Chapter 21
Thor must have moved his base of operations while we had been waiting for Shelley to be freed, because Wizzit set us down in what looked like a large public park, with plenty of broad walkways and lots of trees. The monster himself was standing in front of one of the weirdest-looking sculptures I have ever seen, if a sculpture was what it was. It looked like a silver-colored coffee bean had been plunked down in the middle of the plaza, but huge, like three stories high. With a hammer-sized hole smashed right through the center of it.
As I watched, Thor raised both hands and gave voice to a full-throated roar. I would have launched into our standard everybody-move-away speech right about then, except that pretty much everybody had moved away. Only a few gawkers were hanging around on the periphery of the action, and I figured they wouldn't go away no matter what I said. I saw only a few Zoinks in the area, but with no real onlookers to menace, they were wandering aimlessly about like little lost souls.
Trina, Nicolai, and I dashed toward the monster. Trina stopped when we were about thirty yards away. Nicolai and I separated; he went right and I went left. I think both of us figured that Trina was going to start shooting any second, and neither of us wanted to be in her line of fire.
Sure enough, I heard the sizzle of her triple-blaster and saw the energy beam strike Thor right between the eyes. He staggered back, roaring; then, quickly regaining his balance, he threw his hammer.
"Look out, Orange!" Nicolai and I shouted at the same time as the weapon made its way straight toward Trina. I still don't know how she did it, but she took aim and managed to zap the hammer with her blaster beam as it spun its way toward her. Showers of sparks erupted, hiding the hammer from my view, but Trina's aim never wavered. She coolly kept the beam centered on target as it spun closer and closer. By the time it reached her, its energy was nearly spent. She dove to one side then to try to avoid it, but it followed her movement and struck her a glancing blow across the back, sending her sprawling along a walkway, before rebounding back to the hand of Thor.
"Are you all right, Orange?" I heard Nicolai ask anxiously, Prime-to-Prime. He had reached the monster by now and took a low swing with his axe. Thor jumped over Nicolai's knee-high attack, which easily put him in the top ten percent of all the monsters I had ever faced, agility-wise.
"I will be," she replied with a groan. "What happened? How did it hit me? I jumped out of the way!"
"The hammer followed you," I said simply. I had reached the monster myself by now, and I waded into him, slashing at him with my sais while his attention was focused on Nicolai. Maybe attacking him from behind wasn't terribly sporting, but I believe one should never give an Enclave monster an even break.
"Looks like Black was right," Nicolai commented.
"Black?" Trina said, a hint of playfulness making its way into her voice as she rolled to her feet. "Surely you mean Gold!"
"Black or Gold, the point is that Thor's hammer always strikes its target, then returns to its owner."
"How can we fight him, then?" Trina asked. "If he can hit us whenever he wants to and we cannot avoid it?"
"There's getting hit and then there's getting hit," I said. Thor had figured out by now that something was attacking from behind; he turned and swung a gauntleted fist at me. I avoided his attack, somersaulting backward. "Hang on, I want to try something."
I thrust my sais into my belt and dug my sap gloves out from a pocket of my battle vest as I continued to back away. These were fighting gloves with protective steel shot sewn into pockets across all the striking surfaces. The anti-Enclave tech that Padma had embedded in the leather made them pretty decent weapons against monsters.
Gloves on, I pulled out my blaster. It wasn't as powerful as Trina's triple-blaster, but I figured it ought to be good enough to get ol' Hammer-head good and mad at me. "Clear the target, Yellow," I called out to Nicolai as I drew a bead. Nicolai feinted once with his axe, then danced back, leaving me with a clear shot. I took it.
My blaster beam struck the monster on the side of his horned helmet, knocking it askew so that it half-covered his eyes. He looked pretty silly, staggering around with his arms waving wildly in front of him, before he reached up and reset the helmet on his head. He spun about, looking for whoever had blasted him. His beady little eyes fixed themselves on me, and with another roar, he threw his hammer straight at me. Which is sort of what I was hoping he would do.
Now, I'm not in Mike's class as far as reflexes are concerned, but I've got pretty fast hands, especially when I have my force shield powered up and am psyched for battle. I watched that hammer spinning toward me, and when it got within arm's length, I reached out and grabbed hold of the haft with both hands. And as I had hoped, my sap gloves protected my hands from the jolt of the impact.
