by Charlie Wood
As if an answer to their question, Scatterbolt zoomed in from City Hall, with Tobin riding on his back. The boy was wielding the mop handle—nervous, but ready for action.
“What are you doing?!” Orion shouted. “Scatterbolt, get him out of here! Now!”
“I know, Orion, I tried to tell him, but he wouldn’t listen to me!”
“He’s right, sir,” Tobin said, stepping onto the ground. “I’m sorry, but I’m staying. I can help.”
“Hey, what the hell, O,” Keplar yelled. “Let the damn kid stay. Let’s see how he likes it tomorrow when he—”
A Hoplite dropped from the sky, landing on Keplar’s back and sinking its teeth into his blue fur. With a grunt, he reached back, threw the bug to the ground, and blasted it into goo.
“Let’s see how he likes it,” the husky finished, “when he’s lying in bed tomorrow with a couple of broken legs and a whole lotta regret.”
Orion glared at Tobin, then turned and fired at a distant Hoplite.
“You stay near me,” the old man said. “You do exactly as I say. Do you understand me?”
Tobin nodded. He watched Aykrada; a Hoplite was charging at her, but she used the bottom of her heavy stone fist to squish it into the ground. Then, reaching up, she grabbed another Hoplite right out of the sky, before flinging it into the far off woods.
Tobin decided he better do something to earn his keep. He looked for an easy target.
He found one: a lone Hoplite, standing away from the battle and using a burning tree branch to set a house on fire. Its back was to Tobin, and it was completely distracted.
Tobin nodded and took a deep breath. Gripping the wooden bo-staff in his hands, he clenched his teeth, yelled in battle, and ran at the Hoplite. When he reached the bug, he raised the weapon up, brought it down, and then smashed it over the bug’s ugly head.
But the Hoplite simply stood up straight. It turned around. It wasn’t even dazed—only annoyed.
Tobin looked at his mop handle, wondering what went wrong.
The Hoplite approached. As it waved the burning tree branch at the boy, he could feel the heat of its fire singing his face. Turning around, he saw that he had no where to go: his back was up against a brick wall. Looking away, he closed his eyes, his body stiffening in anticipation of the fire. “So this is how it ends,” he thought. “Burnt to death by a three-foot-tall—”
But then there was a blast of blue light and a snap of electricity.
Tobin opened his eyes. The Hoplite was now gone, and in its place there was a large puddle of yellow-and-black slime on the ground. Sparks of electricity were zipping through the bubbling slime, crisscrossing it from one end to the other.
Tobin held up his hands. They were now faintly glowing blue, and hissing and popping with streaks of electricity.
“Huh,” the boy said, waving his hand in the air. He watched as it left a trail of blue light behind it. The light hung in the air before fading away.
Tobin had an idea. He closed his eyes again.
He thought about electricity: a power plant; a warning sign; a broken electric line, snapping and twisting on the ground. An electric plug; a generator; a cord powering a machine. A lightning bolt, scorching down from the sky and—
The blue flash again.
Tobin opened his eyes and looked down in amazement; wild, blue electricity was now coursing over the bo-staff, flowing through it like a river. Like his hands, the weapon was encased in glowing, snapping, blue-and-white energy. He could feel it humming and vibrating in his arms.
Tobin grinned. “This is awesome.”
As Tobin ran back to the battle, Keplar noticed that the boy’s hands and bo-staff were now both glowing bright blue.
“Well, look at that,” the dog said with a grin. “The little boy is all growns up.”
“Not hardly,” Orion replied. He shot three arrows from his bow at once, nailing all three of his Hoplite targets. “Tobin, I told you to stay near me. Do not do anything unless I tell you to. You hear me?”
A Hoplite was swooping toward the group, so Tobin swung his bo-staff upward into the air and sent the bug tumbling to the ground. “Yes, sir,” he said, twirling the bo-staff around his head in a flashy show of victory. “Loud and clear.”
Orion grumbled. “Oh, great. Another cocky one.”
