All six brutes barreled toward Ava. She leaped toward a nearby cabinet, bounced off the wall, and backflipped over the cronies like an acrobat. 

She came crashing down on the shoulders of one of the intruders, knocking him over into a second one. 

Ava tucked and rolled under a third attacker, swiping his right leg to topple him. Now on the opposite side of the room, she charged right into the fray of battle. 

The men swung at her with meaty fists and hefty kicks. 

She expertly maneuvered around their thrashing arms and legs as she kicked a man in the groin, chopped another in the neck, and swung back to elbow his neighbor across his jaw. 

Just when Ava was beginning to gain control, the captain snuck into the quarrel. 

He slugged Ava straight in the face, breaking her nose. 

Ava recoiled in pain, losing her balance. The captain stepped closer, breathed in, and kicked her in the stomach with a mountain of force. Ava screamed as she flew back and over the top of an office desk, crashing to the ground. 

“AVA!” a worried voice bellowed from down the hall. “I’m coming!” 

Daniel! Ava winced on the floor, disoriented. He’s alive!

Still bloody and bruised from the lobby, Daniel Nockby barged into the room in mission mode. He twirled his own morphstaff masterfully as he plowed through Ava’s attackers. Ava got to her feet with an aching grunt to join her partner in combat.

As she looked over the desk, Ava’s heart froze. A mysterious new figure covered in a dark hood entered the chamber. The shadowy villain, barely visible except for its blood-red eyes, pulled a loaded gun from its side. 

“DANIEL!” Ava shrieked, begging him to somehow avoid what she knew was coming. 

A gunshot fired and Daniel collapsed to the ground, dead with one blow. Ava felt immediate devastation in her bones. Their soul connection was instantly severed, as if Daniel’s life meant nothing. 

Ava released a guttural battle cry and launched forward in vengeance. She refused to let their mission fail. The world’s future was at risk, and the only person she loved more than Daniel could never survive if she was gone.

Time seemed to slow as Ava leaped off the desk into the air above her attackers. She mystically morphed a portion of her staff into eight floating daggers. She telekinetically hurled the blades like missiles deep into the chests of the captain and his six intruders. They all dropped dead. The eighth dagger darted toward the mysterious murderer with the glowing red eyes. But the stoic villain merely sidestepped to dodge the flying knife. As Ava landed back on the floor, the eight blades shot back to reattach to her morphstaff. The ominous figure was unfazed. It raised its hand and made a grasping motion. Ava went rigid. Her muscles were stone. She couldn’t move. The murderer raised their weapon once more. A cracking gunshot fired toward Ava. Within milliseconds, the entire history of her short life danced across her mind. 

Ava Harlow’s final heartbreak was knowing she failed the boy she left behind.