The way I had figured it, the hammer wouldn't have to split my skull open before starting its return journey. Pretty much any contact ought to count as a hit -- at least that's what I was hoping.
Turns out I was right. When I grabbed the handle, I did my best to lock my elbows and hold it away from me at arms' length. Even so, it continued spinning forward despite my best efforts until the head thumped against my chest -- not with enough force to break my sternum or anything, but I was going to have some bruises to show for my cleverness by the end of the battle.
Once it hit me, though, it evidently decided it was time to head back for home, and it seemed perfectly willing to take me with it. The hammer was no longer spinning, for which I was profoundly grateful, but it did manage to drag me along without slowing down noticeably. In fact, by the time the two of us reached Thor, we were traveling along at a pretty good clip.
The monster wasn't paying much mind to his hammer at the moment -- Nicolai and Trina were doing their best to hold his attention -- so he didn't notice that I was tagging along for the ride. He simply reached out his hand, obviously expecting the handle just to land there. He just as obviously wasn't expecting me to swing my feet up at the last second and double-kick him in the jaw with all my weight plus the momentum provided by the hammer.
A kick like that, as fast as I was traveling, could easily have broken the neck of an average human, assuming it didn't tear his head completely off. This was an Enclave beastie, though, and so while my kick did knock him off his feet, it unfortunately didn't appear to do him any lasting damage. Still, we like to take advantage of any opportunities that come our way, so by the time I had regained my feet, Trina and Nicolai were already whaling away on the prone monster for all they were worth -- Nicolai with his axe and Trina with the new sword that Padma had made for her.
I joined in enthusiastically, and for a while there, I really thought we had him. We might have, too, if there had been more of us. Unfortunately, the fewer Primes there are at a scene, the harder it is for Wizzit to tune our weapons for that all-important final strike. Thor managed to get one fist free, and he clocked Trina upside the head, sending her sprawling back. Then he began laying about him with that damn hammer of his, so that Nicolai and I had to back away or risk having our heads caved in.
We kept at it, though, Nicolai and I. Nicolai's axe gives him a longer reach than my sais, so he was the one who stood toe-to-toe against the red-haired thunder god while I harried him from the sides. Thor didn't seem to be tiring, and I was just starting to wonder how long it would be before he started getting the better of Nicolai, when I heard Trina shout, "Clear the target!"
I jumped up and slashed at Thor's eyes with my sais to give Nicolai cover to get away, and then I skedaddled myself. Trina was standing forty, maybe fifty yards away aiming her triple-blaster straight at our adversary. "Careful, Orange," Nicolai warned her. "You know what happened last time."
"I remember," Trina said, "but this time Wizzit and I have plan. It was Blue who gave me the idea. After monster throws hammer, start attacking him, but do not get between him and where I am
right now, understand?"
Between him and where I am right now? Her syntax was sort of a head-scratcher, but I guess her meaning was clear enough. "You got it, Orange!" I said. Nicolai shrugged and agreed as well.
"Good. Wizzit, get ready!" Trina snapped off a shot that knocked Thor's helmet clean off his head. I grinned. My aim has been getting better lately, now that I have begun practicing regularly, but Trina is hands-down the best shot we've ever had. She followed that up with several others, including one to his face and another that I swear struck that strength-enhancing belt of his square on the buckle.
Thor, of course, wasn't going to take any of this lying down. After Trina finished taking her shots, he roared, reared back like a major-league pitcher, and heaved that hammer of his straight at her as hard as he could. It flew almost faster that I could follow it, and it went through the spot where her head had been a split second after her form had vanished in a flash of orange light.
Clever, I thought. She had dodged the hammer by having Wizzit teleport her out. The question was, where did he send her?
My question was answered quickly enough. Trina reappeared almost immediately between me and Nicolai -- directly opposite the spot she had vanished from. She holstered her triple-blaster and drew her sword, shouting, "Come on, this is no time to stand around gaping! We have to distract him!"
She began slashing at the monster, and Nicolai and I looked at each other and began doing likewise. Enclave monsters are nothing if not distractable. Nope, not too many mental giants there, although I suppose JB Swift would be an exception. I had my blaster in one hand and a sai in the other, and my shots to the face and slashes to the side were making him good and mad.