Keplar laughed. “He’s just like me!”
Orion readied another arrow. “Don’t remind me.”
Nearby, two Gallymoora children were running away from a murderous Hoplite. The hideous bug was laughing as it chased them, and it was just about to grab onto one of them with its spindly hands when—
CLANG! A metal wall sprang up in front of the bug, causing the wasp to smash into it with a SPLAT! Hearing the noise, the two children turned around, only to see the bug’s face contorted into the metal. When the wall receded, the Hoplite stood there a moment, dazed, before falling to the ground.
“Have no fear, citizens!” the wall exclaimed. With the sound of a piece of steel being wobbled in the air, the wall quickly morphed into Scatterbolt, who stood in front of the kids with one fist on his hip and one fist in the air. “Scatterbolt is here!”
Realizing his heroic pose wasn’t accomplishing much besides making him look cool, Scatterbolt quickly morphed into an even bigger wall—this one was as wide and as tall as a small truck. The two children ran behind the robot, finally finding a place to hide among the violence.
“Any of you guys happen to have a giant roll of flypaper lying around?” Scatterbolt asked, spraying his BUG-BE-GONE can at the oncoming Hoplites. “No? Okay, just checking.”
Near the Gallymoora city fountains, Tobin, Keplar, Aykrada, and Orion were standing in a circle, finally making some headway against the invading hornets. Running toward one of them, Tobin swung his bo-staff and sent it flying upward, where it crashed into another wasp, causing them both to fall out of the sky.
“Not bad, kid,” Keplar said. “Not bad at all.”
“Thanks,” Tobin replied. He spun his weapon in front of him. “Kinda reminds me of a video game.”
Because he wasn’t paying attention, Tobin didn’t notice the Hoplite approaching him from behind. Luckily, though, Orion was paying attention, and he fired an arrow that whizzed right past Tobin’s ear. The boy spun around, startled, as the bug behind him exploded in a POP! of yellow-and-black slime.
“Funny,” the old man said, taking another arrow from his quiver. “I must have missed when this became a time to congratulate each other. Stay alert, both of you. Enough talking.”
“Sorry,” Tobin replied sheepishly.
But, Orion didn’t have to worry about their focus for much longer: soon, Aykrada reared back her stone fist and squished the very last Hoplite. Finally, the four heroes could relax.
“And that,” Keplar said, “is that.” He raised a boot, stomping on a barely-squirming Hoplite, finishing the job. “You know, they’re actually kind of cute. In a hideous sort of way.”
Aykrada reverted her stone body back to flesh and blood. “Well, that was exhausting. I should go back and check on my family—let them know that I’m not, you know, dead.” She ran toward City Hall. “Come and see me when you’re ready—let’s see if we can make a plan to clean up this mess.”
Keplar watched her go, scratching a huge, red welt on his arm. “I hope she has about 500 gallons of anti-itch lotion back there.”
Tobin was leaning on his staff, catching his breath. “Maybe her daughter can help you put it on.”
“Ha! Good call, bro. Actually, now that you say that, I think I’ll head up there right now…”
Tobin laughed and sat down, light-headed but exhilarated. He still couldn’t believe what had just happened—he wasn’t even sure he knew what had just happened. Nearby, Orion was liste
ning for something in the air.
“I gotta say,” Keplar said, sitting down in the dirt, “you did pretty good, Tobes. How’d you know how to use your powers like that so fast?”
The boy shook his head. His thoughts felt like they were spinning. “I don’t know. I don’t even know what it is that I just did. Me and Scatterbolt were up at City Hall, so I asked—”
“Quiet!” Orion snapped, spinning toward them. “Enough! Both of you!”
Tobin and Keplar looked at each other.
“Uh, Orion,” Keplar said, “relax, buddy. We won, remember? We made like a giant fly swatter and smashed ‘em all. Bugs: zero, us: one thousand.”
Orion waved his hand, motioning for the dog to stay quiet. Then the old man knelt down, lowering his ear to the ground.
