🚀 go-pugleaf

(continued from part two...)

                                   ***********

     Susan was a novice mage, but when the call came out she could not stand
idly by.  Her spells were for detection and concealment, and she'd done well,
up until the Dalek Droids began attacking.  She lost her nerve, and her
couldn't keep the spells maintained as she ran, winking in and out of sight,
barely able to dodge the blasts.
     A young man charged up to her, pulling her into a foxhole.  Her voice
came in frightened pants, "Omygoddess, theyareafterme, please helpmehelpme!"
     The man pulled out his amulet, calling out, "Oh Powers of Magic and
Transformation, Give Me That Which Was Promised, Help Me to Wield the Powers
of The Nearest Animal!"  Thunder rumbled, as a army jeep drove past. "Yes!
Yes!" The boy cried.  "Stay here, hide and rest!  Now they'll have to face the
power of... of... FRINK! PTANG! FRINKFRINKFRINK!"
     An eerie glow enveloped the boy as his eyes got bigger and bigger and his
body thinned and stretched.  Dropping the amulet the magical hero leapt from
his hiding place, charging and bouncing towards the roving Daleks.  "SUPER
LEMUR BOY FRINKU-FRINKU!!! "
     "EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE! EXTERMINATE!"  All
the Daleks were momentarily distracted, some blasting each other in their
haste to train their cannons on the hopping and bouncing new hero.  "Ptang!
Prsift! Frink! Frink! Pta-"---BOOOM!---

                                   ***********

     Dr. Science spotted Deadman and the Bomb pursuing Ginsu World Class from
the M.E.C.H.A. jet and decided that now was the time for him to act.  He
brought the craft in for a low pass over the battlefield and cycled open the
bomb-bay doors.  A large cannister dropped from the plane just as it passed
over Ginsu World Class's head and exploded on contact with the ground.
    Curiously, there was no fire.  There was instead fire-retardant foam.
Very sticky fire-retardant foam.  *Lots* of very sticky fire-retardant foam,
the majority of which chose to stick directly to Ginsu World Class.  Deadman
and the Bomb quietly wheeled themselves out of the way as she flailed about,
trying to brush the foam away before it set.
     "My own special formula!" Dr. Odd Science said to Summer and Link over
the comm-link, "It clings to any surface, absorbs heat and dampens radio
emissions.  Not only are her visual inputs blocked, but her heat sensors and
radar are useless as well! She's been completely blinded... BY SCIENCE!!!"
     Summer dove in for a direct attack and was a little surprised when Ginsu
World Class was actually staggered by her first blow.  Apparently, being
blinded both visually and electronically had shaken her more than Dr. Science
had anticipated; Summer encountered virtually no resistance as she delivered
one crushing punch after another.  Actual physical damage to the armor was
minimal, but the attack was probably the most effective so far.
     Inside the armor, Liz struggled to clear the tangle of error messages and
system failure warnings that were engulfing her display, working desperately
to activate the emergency fire control systems.  The armor's safety systems
questioned this idea due to the apparent lack of fire in the immediate
vicinity, but she finally coaxed them into obeying.  Summer broke off when she
noticed a spray of liquid nitrogen jetting from valves just above Ginsu World
Class's wrists.  Directing the spray at her own body caused the foam clinging
to the armor's exterior to solidify almost instantaneously, and a couple of
sharp smacks was all it took to knock it free.
     Seeing that her advantage was quickly slipping away, Summer moved in to
take one more shot and walked right into a computer-guided right cross.  Link
raced in when he saw her go down and made the mistake of assuming that Ginsu
World Class was still smarting from Summer's attack.  He took his eyes off her
for only a few seconds, which was plenty of time for Liz to call up a spear
gun and fire a titanium steel rod into the body of his Cyclone.  After an
awkward twenty foot flight, he landed in a heap at the base of the prison's
outer wall.  Ginsu World Class moved inoxerably towards him.
     Just then, an anonymous, sandy-haired mage leapt into her path and began
pelting her with fireballs.  The image of the fiery landscape flooded back
into her mind, complete with the sound of her own eerily mechanical laughter
multiplied a thousand times over.  Again lost in the nightmare, she froze.
     "Now's your chance!" the mage cried out to Link.  "Get back! I'll hold
her here!"
     "No, you have to break it off!  It's too dangerous!"
     "Just do what you have to do!  I can't keep this up forever!"
     Link ran back to Summer and helped her to her feet.  Shadebeam and the
Extreme Team approached as well.  Ginsu World Class was facing towards the
prison and wasn't moving.  The mage was caught between her and the prison
wall.  Her back was completely exposed.
     "Summer, my Cyclone Battler's toast! It's up to you!"
     "Link, I can't! That man...!"
     "He said to do what we have to! We won't get another chance like this!
Now do it!"
     "Do what he says, girl!" insisted Shadebeam.
     "She's right: you have to take the shot!" Pinky agreed.
     "Strawberries make good eggbeaters!" said Captain Non-Sequitor urgently.
     Mr. Safety took a drag on the cigarette Shadebeam had given him earlier
and puffed a small cloud of blue smoke into the air.
     "It wouldn't be safe, but who cares," he said with a small cough.
     Summer reluctantly morphed into Cyclone mode and locked her targeting
systems on the exact middle of Ginsu World Class's back.  The mage saw her but
kept up his offensive.  Summer mentally held her minty breath and fired all
four of her missiles at once.  A tremendous bludgeoning explosion erupted and
Liz felt herself lifted off her feet.  She saw a digital proximity readout spin
wildly down to zero just before the prison wall rushed forward and hit her.
     Captain Non-Sequitor took a few steps forward and peered intently through
the massive hole now present in the prison's wall, and when he was satisfied
that Ginsu World Class wasn't getting up, he produced a Brazilian flag and
began gleefully cavorting around the field.
     "Goooooooooooooooooooooal!" he shouted at the top of his lungs,
"Goooooooooooooooooooooal! Goooooooooooooooooooooooal!"
     Mr. Safety pulled off his mask and gave Summer a glassy eyed stare.
     "You know," he remarked, "that was the most unsafe thing I've ever seen.
Nicely done."
     "Aw no," groaned Pinky, "Mr. Safety's high!"
     "I am not high!" Mr. Safety insisted.
     "Goooooooooooooooooooooooal! Goooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooal!"

