​     "Noel!" Estelle barked. ​"Nacy's behind you and to your left! Reach for her! She needs you!"

​     Shawnacy! Danger! Noel reacted instinctively, from the gut, quickly, too quickly, too unexpectedly. He broke free for a moment from Estelle, Gramps and Adam. 

     A rookie mistake. 

     Noel got slammed into hard. He'd been moving when he got hit, not planted, so he was knocked completely off his feet. He bulleted across the cavern to get embedded into a hard rock wall. 

     That's how hard he'd been hit. 

     Adam came next. Whoever'd slammed into Noel picked Adam up as effortlessly as a child would a doll. She threw him hundreds of feet across the cavern past all the floating and fighting Azure and algrim soldiers. Adam wasn't Noel, however, which is to say, when he hit the unforgiving hard rock wall, Adam didn't get embedded the way Noel did. 

     He, instead, splattered like an egg. 

     A huge chunk of his torso was left, but...

     The entity who'd thrown him laughed. 

     Her skin was blacker than night and as hard and shiny as coal.

     It was Tindriss. 

     Tindriss, the Coal Maiden. 

     Tindriss, the most powerful and vicious assassin in Infini.

     Tindriss, who was personally responsible for the broken horror Adam had become. 

     Tindriss had returned. 

     Tindriss had returned to beat Adam into nothingness a second time.

     She put her hands on her hips, held back her head, and roared with laughter. When she spoke, her voice boomed as if amplified. "Did you really think I'd let you get away?" she roared. "Oh, I am so enjoying this! You knew I'd come for you the second I heard you were still alive, right? I scrambled you up pretty good the last time we met." 

     "Just imagine how I'm going to scramble you up this time."

END OF CHAPTER NINE

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