Not far away from them, Scatterbolt was still morphed into the wall, shielding the two Gallymoora children and a few other people.
“Um, Orion?”
“Yes, Scatterbolt.”
“I’m picking up something weird.”
“What is it?”
“It’s…I’m getting life signs from the Hoplites.”
Tobin spun to Keplar, shocked. Orion stood and dusted the dirt from his pants.
“How many?” he asked.
Scatterbolt waited a moment to answer.
“All of them.”
There was a low buzzing…and then every single dead Hoplite suddenly sprang back to life! The hundreds of carcasses, now chattering and growling madly, rose off the ground and up into the air, creating a deafening, hovering swarm above and around the heroes.
“Well,” Keplar said, “this kinda sucks.”
After dashing into his tent, Orion returned to the group carrying his last bag of arrows. Then, as he, Keplar, and Tobin stood in the middle of the city, the Hoplites began to fly together in a donut shape above them, like planets orbiting around a sun. Gradually, as the wasps moved their bodies closer together, the air in the center of the circle disappeared.
Keplar spoke from the corner of his mouth. “Are they doing what I think they’re doing?”
“Yes,” Orion said. “I’m pretty sure they are.”
Tobin watched, confused, as the hundreds of Hoplites lowered themselves and floated in front of him. They were becoming less like a swarm now and more like a giant ball of bugs, crawling all over each other like they were building a nest. When the boy looked closer, he realized he could no longer make out each individual Hoplite—they were now simply one slimy, pulsating, yellow-and-black mass. He felt relieved, because surely this blob couldn’t hurt him, not like the hundreds of swarming Hoplites could. But then he noticed something growing out of the bottom of the blob.
It was a giant pair of legs, which stretched down from the blob and touched onto the dusty ground. Next, two massive arms emerged from the sides of the blob, sliding out with slow, quivering slurps. Finally, at the top of the mass, a head formed: it looked just like a Hoplite head, except it was bigger, slimier, and possessed a mouth whose teeth were made up of the black stingers of the hundreds of smaller Hoplites inside of it.
A thirty-foot-tall monster was now standing on the street, towering over the heroes. As it lowered its head, it stared at Tobin and blinked, before letting out a shrill scream. The boy covered his ears and cried out, feeling the warm garbage breath of the monster blasting over him.
Enraged, Keplar leapt in front of the monster.
“Rarrrgghh!” the dog growled, firing his plasma cannon up at the giant Hoplite in quick succession: BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM-BOOM!
The green blasts from Keplar’s gun created a great deal of smoke, and when it cleared, Tobin could see that the Hoplite now had a huge hole through its chest. However, the hole was quickly filled in with the bodies of the smaller Hoplites as they crawled across the giant’s slimy arms.
“Uh-oh,” Keplar said.
Reaching down, the Hoplite swiped at Keplar with its massive claws, sending the dog flying. His body smashed against the pavement, skidded wildly, and ended up lying underneath a building. Before he could regain his bearings, the Hoplite stomped over and toppled the building on top of him, covering him in debris.
Tobin spun to Orion. The old man was firing his bow at the monster, but most of the arrows were zipping right through its body with no effect.
“Tobin!” Orion shouted. “Focus your lightning in your bo-staff and fire it at the monster! Now, before it gets any closer!”
But Tobin was too afraid. After looking up at the monster in shock for a moment, he turned around, sprinted across the city, and hid behind a half-destroyed building.
“Dammit,” Orion whispered. He fired another arrow, then ran to Tobin and hid with him behind the building.
“Tobin,” the old man said, crouching down, his voice labored. “Jump out. Now. Fire your staff. We don’t have any time.”
But Tobin couldn’t. He looked away from Orion, crying. He could only think about hiding.
Orion peered over the wall; the Hoplite was approaching. The old man tried to string an arrow in his bow, but his fingers slipped and contorted into a painful claw. Clutching the hand against his chest, he knelt on the ground and looked up at Tobin.
“Please,” he said. “Do something.”
