The world narrowed to the space between Leo's outstretched hand and the swelling, incandescent form of the Alpha Gnawer. He wasn't just targeting the creature; he was targeting the payload within it, the cocktail of chitin-melting acid and unstable biomass that was about to detonate with the force of a chemical bomb. He poured every drop of his remaining mana into the skill.
He felt the familiar, metaphysical pull, but this time it was a raging vortex. The Gnawer's death-shriek was cut short as its body violently imploded. Instead of exploding outward, the tons of corrosive fluid and tissue collapsed inward, siphoned from reality by Leo's will. He felt a tidal wave of hot, toxic, wrongness pour into his conceptual container, a mess so vast it threatened to overflow the very limits of the skill.
The monster vanished. One moment it was there, a swelling green sun of chemical death. The next, it was gone. Only a faint, greasy smear on the asphalt remained.
[Critical Skill Application: Contained a Catastrophic Chemical Detonation.]
[XP Bonus Awarded: +3000 XP]
[DING! YOU HAVE LEVELED UP!]
[You are now Level 11!]
[You have gained +5 unassigned Stat Points.]
[Skill [Mop Up] has evolved due to repeated, high-stress usage on hazardous materials.]
[New Skill Acquired: [Containment (Lvl 1)]!]
[Description: Designate a volume in space. For a short duration, all liquids, gases, and fine particulate matter entering this volume are shunted into a temporary metaphysical storage. Highly effective for containing explosions and area-of-effect attacks. Cost is proportional to the volume and nature of the contained substance.]
Leo gasped, dropping to one knee as the notifications scrolled past. The sudden influx of power from the level-up was the only thing that kept him from passing out. The new skill, [Containment], was a game-changer. It was the ultimate "spill guard."
Grunt and his two remaining soldiers stared at the empty space where the monster had been, their faces slack with disbelief. The raw, overwhelming force of the Berserker's hammer had been useless, but the Janitor had made the apocalypse-level threat simply… disappear.
"He… he un-popped it," one of the guards whispered, his voice trembling with awe.
The immediate threat was gone, but the secondary one was not. Out on the main street, the dormant Street-Maw let out a low, guttural moan—a sound that vibrated up from the ground itself. The entire section of asphalt rippled. It had been wounded by the foam and had lost its mobile alpha unit. Now, it was angry.
"We need to leave," Leo grunted, pushing himself to his feet. "Right now." He dumped his five new stat points into Endurance, needing the raw stamina more than anything else at that moment.
Grunt seemed to snap out of his stupor. He looked at the medical cache on the pallet jack, then at his two soldiers—one of whom was still suffering from the after-effects of the neurotoxic spores—and made a command decision. His rivalry with Leo was secondary to the survival of his men.
"You heard him!" he roared, his voice its usual booming bass, but now lacking its earlier contempt. "Grab the wounded! Back to the Badger!" He then looked at Leo, a flicker of something new in his eyes. A grudging, profound respect. "You have the asset. We'll cover your exit. Go!"
The dynamic had shifted. They were no longer competitors. They were allies.
Maria and Sarah, who had been watching the whole scene unfold from the loading dock, rushed to help. Sarah immediately began administering an anti-toxin to the afflicted guard while Rick, having been called over, helped the other. Maria helped Leo secure the crates on the pallet jack.
"What's the exit plan, boss?" she asked, her eyes darting nervously toward the moaning street. "The alley is a dead end."
"It is now," Leo said. He looked at the brick wall at the far end of the alley. It was old, crumbling, and structurally unsound. "Maria, remember what you said? You build things and you break things."
A wide, predatory grin spread across Maria's face. "Oh, I like the way you think."
While Grunt's team formed a defensive perimeter, their rifles aimed at the groaning street, Maria went to work. She didn't have explosives, but she had a fire axe and an encyclopedic knowledge of structural weak points. She directed Grunt and another guard to use their combined strength to push a massive, rusted dumpster against the base of the wall. Then, with her axe, she began methodically smashing out the mortar from the bricks just above it, creating a new, artificial shear line.
Leo left them to it and got on the pallet jack, ready to move the second the path was clear. His party chat buzzed.
"It's ready!" Maria shouted, stepping back from the wall.
"Ready for what?" Grunt asked.
"Percussive maintenance!" Maria yelled back, and gestured to Grunt's hammer. "Hey, meathead! Make yourself useful and hit that dumpster! Hard!"
Grunt, now eager to contribute in a way he understood, needed no further encouragement. He let out a cathartic roar and swung his sledgehammer, putting all his Berserker strength into the blow. The hammer slammed into the side of the dumpster. The dumpster, acting as a makeshift battering ram, smashed into the already-weakened wall.
With a deafening crash, a ten-foot section of the old brick wall blew out into the street on the other side, revealing a path to the parked Badger fifty yards away. They had made their own exit.
"Everybody move!" Leo yelled, gunning the small electric motor of the pallet jack. It whined in protest but began to move, hauling the priceless medicine through the newly-created hole. The others followed, carrying their wounded, Grunt and his last soldier providing rear-guard action, firing their rifles at the strange, fleshy tendrils that were beginning to erupt from the Street-Maw's hide.
It was a chaotic, desperate, but successful evacuation. They piled into the Badger, wounded men, priceless medicine, and all, slamming the ramp shut just as a massive pseudopod of acidic flesh slammed into the spot where they had been seconds before.
Maria gunned the engine, and the Badger roared away, leaving the moaning, wounded Street-Maw and its dead Alpha behind.
Inside the rattling vehicle, the silence was thick. Grunt sat on the bench across from Leo, his massive hammer resting on the floor. He just stared at Leo, his expression unreadable, for a long, long time.
Finally, he spoke, his voice a low rumble. "That… was some fancy mopping, Janitor." He stuck out a hand the size of a catcher's mitt. "Name's Grunt."
Leo looked at the offered hand, then at the man's face. He reached out and shook it. "Leo."
It wasn't friendship. But it was a truce. And in a place like The Foundry, that was more valuable than gold.