Nicolai tried to get Trina to do that you-go-high-I-go-low move that he and Padma have been getting good at, but she wasn't interested. She kept ducking around Thor, trying to look behind him. "Orange, you need to keep your eye on the target!" I shouted at her as her inattention nearly got her swatted again.
The words were scarcely out of my mouth when she suddenly yelled, "Drop! Flat! Now!"
Now, I have been fighting alongside Trina for a number of years, and I have never known her to screw around during a battle, so when she said drop, Nicolai and I threw ourselves prone on the ground.
It was a good thing, too. I hadn't been keeping track of what his hammer was doing, but Trina had. That had been the whole plan she had cooked up with Wizzit, in fact. Given where she was now, if that hammer wanted to hit her, it would have to go through Thor to do it. And you know what? That's just what it did, at the full speed that ol' Helmet-head had thrown it.
We weren't showered with monster guts as the hammer plowed its way through his torso. Rather, his Enclave enhancements failed in rather spectacular fashion, and we got showered with sparks and bits of flaming debris instead. I suppose it was cleaner that way -- at least I didn't feel like I had to take a shower afterwards -- but monster guts wouldn't have stung as much.
"You okay, Yellow?" I asked after a few seconds of silence.
"I am fine, Blue."
"How about you, Orange?" I called. When she didn't reply immediately, I said more sharply, "Orange, are you okay? Please respond!"
I jumped to my feet. Nicolai was kneeling beside Trina's shimmering orange form as I joined them. "Did the hammer get through to Orange?" I asked gravely. She was lying flat on her back, unmoving, and I was fearing the worst.
Nicolai shook his head. "Almost. It went all the way through the monster, and then it exploded when he did. Orange caught the blast full in the face."
"Ouch!" I said, wincing in sympathy.
"There is considerable damage to the soft tissue, mostly burns," Wizzit said, "but scarcely any to the underlying skeletal structure. Orange should make a rapid recovery, with no scarring. Orange is unconscious now, and I am preventing any kind of pain from getting through."
"Send me back to HQ with Orange, Wizzit," Nicolai said. "I will make sure Orange is made comfortable for the healing coma."
"Be sure to fix Orange up right, Wizzit," I murmured as the two of them disappeared in a flash of light. I had always liked the way Trina's face was arranged, and I would have hated to see it permanently disfigured because of a stupid Enclave monster.
I stood up and looked around. The few Zoinks who had been wandering around ineffectually had disappeared with Thor's destruction. "I guess you can teleport me out as well, Wizzit," I said. "Washington or Las Vegas, whoever needs help the most."
"Washington it is, then," Wizzit replied. "Those thunderbolts are giving them fits."
Everything went hazy, then cleared again. Wizzit had set me down in the National Mall. I could see my teammates over by the Washington Monument.
"Hi, guys!" I called out. "How can I help?"
I saw Bill's head turn towards me. "Blue?" he said sharply. "What are you doing here? What's the situation in Chicago?"
"All tidied up," I replied. "Orange had a bright idea, and that let us dispose of the monster quite handily."
"We could use a few bright ideas about now," I heard someone mutter. I didn't recognize the voice right away. It wasn't Bill, though, and it wasn't Padma, so it must have been Cathy.
"Yeah, well, Orange got injured, unfortunately, so you're stuck with whatever I can come up with," I said. "Yellow took Orange back to HQ. Yellow should rejoin the fight momentarily, either here or in Las Vegas."
"Yellow has just been teleported to Las Vegas," Wizzit reported.
"So, what can I do?" I asked again.
"Well, for starters, you can figure out how to get around those lightning bolts old Zeus-boy is throwing around," Cathy said acerbically. "A couple of them have almost hit me. I don't dare step out of cover to take a shot because he's got deadly aim, and those things can fry anyone who doesn't have a real force shield."
"The monster appears to be capable of generating clusters of static electricity at extremely high voltages and reasonably high amperages," Wizzit explained. "He is then able to hurl these clusters at nearby targets at velocities approaching two hundred meters per second. I am able to use the force shield to harmlessly ground any Prime he strikes, effectively neutralizing the cluster, but doing so drains the force shield for a short time. For those without force shields, well, you heard what Silver said."
Padma said, "I myself was struck only a minute ago. I must remain under cover so I do not get hit again until my force shield recharges itself."