                                   ***********

     Some people just never learn, Mirror Maid thought, dancing through the
Daleks once again. They would blast at her, and miss, which would hit
another Dalek, blasting it out of existance. The other possibility was that
they would actually hit, which would bounce the ray back at itself, blasting
it out of existance.
     It was almost enough to keep her mind off some of the horror she had
encountered in the last-was it years? Weeks? Minutes? It simultaneously felt
like all three.
     They stopped firing at her, which was bad. There wasn't a darn thing
she could do to them if they weren't going to shoot at her, short of
attempting to flip a 1.5 ton robot over her shoulder. She could manage 200
pounds on a good day, and she was already starting to feel tired.

                                   ***********

     The battle was a total shambles.  Both sides were hopelessly intermingled
now, all semblance of organization lost.  Revolutionaries shot one of their
own for every ten enemies they hit, and mages with concussive attack spells
were scattering their own along with the enemy.  Dalek warriors blasted mages
left and right, completely unconcerned when one of their own soldiers wandered
into their line of fire.  The Witnesses and LaRouchites had long since been
exterminated.  Nora flowed into fog form as some idiot set off a grenade
beneath her, then quickly coalesced and fired a thick blast of water into the
crowd, tumbling a dozen people like kingpins.  She evaporated again and darted
off before anybody could draw a bead on her.
     The sky shook again and she was nearly blown into misty shreds as the
low-budget warship fired another massive volley into the battered side of
the Awesome Force One.  Scores of combatants flattened themselves against the
ground when the concussion hit, and the Daleks took full advantage of the
situation, raking their prone foes with their gun arms.  Nora winced and dove
back toward the ground, strafing a group of bubbas with blasts of high-pressure
water as she flew overhead, attempting to distract her from her battle charge.
She continued into the crowd, blasting away nearly at ground level, sweeping
people off their feet.
     Off to one side, she saw a knot of Revolutionaries working their way
forward to much greater effect than most of their companions.  They were
organizing behind a leader she recognized from High Jinx's stolen supervillain
files -- the Red Femur, a neofascist leader with a horribly deformed, scarlet
thigh.  She blasted a nearby Revolutionary in the back of the head, knocking
him out, and evaporated, snaking her way through legs and battling bodies
toward the villain.
     She coalesced behind them and opened fire, knocking down two of the Red
Femur's followers.  Suddenly she caught sight of John, gesturing at a nearby
Revolutionary's weapon as it slowly twisted and bent itself into a useless
lump of metal and plastic.  The Red Femur saw him too, and pointed.
     "Bruce, bugger at ten o'clock!" she shouted.  He glanced at her moments
before three shots spun him around, tearing into his chest and flank and
throwing him to the ground.  Anna bolted out of the mob, shrieking and
reaching for him.  Another soldier was already shifting his aim towards her
when he received a strong kick to his groin.
     Nora snatched the rifle from his grasp and whipped it around, breaking
his jaw with the butt.  She slammed it forward again into his stomach and then
lifted it, one hand on each end, smashing it up against his already cracked
chin.  She saw a small piece of his tongue fall to the ground as he keeled over.
     The Red Femur and his men were turning toward her now, Anna forgotten for
the moment, their rifle muzzles weaving a sinister path toward Nora.  She
already had hers turned around, held high under her arm, and felt her finger
squeeze the trigger as she began to shout wildly.  She walked the shots back
and forth, the Revolutionaries dropping instantly except for the Red Femur,
who stood and took the slugs with a strangely surprised expression as his body
danced unnaturally before her.  He didn't fall until her pin clicked down on
the empty chamber.
     Her vision was burning red now.  She knew somehow that this wasn't at all
how Ramrod felt in battle.  She wondered when the Hell(tm) he was going to
step in and relieve her.  Tossing the empty gun onto the Red Femur's corpse,
she shot straight up at thirty miles an hour, arcing over in a quick bell
curve and blasting at a Dalek futilely as it shot a half-dozen magi before her
eyes.

