See, Melinda knew it was time. She howled to find out who was with her and it was damn depressing, only three more out of sixteen, all in the middle of the room. Well, four against thirteen it'd have to be. Like good little cronies, her opponents shut and locked the front door and the back door too, the one that went to the science offices. In the back, Mironov pushed the plastic tubing onto the spigot and started the flow to his burner, before using the sparker to light it, to get the blue flame to jump up.
Melinda didn't wait, she claimed the first strike, grabbing her burner and leaping across the tabletop to smash Cynthia in the forehead with the curved metal base. It came back with a wicked dent on it. Melinda swung it again but Cynthia got her arm up to block and instead of the base cracking her skull a second time, the newly sharp edge created by the dent tore into the radial artery just above her wrist and Cynthia toppled over awkwardly, clutching her bloody arm and wailing.
Wasting no time, Melinda hurled the base end over end at Ricky's head while she stomped on Cynthia's throat as hard as she could, crushing the wail into silence. Spinning on her back foot, Melinda unleashed a vicious roundhouse to the kid who had locked the door and as he was trying to recover, she plunged her fist deep into his solar plexus and then slammed his head, eye first, against the corner of the nearest wooden cabinet. It made a sound like an eggshell shattering. By then, Ricky was on her.
He faked a punch and as she dodged, he hooked her left arm with his right and tried to hammer throw her, tried to slam her flat-backed onto the nearest indestructible tabletop but Melinda flipped out of it, landed on her feet, and retaliated with a nasty shot to Ricky's knee that forced him to stumble. He didn't even see the chop to the back of his neck that Melinda delivered with stunning accuracy. He just hit the floor with a full-on smack.
An unseen leg kicked her in the back of the knee and then she caught a hard right hook with her ribs before recovering enough to scramble onto the tabletop. From there, she jumped the six feet across the room to the other tabletop and just by coincidence missed being hit by a flaming projectile. A Runner threw something wet on her and she didn't know what it was but that sure as hell wasn't good. Probably flammable.
She kicked the alum into the Runner's face, leg-whipped him in the neck, and jumped down, dodging another flaming projectile from the back of the room. One of her Wolves wasn't so lucky though. He was trying to get his clothes off while being kicked by three kids. His entire chest was on fire and as he spun the flames shook in the wind of movement, flags on the flagpole of his body. In a last desperate effort, the Wolf jumped on his attackers, trying to light them up too. They all hit the ground hard.
Melinda dodged another mini-fireball and absolutely crushed a kid coming right at her with a stiff clothesline when her remaining Wolves slung the kid with a throw. She had to stop Mironov from burning the place up. Fast. But before she could do that, she had to dodge a crane-style punch combo that nearly took one of her ears off Whoever the girl attacking her was, she was good. Melinda retaliated with Iron Fist hung gar, a tremendous punch to both shoulders to slow the girl down and throw her off Melinda's true style when faced with multiple opponents: capoeira.
The little crane must've expected a less straightforward tactic, as she did not move her foot when Melinda stomped down hard on her toes. She merely grimaced but it gave Melinda enough time to dance left, bend low, and shoot her leg out in a backward kick, delivering a devastating blow to the shin of the Blade coming up behind her. He'd thought he had a clear shot at her. He didn't. Instead, what he got was Melinda rocking her body forward as if she was going into a handstand but kicked him in the nose with her back foot instead. The force of her boot crammed his nostrils back into his face as the bridge of his nose shortened by an inch and the cartilage dislodged from the nasal bone, disappearing into his sinus cavity, charging into his brain in a burst of blood that sprayed across the room like a popped-open bottle of champagne that had been shook. His whole body went limp long before hitting the floor.
Little Crane was on top of Melinda before she even maintained her balance, using long, straight arm movements, keeping Melinda far enough away that she couldn't go for a quick body blow to end it. The girl's kicks were impeccable too. Very stylish but lacking in power. Melinda had a chance to test them with her shoulders, waist, and forearms. Yes, Little Crane was impressive but Melinda was wasting far too much time when there was a roving arsonist in the room.
So she sprang forward from her back-and-forth dancing position and swung both arms toward the head of Little Crane. Melinda knew Little Crane would duck them, which allowed her some room to jump forward and spin on her hands and kick her legs out above her like helicopter blades. Little Crane blocked the first of Melinda's kicks but she caught the next one squarely in the chin, and the kick after that knocked her to the ground for good. Melinda might've taken another moment to relish the victory but when she came up from her spinning position, she was on fire.
Immediately, Melinda stopped, dropped, and rolled, like the old public service announcement always said. She wriggled out of her still-flaming vest despite solid kicks to her ribs, thighs, and shoulder. Lucky nothing else on her was on fire. Whoever her attacker was got a shot squarely to the cup, then to both knees and in his voice box as he bent over.
Melinda rolled forward, dove through the splayed legs of one of her Wolves and bounced up right in front of Mironov, who was so surprised that he dropped his burning missile by reflex when the flames singed his fingers. Not even hesitating, Melinda swung her special move at him from close quarters: her Frostbite Cross Combination left Mironov no chance. The first punch hit him in the neck while the second one went clean into his jaw, crushing it up into the socket.
Up to that point, she had blocked out the noises, the screaming, and the awful stench of burning and alum mixed together like the chem lab was some kind of death camp. She felt light-headed as she turned and darted for the front door. Her two remaining Wolves did not stare at the smoldering and screaming bodies in the middle of the floor. They followed her.
When Melinda ran across the hall to Mark's English class she was only thinking of herself, of survival, and not the bodies behind her. It would be Mr. Wilkes that would emerge from the corner behind his desk to get the fire blanket out and pat down the burning bodies that used to be whole boys and girls and see if anything could be done for them. Old Mr. Wilkes would have to tend to Ricky, Cynthia, and Mironov. He'd be the one that had to stand on a stool and unlock the high cabinet in order to get the first-aid kit down and care for all of them. Alone, Mr. Wilkes would dispense bandages, lay cool wet towels on burns, smooth on ointments, and tie tourniquets with his wrinkled, shaking, arthritic hands.