"You can probably see the problems we're facing," Bill said dryly. "He can throw these things fast enough that we can't dodge them, so Indigo and I can get in only a few shots before we have to go into hiding. And Silver can't help at all. He can't throw them terribly far, but if we're close enough to take an accurate shot, he's close enough to throw. I was kind of hoping we could make use of Orange's sharpshooting skills."
I looked around. There wasn't a whole lot of cover in the land surrounding the Washington Monument. There were some trees a ways back, but not much closer in, where we were. The Zeus monster currently tearing down a stone building off to one side, what I made out to be the eastern side of the monument. "Have you tried camouflage mode?"
"Yup," Bill replied tersely. "It works well when you're standing still, but not so well when you're trying to get into position close by. And this fellow's got sharp eyes; nothing much gets past him, especially when you get close enough to shoot."
"What about using the flagpoles somehow?" I asked. The Washington monument is surrounded by fifty US flags, I recalled from one of my high school classes, and I could see that the poles supporting them appeared to be made of aluminum. "If you could force Zeus to throw one of his lightning bolts between the flagpoles, they might act as lightning rods and attract the charge."
"That's . . . not a bad idea," Bill said slowly. "Silver, do you think you could get inside the ring of flagpoles and shoot out at
him from there?"
"Can do. That's the best idea I've heard so far. Camouflage mode on!"
Cathy's molten-silver form shimmered into near-invisibility, and then I lost sight of her as she began racing toward the circle of flagpoles. Then I began running at right angles to her path. "What do you have in mind, Blue?" I heard Padma ask.
"When it doubt, use a Zoink as a shield," I called back. Zeus had a few Zoinks providing him with support, but as in Chicago, they were wandering about aimlessly, not having any humans nearby to intimidate.
"Blue, wait --" I heard Bill yell, but I wasn't listening to him. I ran over to the Zoink farthest from Zeus and began smacking it around. I'm sure it was wondering what it had ever done to offend me, but I didn't particularly care. When I had it nicely softened up, I picked it up bodily and began racing toward the building that Zeus was demolishing. He appeared to be quite happily engaged in his work and didn't see me approach. When I was just a few yards away, I drew my blaster and one of my sais and, with the feebly-struggling Zoink sort of draped across my front and shoulders, took aim and fired.
If this were a cowboy movie, I probably would not have been the guy wearing the white hat, because I had no qualms about shooting this particular monster in the back. I snapped off maybe half a dozen shots rapid-fire, and then I started circling to one side.
Zeus looked up from the masonry he was crushing, roared at me, and made some sort of throwing motion with his right hand. A ball of light flashed through the air toward me faster than I could blink. I made no attempt to dodge it; I simply shifted as much as I could to let the Zoink take the hit.
My left hand, the hand holding the sai, was somewhere in the middle of the Zoink's back, helping to hold it in place. By some coincidence, the ball of lightning struck the blade of my sai, nearly knocking it from my hand. The ball of electricity rebounded back towards the monster, missing him by inches. He snarled and flung another thunderbolt in my direction. This one struck the Zoink across the upper back . . . and . . . bzzzzt!
Have you ever received a strong electrical shock? I don't mean just a little zap, like when your little sister scuffs her feet across the carpet and touches you on the back of the neck while you're in the middle of studying for a big test in American History, and then runs away shrieking with laughter. (Why, yes, that has happened to me, thanks for asking.)
No, I mean the kind of shock that instantly grabs your attention and clamps your muscles down so tight that you couldn't unclench them if you tried. That's what this thunderbolt felt like. I felt myself being flung backwards with the force of it, and the arm that was pinioning the Zoink to me contracted, clamping it against me so hard I was sure I was leaving hand prints in its back.
I fell to the ground with a thump, and the Zoink landed on top of me, driving the air from my lungs. I heard the sizzle of blaster fire. "Your force shield's gone, Blue! Get out of there. Now!" I heard Cathy shout.
Somehow I rolled over onto my side and managed to push the limp and slightly-smoking Zoink off of me. I could hear Zeus roaring, and mental images of him throwing another one of those lightning bolts at me spurred me to action. I got my feet under me and began running as fast as I could away from the monster. Behind me, I heard a boom and a crackle.
