The Grit writhed, ripped and gnashed as sharp and as real as a terrifying blender. Liam, most of all, knew firsthand just how very real the nightmares could be. While Maria, Vincent and Kat dashed behind him to safety, Liam wrestled his own life out of the jaws of a hideous beast, until it fell. He was soaked in blood, all of it his own.

The Grit did not bleed.

Every shot of the robot's laser and every swing of Liam's sword opened up a dark, hollow gash. A Grit with half its head blown off fell lifeless to the ground. The Grit that Liam had slain lay in dry hollow pieces on the floor -- a floor that was littered with furry, scaled, feathery, shimmering corpses, each of them empty like husks filled with shadows. Sliced open, they seemed . . . incomplete. Not quite alive.

Moments after a Grit's corpse hit the floor, the body faded -- like a ghost, incorporeal, a hologram of what had nearly ripped Liam's life out of him with savage claws. The body soon became nothing but a shadowy smoke that drifted over the floor, swirling with the smoky remains of other dead Grit.

At the far side of the hall, protected by the savage wall of monsters, the little rabbit-eared boy was on his knees with a bottle of ketchup, drawing a sigil on the slick vinyl floor. This sigil might seem familiar to Vincent or to Moth: it was the same sigil that was found littered throughout the city in the aftermath of the old Grit invasions, before the Wall. It was one of the sigils that had been forbidden by royal decree: drawing it was a surefire way to get thrown in prison.

The boy tossed aside the ketchup bottle and stepped back with a grin. The smoke of the dead Grit flowed around the ketchup sigil, churning faster and darker while the sigil glowed blue and gold. In less than a second, each Grit that Liam had slain -- every monster the robot had beheaded -- leaped out of the undulating cloud of shadowed smoke and rejoined the fight, good as new.

They were, in effect, immortal -- and there could never be an end to them, as long as the resurrection sigil remained intact.

But even immortal shadow-husks had a sweet tooth, it seemed.

At least half of the Grit broke away from the fight as soon as one of them discovered the sugar littering the upward staircase. While Maria ducked and dashed her way to the robot's safety, the many-legged and sharp-clawed Grit followed their noses to the stairs she'd just vacated. They scooped up chocolate, hard candies, licorice and taffy, gobbled them voraciously, fiddled with the wrappers, fought one another for certain sweet-smelling nougat-filled delights. One Grit with the spines of a porcupine and the beak of a hawk successfully filled its fellow Grit with facefuls of spines in its desire to protect a small hoard of white chocolate cremes. It hugged the candies and picked savage fights for the sake of keeping them, and it wasn't the only one.

Several Grit grabbed candy and ran off into the fray with it, where other monsters attacked them for possession of the sugar, and others got in on the fight for the sake of a fight.

Soon enough, Maria's candy had turned the Grit on one another, and they bit and scratched and sliced and slammed one another in a frenzied need to own just a sweet-smelling wrapper. They even killed one another, and the dead resurrected over the sigil and jumped right back in for a rematch.

[quote]Vincent ran down the stairs that the robot came from, he was hardly prepared for battle with an army of monsters. He glanced over his shoulder only once to make sure that others were following him.

Maria glanced up at Moth, who looked like he was just waking up from his impromptu nap, and smiled at him. "Hello, sunshine! Having a nice ride?" She giggled.

It was entirely insectoid, a combination of several mantis types taken to an extreme.  It had the large head and bulbous glistening eyes of a leaf mantis, the top of its thorax spreading out like a cape in semblance of a flower mantis' body.  Like a leaf mantis and orchid mantis, plant-like appendages sprang from along its body in a brilliant rainbow and fluttered as it soared, it's massive forelegs and curving abdominal segment sprouting the deadly spines of a flower mantis.  The beast roared in a chittering screech and flourished wings, delicate and shimmering like intricate stained glass and humming like a turbine engine as it dove.

Half of Moth was enthralled by its beauty and practically fell in love.  The other half nearly shat himself in terror.[/quote]

The robot had just finished dispatching a batch of Grit, keeping them off Liam's back while the swordsman diced them up nicely, even in his injured state. With a mechanical flick of its arm, the robot shot a laser straight between the mantis-Grit's eyes, with zero regard for its grace or beauty. The Grit dropped like a ragdoll and immediately began to turn to smoke. It would be back before long.

The robot, still holding Moth over one shoulder, banged a metal hand against the railing to get Liam's attention. [b]"Hey, Lancelot! We got everyone, I got your back!"[/b] As proof, a few well-placed laser shots dropped three Grit that were fighting over a dark chocolate macaroon.

[b]"Vince!"[/b] The robot hollered down the stairs, where Vincent was the one farthest along. Of course, the robot had facial recognition software built into its cameras. [b]"Lead the way, buddy, down five flights and out through the armory."[/b] He shot a few more Grit out of existence. PEW! PEW! [b]"Pick yourselves up somethin' nice, but do it quick."[/b] The robot moved fast down the stairs as he spoke, trusting that everyone was running as fast as they could ahead of him.

< [i]"There should be a teleport sigil waiting for you on the other side of the armory,"[/i] > the queen's voice said through the robot head in Kat's arms. < [i]"It'll bring you directly to the palace."[/i] >

Moth was waking up and moving around, so in a clear moment the huge robot stopped and leaned down to set the accountant on his feet. As he did so, a winged, snake-eyed Grit suddenly appeared behind the robot and sank its massive claws into the robot's shoulder and neck; sparks flew and wires popped as the robot's casing was easily sliced open.

The robot shifted and glitched and dropped Moth on the stairs, unable to turn around to shoot the Grit that had got him. [b]"Aw hell, this is a new suit!"[/b] the robot complained. The Grit flapped its enormous leathery wings and began to drag the robot back up the stairs.

The way below was clear, and four flights down were the open doors of the armory, just as promised. The doors led into a modest room filled with form-fitting suits of black armor, shields and helmets and boots stacked on shelves along the walls or folded into strong chests.

Directly across the room, the door to the outside was open, letting in the half-sunlight, half-midnight sky. A breeze swirled in through the door, and though they could hear the BOOM BOOM BOOM of the attack on the Wall, the Grit appeared not to have noticed this particular entrance. The city was clear and still on the other side of the door.

Just outside the door, on the cement railed landing, a detailed sigil had been drawn with a quick but precise hand. The marks were still very fresh -- but there was no one around. A part of the railing had been bent outward, and some of the markings inside the sigil looked a bit more rushed than others.

The Grit screeched above; the candy was almost gone.