. With Mr. Saturday unconscious, the startled Hypnogriff slug tumbled down the pile of junk, and its mind-control light turned erratic.
The zombie horde wasn't freed. On the contrary, having lost their master's direct orders, they went into a frenzied attack mode. They let out a collective roar and charged at the five intruders.
"Non-lethal fire! Remember, they're civilians!" Eli yelled, backpedaling and firing.
The Shane Gang and Alex sprang into action immediately. They unleashed a calculated barrage of tactical slugs. Kord fired a pair of Arachnet slugs, their sticky white webs pinning dozens of people against the walls. Trixie and Pronto fired Bubbaleone slugs, trapping several rabid zombies inside giant soap spheres where they bounced around harmlessly. Alex, adapting to the zero-casualty combat, fired Goo slugs, coating the floor in a sticky sludge that tripped up and glued down dozens of attackers.
The battle was a chaotic mess of webs, bubbles, and slime.
Just as they finished immobilizing the final wave of civilians, an intense flash of light zipped across the room. The Hypnogriff slug, spooked by the noise, fired an erratic beam of mental energy that bounced off a broken mirror and hit Kord right in the face.
The massive blue Troll stumbled backward, dropping his blaster with a heavy thud.
"Kord!" Eli yelled, sprinting toward his friend, panic written all over his face. "Kord, are you okay?! Did the beam hit you?!"
The Troll stood frozen for a second. Then, slowly, he shook his massive head and adjusted the thick, dark goggles he was wearing.
"Yeah, man..." Kord replied, his voice deep and calm. "I'm good."
Absolute silence fell over the fourth floor for a couple of seconds. Everyone stared at the gigantic blue Troll, waiting for his eyes to roll back or for him to start growling.
But Kord just shrugged, adjusting the heavy dark goggles on the bridge of his nose.
"See? Told you the goggles would work," Alex said, breaking the tension with a wildly smug smile, crossing his arms. "And you idealistic knuckleheads doubted me and science. I just saved your brains. You're welcome."
Trixie let out a sigh of relief so deep she nearly deflated, lowering her blaster.
But the peace was short-lived. A hoarse groan came from the mountain of broken TVs.
"Ugh... my back..."
Mr. Saturday, his suit still smoking slightly from the electric shock, started to get up. He coughed, shook his head to clear his vision, and, spotting his blaster lying a few feet away on the floor, threw himself at it with the desperation of a cornered animal. He rolled clumsily across the tile, grabbed the weapon, and got to his knees.
"Never!" the villain screamed, his eyes bloodshot and his voice raspy. "You'll never catch the magnificent Mr. Saturday!"
He jerked his blaster up. A fully energized slug in the barrel began to glow dangerously, lighting up the room with an unstable, blinding glare.
Alex, who was only a few steps away, didn't even raise his own weapon. He just turned his head toward Eli with a look of absolute disbelief.
"Hey, fearless leader..." Alex said, pointing a thumb at the villain. "The bad guy is getting up and his gun is glowing. Shouldn't we, I don't know, stop him before he blows us to pieces?"
"On it!" Eli yelled, reacting instantly.
With a fluid, expert motion, Eli drew and fired a Banger slug. The little reddish creature sliced through the air with a high-pitched whistle, leaving a trail of sparks in its wake, and smashed directly into the barrel of Mr. Saturday's weapon just as he pulled the trigger.
KABOOM!
The mid-air collision triggered a deafening explosion. The shockwave swept through the room, knocking the ridiculous mountain of stolen goods off balance. Safes, mannequins, and televisions crashed to the floor with a metallic roar that shook the building's foundation.
But the noise wasn't the worst part. It was the dust.
Years of accumulated grime from the mall's ceilings, mixed with the debris from the explosion, created a thick gray cloud that swallowed the entire fourth floor. Visibility dropped to zero.
"Cough, cough, cough!" Alex hacked violently, shutting his eyes behind his welding goggles and swatting frantically at the gray cloud around his nose. "Why the hell is there so much dust in here?! Does no one sweep this damn place?! I feel like I'm breathing foot powder!"
The sound of falling debris was slowly replaced by the echo of hurried footsteps and... more growling.
When the dust finally settled and their vision began to clear, Mr. Saturday was no longer where he had fallen.
"I told you! You'll never catch Mr. Saturday!" his mocking voice echoed from the far end of the floor.
The group looked toward the back. The villain was slipping through an emergency exit that led to the back stairwell. But he wasn't alone. Behind him, blocking the hallway like a wall of flesh and bone, another horde of hypnotized people had appeared. There were at least forty more civilians, with blank stares and outstretched arms, blindly rushing toward the group to cover their master's escape.
Mr. Saturday slickly slipped through the mass of bodies, disappearing into the darkness of the stairs.
"Wow..." Alex muttered, pulling his hand away from his face and spitting out some dust. "That guy either has the devil's own luck, or he is ridiculously durable for a wimp in a cheap suit."
Alex assessed the situation in a fraction of a second. They couldn't use lethal force on the civilians, but if they all stayed behind to trap them, Mr. Saturday would escape for good and the hypnosis would never be broken. It was a basic military logistics problem.
With a click of his tongue, Alex made a call. He turned his head to Eli, looking him dead in the eye through the dark lenses.
"Alright, 'hero'..." Alex said, smoothly racking a Goo slug into the chamber of his blaster and dropping into a combat stance. "Go after him. Cut him off on the stairs before he hits the street."
Eli blinked, surprised by the direct order from Blakk's officer.
"What about you guys?" Eli asked, pointing at the dangerously close horde.
"We'll handle this wave," Alex replied with a confident smirk. "Go on, go give your little justice monologue. We'll hold the fort and make sure nobody dies. Move it, Shane!"