"Good idea, Blue!" I heard Cathy call out. "Not attacking with a Zoink -- that was dumb -- but hiding behind the flagpoles. He can't get me here!"
I judged that I was far enough away by now to be safe, and I collapsed onto the grass. "Why didn't somebody warn me?" I groaned.
"I tried to," Bill said with a chuckle. "It appears that Zoinks are good conductors of electricity. I found that out the hard way, same as you did."
"Fortunately for you, the charge passed harmlessly through your force shield straight to the ground," Wizzit said. "Thanks to me." You know, self-effacing is not a word I would ever use to describe Wizzit.
"That was harmless?" I rolled onto my back and kipped up to my feet. It was harder to do than it should have been, which told me that my force shield really wasn't much use to me at the moment, voice alteration and disguising blue haze aside. "Well, at least we learned something," I said. "One of those thunderbolt thingies hit my weapon and bounced off. I bet if we were fast enough, we could take advantage of that and attack him with his own lightning."
"Yeah, good luck with that!" Bill said grimly. "You heard what Wizzit said. Those thunderbolts of his travel a couple hundred meters per second. That's faster than an arrow flies. Are your reflexes quick enough to deflect something traveling that fast? Because mine sure aren't."
We listened to the boom-crackle of another thunderbolt hitting the aluminum flagpoles. An idea occurred to me. It must have occurred to Padma at the same time, because just as I was saying, "Red's are," she said, "Red could do it."
There was a moment's silence, and then Cathy said quietly, "They're right, Black. Red would be perfect for this."
"Can't argue with that," Bill agreed. "Wizzit, please contact Red and see whether we can negotiate a trade. I'd be willing to send any of us out to Las Vegas to get Red over here."
There was a pause. "Bringing Red out shortly," Wizzit said. "Red wants Blue and Indigo to go to Las Vegas in return."
"Does Red know we have non-functioning force shields?" Padma asked.
"The subject did not come up. At any rate, yours should be at full strength now. Blue's force shield will be back within five minutes."
I felt the familiar tingling at the back of my neck, and when my vision cleared, Padma and I were standing in the middle of a wide intersection -- South Las Vegas Boulevard and Flamingo Road, to judge by the street signs. I could see a place called Bally's on one corner, and directly across the road from Bally's, someone was advertising "the best steak on the strip".
Indra was in the center of the intersection, going toe-to-toe with both Toby and Nicolai, while Mayumi was a short distance away, doing her best to set up triple-blaster shots between her teammates. "Glad to get some fresh legs out our way," Toby commented gruffly, blocking an overhead blow with the haft of his cartoonishly-large hammer. "This lad's a tough one. Watch out for that weapon of his -- Indigo, I think you called it the Vajra? I've seen him knock chunks out of buildings with that thing. And Wizzit said not to let it touch any of our weapons; he said he wouldn't be responsible for the consequences."
I glanced at Toby's weapon, and sure enough, he was blocking Indra's forearm, not the actual Vajra itself. Padma dashed forward to join Nicolai. They held a brief consultation, then the two of them began attacking Indra together. I grinned when I saw how eager Padma was to join the fray; having seen how angry she had been the last time we fought a fake Hindu god, I had no doubt that she would take the fight straight to Indra, her earlier reluctance notwithstanding.
"Don't be shy, Blue!" I heard Mayumi call. Nicolai and Padma had just finished a double-strike on the faux god and were backing away. Mayumi took careful aim and zapped him with a body shot. "Come and join the fun!"
"Can't right now, Copper," I replied. "My force shield needs to recharge. Right now, I couldn't even shoot my blaster."
"Oh, you poor thing!" Mayumi clucked sympathetically. "Come over here; I'll protect you from the mean, nasty monster."
I chuckled. "And who will protect me from you?" Mayumi, I have noticed, flirted more outrageously than Trina ever did.
"You both will need protecting from me if you don't keep your minds on business!" Toby growled. He swiveled his body around two hundred seventy degrees, slamming his hammer into Indra's belly. Then he had to dance backward to avoid being sideswiped by the Vajra. "How long before you're back to full strength, Blue?"
"Two minutes, thirteen seconds," Wizzit replied. "You may have some additional help coming soon," he added. "Red's attacks on the monster in Washington, DC, are proving highly effective."
