Sam doesn’t hear us over the sound of his gun. The piken pulls us in the other direction, and, in what feels like slow motion, I lose sight of my best friend. Before I can yell again, the piken throws us down the opposite tunnel. I hit the wall and land on one Chest and the other lands on top of me. The wind is knocked out of me; and when I look up, I see Nine spitting blood out. He’s grinning.

“Are you crazy?” I ask. “You’re enjoying this?”

“I’ve been locked up for over a year. This is the best day of my life!”

Two pikens duck into the tunnel, blocking our direct path back to Sam. Nine wipes the blood from his chin and opens his Chest. He pulls out a short silver pipe, and it expands violently at both ends until it’s over six feet long and glowing red. He runs toward the pikens with the pipe over his head. I stand to join him but feel a jolt of pain in my ribs. I dig inside my Chest for my healing stone, but by the time I find it Nine has killed both pikens. Running back along the ceiling, he twirls the pipe at his side, and when he’s twenty feet away he yells for me to move. The glowing red pipe sails over my head like a javelin, impaling a piken in the stomach.

“Don’t mention it,” Nine says before I can utter a word.

More pikens squeeze into the far end of the tunnel, and when I turn around to run, a flock of transparent birds with razor-sharp teeth is flying towards us. Nine grabs a strand of green stones from his Chest and flings it towards the flock. It hovers in the air and, like a black hole, sucks the birds into it.

He closes his eyes and the stones zip towards the pikens, spinning and unleashing the flock of birds into their faces. Nine points at me and yells, “Boulder them!”

I follow his lead, rocketing boulder after boulder at the mayhem. The pikens and the birds collapse under our barrage.

Several more pikens push their way into the tunnel, roaring. I grab Nine’s arm to keep him from charging.

“They’re just going to keep coming,” I say. “We have to find Sam and get out of here. Number Six is meeting us.”

He nods and we run. At the next opening we veer left, unsure if we’re making progress or getting even more lost. More and more enemies appear behind us with every new turn. Nine trashes every tunnel we pass through, bringing down ceilings and collapsing walls with telekinesis and perfectly thrown boulders.