I could hear something below. The terrible noise I’d noted earlier, a roar or great grinding.

As good a cue as anything.

The debris and the degree of the churn at the top level of the water made entry by flight difficult, with an obstacle catching my shoulder on one entry and a lack of forward movement stalling the second.

Then I was beneath, and the already small beam of light from the flashlight halved in size, diffused into dark, grimy waters. My skin and clothing were soaked through and gripped with the cold water.

The roaring I’d heard earlier was louder here.

Louder still as I flew deeper through the water, through a maze of things that threatened to catch at my armor and clothing, scraping at my arms. It was a morass of debris, old construction material left in the tunnel, where it could sit forever, and I couldn’t use the Wretch because doing so threatened to make things harder to get through. I’d only end up tearing things down and compacting stuff into barriers. I’d run out of breath before I got through.

I exhaled a bit, letting bubbles rise to the surface. I’d always found that trying to hold two full lungfuls of breath ended up being counter-intuitive. A steady release helped.

The current of the water became stronger as I got closer to the bottom, and the amount of sediment increased.

I found the source of the roar. Ashley, her back against the edge of a doorframe, stood knee deep in water. Her power was directed at the hallway, a steady, continuous blast, that bucked, kicked, and forced her to retain her control.

I thought of fighting the shield as the Wretch tugged at it.

I floated in water as it was churned by Ashley’s power. Some of what her power did was annihilate, but it was random, and most of what she was doing was holding it at bay, steadily removing some of the water from existence.

I was still trying to figure out what to do to help when she stopped. The blast ceased, and water crashed into the room she and Crystalclear occupied, the both of them just barely visible in the froth of bubbles and sediment before they were pushed back.

I flew into the room, and the force of water rushing in forced me to stick my feet out, hitting the wall opposite the door. I reached out, found Ashley’s head, and from there, found her hand. One hand burned, holding Ashley despite the pain, feeling how cold her skin was, well beyond the norm of a human hand in cold water.

I did much the same with Crystalclear’s head and hand. I could feel the chunks of quartz-like crystal studding each. I held his hand with the same that held the flashlight, awkward, the fierceness of our mutual grip driving the metal into the meat of my hand.