The boy and the old man were found—the wall was ripped away, and the Hoplite swung a mighty backhand that sent Orion careening into the surrounding woods. Tobin watched as his body crashed into a tree and disappeared out of sight.
With the Hoplite now only a few feet away, Tobin had no choice but to run. He sprinted to one of the city fountains and pressed his back against the marble, but his new hiding spot was quickly demolished, exploding into a cloud of white dust and hundreds of heavy chunks. As the Hoplite monster reached down and grabbed Tobin in its giant fist, the boy could feel each of the individual Hoplites that made up the fingers squirming against him. Without knowing if anyone would hear, he screamed for his life.
A safe distance away, Scatterbolt was watching Tobin and the Hoplite monster, but the robot couldn’t move from his spot—if he did, everyone behind him would be exposed. Looking across town, he saw Keplar, still lying underneath the rubble of the toppled building.
“Keplar!” he shouted. “Over here! Keplar! Help, Keplar! Help!”
Hearing someone call his name, the dog slowly pushed the debris off of him and rolled over. As he wobbily stood on his feet, he reached up and felt the stream of blood running down his forehead.
“Keplar!” Scatterbolt shouted again. “Over here! Hurry!”
The dog spun around, seeing Tobin flailing in the Hoplite’s grasp.
“Oh, krandor,” the dog swore. Then he ran at the monster, with no idea of what he was going to do when he reached it.
Stretching out his long metallic arm, Scatterbolt grabbed Keplar’s plasma cannon from the ground. After he unlatched a hatch on its side, he removed the gun’s ammunition—a glowing green orb.
“Keplar!” the robot shouted, heaving the orb across the street. “Take this!”
“Got it!” the husky replied, catching the green ammo. As he sprinted toward the Hoplite, he carried it underneath his arm like a football.
But the dog didn’t have much time: the Hoplite was raising its arm, and bringing Tobin toward its open mouth. As the boy looked into the foul, gaping cave, he could see all of the slimy, hissing hornets inside, and their black stingers waiting for him.
“Hey, fat and ugly!” Keplar yelled. “Chew on this!”
The Hoplite monster spun around—Keplar was running toward it. As it opened its mouth even wider, it let out an earth-shattering ROAR!
But, in that same instant, Keplar leapt into the air and hurled the ammo toward the Hoplite. With the accuracy of a star quarterback, he hit his target—the green o
rb soared right into the Hoplite’s open mouth.
The Hoplite dropped Tobin. It gagged. The green orb was now a huge lump in its throat, glowing through its skin. As the monster clawed at its neck and choked, Keplar ran underneath its legs, grabbing Tobin by the arm.
“This is the second time I’ve saved you from a giant monster,” the dog said. “Don’t think I’m not keeping count.”
As the monster swiped at them, Tobin and Keplar ran toward the center of the city. When they were far enough away, Keplar pushed Tobin ahead of him, turned around, and reached for one of the laser blasters on his waist. Closing one eye, he aimed the blaster at the monster’s neck and pulled the trigger.
KA-BOOM! The ammunition exploded, sending Tobin and Keplar soaring through the air! They hit the asphalt, rolled underneath a tree, and came to a painful stop on top of its exposed roots. In shock, Tobin rolled over and turned back to the monster.
The Hoplite had been completely blown away, but its remains were now raining down on Gallymoora. As hundreds of pounds of yellow-and-black chunks splattered the streets, the people of the city ran for shelter, saved from the monster but now in danger of being drenched in its guts.
Still lying where they landed, Keplar leaned against the tree trunk and pulled himself up. But, as he was getting to his feet, a hunk of goop fell only inches away from him, splattering him in yellow-and-black slime from head-to-toe. Groaning, he tried to wipe the sludge away, but it stuck all over his hands and fur.
“Son of a bremshaw,” he muttered.
As the dog walked into the forest, Tobin sat underneath the tree and stared ahead blankly. When he heard voices, he turned to his left and saw Keplar reemerge from the forest with Orion. The old man was leaning against the dog, and using his bow as a cane.