The monster rears back and swings one of its leathery wings at Nine, knocking him backwards. As soon as Nine is out of the way, Six calls down two more lightning strikes. The lightning knocks the beast down again and tears a hole in the membrane of its wing, but it just struggles back to his feet again and roars. It seems like we’re only making it angrier.

“What does it take to stop this fucker?” shouts Nine.

A high-pitched whistle fills the air, so loud and sharp that it causes my skin to crawl, like fingernails on a chalkboard. I spin around to see Five blowing into an intricate flute carved from solid obsidian. As the shrill note fills the air, he stares unblinking at the monster.

All at once, it’s like the fight goes out of the thing. It folds its huge wings around its body and sinks to the ground, its three heads tucked against its chest, almost like it’s bowing.

“Whoa,” breathes Eight.

“See?” says Five, lowering the whistle and glancing around. “Easy.”

“If you had that thing the entire time, why didn’t you use it?” Nine snaps.

“I thought you might want a workout,” Five says, smiling coldly at Nine.

Six shakes her head. “Would one of you just kill that thing so we can get out of here?”

“Gladly,” says Five, his skin turning into glittering steel. He takes two steps towards the genuflecting beast, but stops right next to Six. “I made the damn thing,” Five says, absently. “The least I can do is put it down.”

“You what?” I ask with disbelief.

Five’s steel-plated fist shoots forward with a force I’ve never seen from him before, hitting Six with an uppercut.

The force sends Six’s entire body into the air and she lands at my feet; I can see her eyes are rolled into the back of her head and twin tendrils of blood are leaking out of her nostrils. A concussion at best, a fractured skull at worst. Instinctively, I move to heal her, but when I try to crouch down something hits me in the chest—not hard, not even with enough force to knock the wind out of me—but I can’t move forward. It’s telekinesis. Five is gently keeping me at bay. I look up at him, confused tears filling my eyes.

Eight breaks the stunned moment of silence, yelling, “Why’d you do that?!” He’s drowned out by Nine’s scream.

Five’s body has taken on the consistency of rubber and his arm stretches like a tentacle, wrapping twice around Nine’s throat. Nine struggles, but Five lifts him off his feet with ease. His arm stretches further, hanging Nine ten feet off the ground, and then plunges downward. He dunks Nine in the swamp and holds him there. Drowning him.