Cuckoos and Chalk Marks

My armor was one of the ones that had its joints melted. I walked, stiffly, over to my body again. I honestly couldn't tell if the resistance was from the sentient thing inside of the armor, or the fact that I couldn't bend my knees anymore.

Either way, I finally reached my body.

Aching and sick of jumping from one suit of armor to another, I tapped my body with the very tip of my foot. Usually, the shift back after being kicked out of my body was more abrupt, but I was hoping this would function more like a possession.

And, lo and behold, it did.

I sat up in my own body a second later, grateful that I no longer felt the sensations that had accompanied being electrocuted in something that could carry electricity.

The armor Skull had previously occupied swung a fist at him immediately, weakly. Its elbow was badly melted.
"Skull, are you back?" Sorenson asked. His head was swimming; he floated toward Skull's body but stayed well out of reach of the armor, which was starting to regroup.

I dodged the punch, but I doubted it would have hurt all that much if it had landed. For good measure, I grabbed one of the swords that had been dropped during Sorenson's attack.

"I'm back," I said. I went to swing the sword at the armor, but thought better of it and kicked it back instead.

"Let's get to the door, then. Chop chop!"

The armor stumbled and fell, clattering to pieces, which began to tremble upon impact and then slid slowly back together. Another suit tried to grab Skull from behind. Its arms were in fine condition but its legs were damaged and the helmet was missing.

Sensing that someone was behind me, I turned around and kicked at the armor's legs. The legs were already weak. It wasn't hard for me to hit them at just the right part to send the armor crashing to the ground—or to get it to stumble back.

Now free, I beelined to the door with my sword in tow.

Sorenson shot after him. "What happened there?" he asked as the more mobile suits of armor tore after them.

I briefly contemplated turning back around to shove another suit of armor away, but decided it would be better to keep going forward instead.

"If you mean the armor," I said, "I don't know. But if you mean me suddenly getting kicked out of my body, my powers have...limitations. I get kicked out of my body when I use them too much."

I trusted Sorenson after everything we had been through, but I also didn't want to push that trust too far. I'd keep things vague in case I needed to bluff my way through a situation later.

"That's quite inconvenient," he huffed. "Try not to do that, alright?" He grasped the door handles and dragged them open as one of the suits of armor grabbed at his ankle. He kicked, then sent a shock through. The armor let go.

"It wasn't exactly a choice," I said, irritation in my voice. As Sorenson opened the door and kept his back to the armor, I kept my back to him so I could watch the suits of armor coming towards us. If one tried to lunge for us while we walked into the next room, I could push them away.

Sorenson eased himself into the new area. It appeared to be another hallway, with a ceiling just over six feet tall and very narrow. Just the sort of thing he hated. Could they go back to the pit room?

When the door disappeared behind us, I wasn't surprised.

I tried glancing around Sorenson, but quickly discovered just how narrow the hallway was. I had just enough space to stand comfortably. If I leaned too much to either side, I bumped into the wall. We'd have to walk single file with Sorenson leading.

"Well," I said, nonchalant, "at least we can walk."

Sorenson floated to the ground. "I suppose so." He could feel his throat tightening already. "How about you go in front, alright?"

I raised an eyebrow.

"You have to go first," I said. "There's not enough space for me to go past you."

A thought suddenly occurred to me.

"Are you scared?"

"No!" he retorted, and bobbed up toward the ceiling, drawing his legs up. "There. Go past me."

"I'm not climbing under you," I said, exasperated. "You can just keep walking."

I paused again.

"You know," I started, crossing my arms and looking him over, "you're not making a good case for not being scared right now."