"Well, that's something at least. Keep us ap
praised of that and of Blue's status if you please, Wizzit." Toby seemed to have assumed command of this particular branch of our fight, irrespective of the fact that, technically, Nicolai outranked him. Knowing Nicolai, though, I didn't think he would have a problem with that.
Feeling about as useful as a kickstand on a semi, I surveyed the battle, trying to spot anything we could use to our advantage. There wasn't a whole lot. Indra was a plenty tough opponent, with not a lot of weaknesses that I could spot. Mayumi was peppering him with triple-strength blaster shots, which he was shrugging off, and when Nicolai, Toby, or Padma were able to actually hit him with a blow from their weapons -- which was not often -- he appeared to shrug those off as well. In sum, this had all the earmarks of a long, tough fight.
Which, it appeared, I wasn't going to be part of. By my calculations, my force shield was just about fully charged when Wizzit suddenly announced, "Kids, another monster has shown up. It's on an isolated island in the Hawaiian chain."
I heard Mike rap out from somewhere in Washington, "Send out Blue and Gold, Wizzit. They're the two most available at this point."
"I'm all over, Red."
I felt the tingling at the base of my skull, and everything went hazy. When my vision cleared, I was standing on a beautiful white, sandy beach. The blue waters of the Pacific lapped at my feet, and from high in an equally blue sky, a brilliant sun smiled down on me.
In all, it was a gorgeous scene, marred only by the two figures standing before me. One was a huge, Samoan- or Hawaiian-looking man. He was bare-chested, with a cape of colorful feathers around his shoulders, and he was wearing some sort of loincloth around his hips. Except for being around ten feet tall, he looked so normal (costume aside, that is) that I said, "Uh, Wizzit, this guy is the monster, right?"
"Affirmative," came Wizzit's reply. "Stand by. Currently waiting for evidence that he is hostile."
I sighed. "Understood. What should I do about Lily?" She was the second of the two figures. It was a little odd, because normally she came out in commander mode with a crowd of Zoinks, and then she'd switch to attacker mode after I had begun harassing her. Today, though, there were no Zoinks for her to command, and to judge by the lack of expression on her face, she was already in CKFZC mode. She wasn't attacking, though, just standing there in a ready stance, watching me.
"Stand by, I suppose," he replied. "I'm not really sure what's going on here . . ."
"Can you tell me anything about this monster?" I asked, hoping for some sort of clue as to what to do.
"This is just a guess, but he's probably some sort of Polynesian storm god or demigod, if today's previous monsters are any indication. Haikili, Tawhaki, Kaha'i, Te Uira, or some other deity unknown to me -- take your pick."
Hmm. Well, since it was up to me, I decided to call the guy Haikili, just because I could pronounce it. While Wizzit had been telling me all this, Haikili had raised his hands up to the sky and his eyes had begun to glow a deep red. The sky behind him, which had been a cloudless blue, began to darken with clouds, and the wind began whipping all around us.
Suddenly Haikili brought his two massive hands together in front of him in a thunderous clap. Lightning sprang from his joined fists, and I jumped and said a very bad word as it struck the sand not two feet from where I was standing.
"Wizzit!" I yelped. "Is he hostile yet?" But by then it didn't make much difference, because Lily launched herself at me as I was in mid-yelp, and suddenly my dance card was very full.
Now, you have to understand that I hadn't fought Lily in months, and that last time had been in Guangzhou, when she had been distracted by everyone speaking Cantonese. I don't think I had had a real knock-down, drag-out with her since that awful battle in New York, the time Shelley had been arrested.
I guess what I'm trying to say is that I underestimated her. Seriously underestimated her. I mean, come on -- she's not very big, and with that sweet face of hers, she doesn't look all that dangerous, and in commander mode, she's not much of a physical threat to anyone, and besides . . . eh, enough excuses. I screwed up, and she very quickly began handing my butt to me. Almost before I knew what was happening, I was reeling from probably half a dozen kicks to the head and face, and then she was on my back snaking an arm around my neck.
With my force shield at full strength, I didn't seriously think that she could do much damage with a choke hold -- couldn't break my neck, couldn't cut off my air, couldn't shut off the blood flow to my brain -- but I decided not to take any chances. We were just on the edge of the ocean, with water swirling around our ankles. I half-turned and jumped straight into the surf, somersaulting as I did so, so that Lily was underneath me as I hit.
