The lobster's head burst like an oversized egg sac and a thousand parasites scuttled forth on frantic, reedy legs. Fargo raised her gun but it had already revved down from its previous usage. Regina-Saskatoon lurched back in stereotypical female response to arachnids. The loosed tide swarmed toward them, each creeping thing adorned with a miniature wraith head, distorting the entire edge of the precipice with their static.

Winnipeg sprinted forward, dove between her hapless companions, and drove her katana into the ground. She focused her magic energies into the blade, as though she were about to use her finisher, but instead she launched a galeforce spiral of wind into the ragged floor. Immense cracks streaked through the linoleum before a massive chunk of ground blasted back in a mighty gust, taking with it the thousand scuttling parasites. They sailed backward into the void, turning and flipping and squealing with their little wraith faces as their minuscule bodies melded into the darkness and disappeared forever.

(Chapter 8)