Rehab for SuperVillains (18+)-Chapter 122: nest

"Oh fuck!" Rhea and Freya shouted in unison.

Rhea’s instincts kicked in, her scarred hands igniting with a primal roar as she unleashed a fiery burst toward the horde of massive, muscular rats.

The tunnel erupted in a hellish glow, the air thick with the acrid stench of burnt meat and the high-pitched shrieks of agony that clawed at the senses.

The rats’ glowing eyes flickered in the inferno, their furry skin burning under the onslaught.

Freya, her blue eyes sharp and unyielding, stood at Rhea’s back, her ice powers primed, scanning the shadows for any sign of a flank.

The tunnel pulsed with malevolent energy, the walls seeming to writhe, as if the very stone conspired against them.

Freya’s gaze locked onto the blaze, her heart lurching as she noticed something unnatural.

There was a movement.

Amid the chaos, a few rats didn’t retreat—they advanced. Her eyes narrowed, focusing through the smoke and flickering flames. The surviving rats were using their charred, lifeless kin as shields, their heavy bodies dragging the corpses forward, absorbing Rhea’s fire.

The tactic was chillingly smart for rats, their glowing eyes glinting with a cunning that sent a shiver down Freya’s spine.

"Rhea, fall back!" she shouted, her voice cutting through the din, urgent and raw. "You’re spent—you can’t keep this up!"

Rhea’s crimson hair clung to her sweat-soaked face, her amber eyes dim with exhaustion, her breaths ragged and uneven.

Her flames flickered, weaker now, her reserves nearly drained.

Freya saw the strain etched into every line of Rhea’s face—the stubborn defiance warring with bone-deep fatigue.

They were outmaneuvered, the rats’ intelligence a terrifying escalation.

Retreat was their only chance.

Without waiting for Rhea’s protest, Freya acted. Her hands thrust forward, unleashing a torrent of ice directly into Rhea’s fading flames.

"Freya?!" Rhea gasped, shock flashing across her face as the icy blast met her fire.

The collision birthed a blinding explosion of steam, a thick, choking fog that swallowed the tunnel, obscuring everything in a ghostly shroud.

The rats’ shrieks faltered, their glowing eyes dimming in the haze, their movements confused as visibility dropped to nothing. novelbuddy.cσ๓

The surviving rats emerged from the steam, their massive forms hunched, sniffing the air with twitching noses.

Their guttural, chittering voices echoed—a disturbing mimicry of communication—as they searched for their prey.

Rhea and Freya were gone, vanished into the fog.

The rats’ glowing eyes scanned the pavement, the walls, the ceiling, but the steam clung like a living thing, heavy and unyielding.

They prowled, claws scraping the concrete, their frustration palpable.

A muscular rat, it’s fur glinting wet, stepped forward, sniffing a peculiar scent, its heavy paw crushing something with a crisp snap.

It looked down—a delicate snowflake, glinting faintly in the dim light.

The rat’s glowing eyes narrowed, and it chittered, summoning others.

A group gathered, their heads tilting as they inspected the anomaly.

Before they could react, a deafening CRASH! echoed through the tunnel.

A wide wall of ice, bristling with jagged, spear-like icicles, plummeted from above, impaling the rats instantly.

Blood sprayed in crimson arcs, their bodies pinned to the pavement, their glowing eyes extinguished in a heartbeat.

Another rat, wary now, stepped cautiously and crushed another snowflake.

Crash!

The trap was sprung again—a second ice wall slammed down, its icicles piercing through flesh and stone, obliterating the group in a grotesque tableau of death.

Freya had laced the tunnel with these deadly snares, each snowflake may or may not be a trigger for her meticulously placed traps.

The rats, realizing their peril, adapted with chilling speed.

They dropped to all fours, moving cautiously, noses to the ground, sniffing carefully to avoid the snowflakes, their glowing eyes darting suspiciously.

Their chittering grew frantic, a mix of rage and fear, as they searched for their elusive prey.

Where had Rhea and Freya gone?

Freya’s ice wall still blocked the tunnel’s retreat, its surface gleaming defiantly.

Even if they fell back, their kin waited beyond, a relentless horde.

They squinted at the ceiling, the steam too dense to pierce, their claws scraping impatiently.

The tunnel felt alive, its pulse a low, ominous thrum that set their nerves on edge.

Inside a concealed alcove, Freya and Rhea crouched, their breaths shallow and silent.

Freya had spotted a jagged hole in the tunnel wall earlier, carved by the concrete rats during their initial assault.

She’d sealed it with ice, but now, with the steam as cover, she’d broken the seal.

Rhea had cleared the alcove with a quick burst of fire, incinerating any lingering rats, and Freya had resealed the entrance with a thin ice wall, making it appear as if nothing had changed.

The steam hid their movements, giving them a fleeting moment to recover.

"Take deep breaths," Freya whispered, her voice so low it was barely a murmur, audible only to Rhea.

Her blue eyes were steady, but her hands trembled faintly, betraying her own exhaustion.

Rhea nodded, her amber eyes clouded with fatigue, her chest rising and falling silently, each breath deeper than the previous.

They sat side by side, the distant chittering of the rats was a constant reminder of the razor-thin line between life and death.

"I thought this would be easier," Rhea murmured, her voice barely above a breath, a tired, bittersweet smile flickering across her lips.

Her amber eyes glistened, not with tears but with a raw vulnerability that caught Freya off guard. "I’ve always hated rats. This... just makes it worse."

"Don’t talk," Freya hissed, her tone firm but laced with a quiet concern. "Rest. We need to fall back, Rhea. No matter what."

"No," Rhea said, her voice soft but unyielding, a spark of defiance flaring in her eyes. "I’m not going back until I kill the queen."

Freya’s jaw tightened, her blue eyes flashing with frustration. "Don’t be stupid, Rhea. We’ll die down here, and you know it."

Rhea let out a low, faint chuckle, the sound fragile yet warm, like a candle flickering in a storm. Freya’s brow furrowed, her irritation softening into curiosity. "What’s funny?"

"You saying ’we,’" Rhea replied, her smile wry, her amber eyes meeting Freya’s with a piercing intensity. "You’ve always been about ’I’ on this mission—lone wolf, all that. Hearing you say ’we’... it’s new."

Freya fell silent, the weight of Rhea’s words sinking in.

She leaned back against the stone, her platinum-cyan hair sticking to her damp forehead, her blue eyes distant as she grappled with the shift.

Rhea’s voice softened, her tone almost confessional.

"I don’t want the Haven to close."