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The panic room was embedded in the floor beneath the dining hall. Shenado warned her that the two unknown servants were also about to enter the same chamber through the southern door, so when Mariana arrived, she flung their comrade’s severed head at them. And they probably weren’t expecting that, because it stole their attention long enough for her to launch a large wave of destruction.

They dove in opposite directions, the two men. A thin one and a short one. That was about the extent of her distinction between them as she whipped out her semi-automatic rifle and showered the short man with gunfire.

She’d apparently chosen poorly, however, as the man covered himself in a shiny gray metal, making her bullets bounce off and ricochet around the room. The thin man threw his own path of destruction--but not at her. It went for the floor, beneath the long banquet table in the middle of the room, and Mariana’s eyes widened, instantly launching her own wave to intercept.

The distorted spaces collided. Hers won out, but a chunk of the floor was gone. She couldn’t tell how deeply the man’s path had cut through. The panic room’s walls were strong, but they couldn’t have withstood that attack.

She didn’t have time to worry, however. The short man was charging her now, which was a strangely foolish thing to do--unless he was only trying to distract her.

‘Charlie on your right,’ Shenado warned.

Mariana ran left for the thin man, as he was the priority now and needed to at least be kept busy so that he didn’t attack the panic room again. She didn’t see Charlie miss with his attack. His almost invisible power collided with a rosewood cabinet, instead, and gouged a smoking hole into it, hardly a centimeter wide.

She launched another wave at the thin man, who fled around the banquet table while the short man tried to get in her way. His metal arm swung at her. She slid past it, gathered her power into her fist, and punched the man’s shoulder clean off.