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Soon enough, you’d gotten so close to Tossa’s sleeping face that you thought you could count her eyelashes. You gestured for Squirt to climb down and touch her face, and she nodded. But as she was climbing down, her foot got tangled in the web harness, and she started to squirm and panic.
The resulting commotion caused the entire webline to shudder like a taut cable, momentarily slapping against the cage bars. Your heart stopped for a moment, and none of you moved for what felt like a very long time.
In reality, it probably wasn’t as bad as you thought it’d be. It barely made a sound, and there was no way that Tossa would wake up from-
Your heart nearly lept into your throat as you glanced down to see Tossa’s clear blue eyes reflecting your masked face.
Surprisingly, Squirt was the first to move.
She pounced on the other girl’s nose, forcefully shrinking her with the slightest of contact. Tossa tried to scream, but her voice was quickly smothered in the thick blankets that she was now drowning in.
You leapt in after her, using your Mark to burn through the seemingly endless ocean of fabric. You and Callisto tore through them frantically, not wanting either girl to suffocate. Squirt was the first to surface, grabbing a mouthful of air as she did so.
<span class="mu-r">“Where’s Tossa!?”</span> you asked.
She pointed towards a section of the cage floor where the fabric was sinking slightly. You tore it away, only to find a perfectly carved hole in the metal, and as you peered through it, you could see Tossa riding away on the missing piece, heading towards the door.
You jumped down after her, winding up your gas bomb and tossing it at her. Tossa attempted to block it by placing a stray pebble in its path, but due to her lack of awareness, the gas still found its way into her respiratory system. She coughed, wavered on her platform, and eventually toppled over, hurtling towards the wooden floor, littered with sharp caltrops and jagged rocks!
You quickly snagged her with a webline and reeled her in to prevent her from getting impaled. And with your other arm, you brought the metal platform under your feet and braced yourself for impact. Instead of surfing or sliding when you hit the ground, you bounced off of the first rock that you made contact with, and was forced to abandon the platform after the third or fourth bounce. You shielded Tossa’s body with your own as you scraped and skipped across the floor, smashing into jagged rocks as you did. When you finally came to a stop, you took a moment to check on your target. She looked a lot better than you felt. You were battered, bruised, and bleeding in places where your costume had been torn. All in all, the damage was pretty minimal compared to what it could’ve been like if you’d managed to wake her up before she got all tiny.
Rising to your feet, you hefted Tossa in your arms and gave a thumbs up to Callisto and Squirt, who’d been watching and waiting with bated breath.
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(Cont.)
