There came a sudden great flash of light which was bright even in the daytime.

KABOOM!

The sound of the explosion far below followed, and the estate tower block we were atop the roof of shuddered greatly in the aftermath.

Screams joined the sounds of a fire raging far below, muffled somewhat by the distance.

I saw the same concern as my own in Miss Toontastic's eyes.

"The fire's spreading!" she exclaimed, still sounding like Xandra and not the squeaky American voice belonging to Regina.

My mind felt dumb from the mental fatigue which gripped me, and from the dark pressing reality of what I had just tried to do.

Soaks was writhing in pain on the ground - his were-salamander lower jaw gruesomely impaled with his own two fangs. And he continued to fight against the Slip-suit sinew which I had forced on him and which fit him like a straightjacket. I had no ability to command the Slip-suit sinew after it was no longer attached to my body, but it seemed to remember my last command which was to constrict Soaks with every ounce of strength available to it.

I remembered what Miss Toontastic had said about not letting Soaks go. I focused my attention on that.

"Knock him out," I said, "He's got a thick skull, it won't kill him."

I saw Miss Toontastic's questioning look and responded as quickly as I could manage.

"I don't have the strength left to do it myself," I said, "I need you to do it – we need to take him with us."

"We'll have to do more than that," Miss Toontastic shot back.

Then, after looking at Soaks then back to me, she said, "Do you trust me?"

In that moment I did trust her. She hadn't yet told me what she had done to the patrolling Pied Piper officer at the World War Two bunker. That would come later. Even so, I hesitated.

"Yes," I said.

At the very least I didn't fear Xandra killing Soaks like I had just attempted to do – because she had been the one to stop me from trying to do the very same thing.

Miss Toontastic raised her hands as if she was miming holding the sides of an invisible box. Her hands started to vibrate, her claws lengthened and became sharp-tipped blurs.

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Then, with a focus I hadn't seen before in her cartoonish eyes, Miss Toontastic knelt over Soaks and started to carve her hands into his right shoulder socket.

Soaks screeched and hissed and garbled out a human scream as the pain of what Miss Toontastic was doing to him wracked his body and mind.

She was carving off his right worm-like limb from the shoulder.

And she made surprisingly quick work of it. Within a matter of seconds she carved off Soaks's right arm, which fell away with a wet thud, leaking both acid and tangible human blood – and then she started on the starfish-limb.

CRASH!

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

"Ha!" Clang rasped, having just burst through the nearby door on his way onto the roof.

Steam was rising through some of the cracks in his golden-sandlike armour.

"I took the-" Clang's voice began to ring out, but upon seeing what Miss Toontastic and I were doing to Soaks he shouted, "--ARE YOU KILLING HIM?!"

TZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ!

HISS-AAHHH!

Miss Toontastic paid Clang no notice and continued carving into Soak's starfish limb at the shoulder with the focus of a surgeon.

"We're not killing him!" I shouted back, "We're taking him with us. It's safer this way."

Clang considered what I said, then noticed something else that was majorly wrong.

"Your mask!" his voice rang, "Does he know?!"

"He knows," I said, "That's why we've got to take him with us. If we don't he'll send the Pipers after my family."

Clang looked away from me, facing the ground, losing himself in thought. The sound of a blazing fire below was growing, the black smoke thickening - the screams and shouts from people somewhere down there building to an even greater frenzy.

"Okay," Clang's voice rang.

He faced me again, "The Pipers are gonna be here soon if they're not already."

"Right," I said.

I reached down and grabbed at some of the sinew which covered my lower half like pink stretchy rubber, pulling a large patch of the sinew away and bringing it to my face. Even with the mental fatigue at its brink, it was possible for me to at least command the sinew to cover my face enough to make a temporary mask.

There came another wet thud as Soaks's other arm was carved off.

"Clang!" Miss Toontastic shouted, "I need you to cauterize his wounds!"

"You mean burn them?" Clang's voice rang back.

"It'll stop him from bleeding out! Hurry or he'll die!" Miss Toontastic shouted back.

Clang did as he was asked, bulbing up his hands to a bright burning intensity. I watched on, feeling like a bystander given I had already reached the limit of what I could do with my power until I had time to recover.

Whilst Clang set to work cauterizing Soaks's arm sockets to stop the bleeding, Miss Toontastic set to work on his legs.

T-SSSSS!

AHHH!

There wasn't a need for Miss Toontastic to deliver blunt force trauma to Soaks's skull in order to knock him out, because the pain of having his limbs cut off and cauterised caused him to pass out anyway.

Being a part of doing something so extreme to Soaks unsettled me greatly. But it was still not as bad as killing him. I reminded myself that, as painful as it would be for Soaks to do, he could, in time, grow back his limbs. I winced, knowing just how much that would hurt.

As Clang and Miss Toontastic continued with what they were doing, I staggered over to the edge of the roof corner and looked down.

And gasped.

A fire had spread from the crashed helicopter to a nearby building that was partially-collapsed and on fire.

There were people – ordinary, non-Piper civilians in need of help.

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