I don't think it would surprise to anyone to learn that, given the choice between maintaining a choke hold and breathing, most folks will choose breathing. Crazy Kung Fu Zombie Chick was no exception. She let go of me and wriggled away almost as soon as her head went underwater. I got my feet under me as quickly as I could and charged after her.
As I was closing in, I heard the sound of someone laughing. "Aw, is the little girl picking on you, Blue?" came Bill's voice.
Yeah, there were definitely people I would rather have as a partner besides Bill. If that same remark had come from someone I enjoyed working with, say, Padma or Toby, I would have laughed. Coming from Bill, though, it just sounded like he was making fun of me. Still, one has to make do with what one has, so instead of a snippy retort, I merely said, "I think it's because she secretly has a crush on me, Gold. Where have you been, anyway? I thought Wizzit was going to teleport us both out here."
"I'm Black now, not Gold; I decided to change back. And Wizzit sent me to pick up something first."
I glanced over at where Bill was standing. He was indeed no longer sheathed in molten gold; he was back in his usual black-misted form. Lily aimed a jumping sidekick at me, but I had her scouted by now and was easily able to bat it aside. "I hope it was takeout," I said as I prepared to counterattack, "because I'm starving."
"Nope, no food. Just a little black box. Let's see what this button does."
He said that just as I was jumping up to deliver a backwheel kick to the side of Lily's head. As I spun around, I saw her face had abruptly changed expression. Or rather, it had gained expression, since CKFZC normally has none. In one brief glance, I saw that her eyes were lit up and her lips parted in a delighted smile. She looked as though she were about to step forward and give me an enthusiastic hug. She definitely wasn't trying to defend herself. That was when my heel connected with her temple.
She never even had the chance to look surprised. I heard a sick-sounding crack, and she went sprawling face-down onto the wave-washed sand. She didn't move after that. I stood there, staring stupidly down at her. "What did you do?" I asked Bill.
He chuckled. "Remember that earring of hers that you brought back to HQ, the one that reacts to the remote control that JB Swift carries? Wizzit and I finally found an infrared signal that it responded to. We weren't sure what effect it would have on her, but he figured it couldn't be worse than --"
He was interrupted by the sound of a nearby thunderclap. Haikili, it appeared, was tired of being ignored. The lightning struck the ground near Bill's feet. He jumped backward in alarm. At the same time, I suddenly became aware of the danger of standing in saltwater in the vicinity of a being that could throw electricity around, and I quickly ran up to stand beside Bill.
I think he and I got the same idea at the same time, to keep Haikili off-balance while we got ready to attack. I drew my blaster and spat an energy beam at him. Bill did the same, and Haikili . . . vaporized.
"Huh! That was almost too easy," Bill commented as he holstered his blaster.
I rubbed the back of my aching head. Easy? Well, maybe for him. "He's really gone, right, Wizzit?" I asked anxiously. "He didn't just teleport somewhere, did he?"
/> "Nope, he's really gone. Good work, kids," Wizzit said. "Another monster has shown up in a remote part of eastern New Mexico, some kind of bird. Pink has contacted me and will be joining you after picking up Orange's blaster at HQ. Prepare to teleport . . ."
I glanced back to where my favorite lady minder still lay unmoving on the beach. I didn't like the way those waves were lapping at her upper chest and shoulders. "Hang on a sec, Wizzit," I said. "Let me go check on Lily."
"Countermand that, Wizzit," Bill said. "Blue, we're going to leave. Now."
"I'll just be a second," I said, turning back towards the water.
"I said no, Blue," Bill told me firmly, grabbing my forearm in an iron grip. "Red's orders. You are not, under any circumstances, to attempt to make contact with Lily. We're leaving. Now."
I turned to stare at the black mistiness that concealed his face. "You're kidding, right?" I exclaimed.
"Nope, afraid not." His hand tightened on my arm. "Let's go."
Now, Bill is stronger than I am, and I didn't think I could easily break his grip. Not, at least, without starting something I didn't want to have to finish. I was pretty sure I could take him in a fair fight if it came to that, but this close up, his superiority in size, weight, and strength put me at a pretty severe disadvantage. So I did the only thing I could think of to do. I said a very bad word.
Attack Doll 4: Primes Emeriti Page 22