                                   ***********

     Anne waved her arms wildly as she tried to open up a line of sight in the
thick smoke that filled the cooridor leading to the trauma room of the sick
bay.
     "Cubbins!"  She shouted.  She listened for a meow, a purr, a hiss, but
nothing was to be made out except explosions, gunfire, and the sound of
tearing metal.
     "Cats!" Anne called again and again until the smoke bruised her throat
and filled her lungs.
     She dropped to her stomach and feasted on the cleaner air just above the
floor.  She felt the ship shudder as something hit it in the aft.  It buckled
again as it got nailed again in the bow.  She crawled toward the door as
quickly as she could.  As noises hurt her ears and smoke burned her lungs she
wondered if Chris was OK.  She wondered if Damien had passed out from loss of
blood yet.  She wondered how the hell she was going to get the crinkled door
that stood between her and the sick bay open. In desperation, she rolled onto
her back and spun around. She slid one hand into a rend that had formed in the
wall, and gripped a shard of metal that jutted up from the floor next to her.
She braced herself and began kicking the door with both legs.

                                   ***********

     The mage turned, only to be slapped in the face by an Revolutionary,
standing a good thirty feet away.  The man was laughing and singing, "Hey now,
prepare yerself, for da Rubba Band - Hand - Man! No mage can defen hisself
with the Rubba Hand starts to jam! Doo bee beep bop diddily..."  The mage
whipped out his favorite wand and started to aim. SMACK!  Like an oversized
rubber toy, the Revoluntionary's hand smecked out and snatched the wand away.
     "FINE!" The mage yelled angrily, "Thats the last straw!"  The mage
quickly fished out a sealed scrollcase, broke the seal, and pulled out the
papers within.  The Revoluntionary drew back and let his hand fly forward
again, sticking squarely against the paper.  The mage paused, then ran away
quickly.
     The Revoluntionary laughed as he looked at the fleeing mage.  Then he
looked at the paper stuck to his strange rubbery arm.  "Whatz dis?  'WARHAMMER'?
ARRRRRRGH!  GET IT OFF ME!  AH AH AHHHHHHH!"

                                   ***********

     Just a few miles of Bob City:
     "GREAT NORTHERN HERDS!!!!!!"  Space Moose's path wavered even more
erratically than usual.  "Never have I felt such a call by my Moose Sense!
Surely, this must be evil there, an immeasureable danger to this entire planet!
And Benedict- I can sense that my faithful companion Benedict is there!  I can
feel the presence of..."
     An odd sensation washed over his Moosely face, causing Space Moose to
glance over his shoulder briefly, looking towards the east.
     "Li-Ming.....?" he mused to himself, then looked forward again and gritted
his herbivourous teeth.
     "I cannot allow personal distractions!  Benedict is in danger, and I must
save him!  Onward, to BOB CITY!!!!!!"
     Whole trees were uprooted in his wake.

                                   ***********

     Bulletproof felt the pressure building.  His head -- it throbbed.  He had
to keep fighting.  He had to keep going.  If there was a voice in his head
saying that he couldn't -- that he wasn't in his right mind -- he had to
ignore it.  Too many people were at stake.  Too many lives.  Any price was
worth paying to save them.  Innocent people were at stake -- he had to protect
them... kill the magi responsible.  Destroy them--
     The voice saw the contradiction, but Bulletproof couldn't hear it.  The
pain was so bad....
     There!  There!  Bulletproof had Figuremaster in his sights!  He was
armored -- Bulletproof had to use the twenty millimeter cannon.
     There was no choice.

                                   ***********

     Wonder Grunion squinted past the rain spattering across the Squad Car's
windshield at the spectacularly huge form of Awesome Force One and shivered a
little.  It wasn't just the sight of the massive airship that shook him; he
was deeply troubled by how he'd managed to almost completely ignore so dire a
situation.  Here, in the skies over Bob City, his mind was suddenly clear,
clearer than it had been for months.
     Bill was right: there was no way to avoid becoming involved in this war.
As Earth's Scaly Sorcerer Supreme, he would be under constant scrutiny: any
questionable actions he took would only fuel the already volatile anti-mage
sentiment.  But if he did nothing, and stayed neutral, innocent people would
die.
     Below him, the perimeter of the prison was largely empty of metahumans,
but the human recruits of the Revolution and a number of lesser mages were
still locked in a heated battle.  Most of them fought with only their bare
hands.  Mage and human alike had been reduced to little more than barbarians.
     Wonder Grunion brought the Squad Car to a halt.  A tightly whispered
flight spell drew him into the air and carried him over the thick of the
fighting, where his presence seemed to drive both sides deeper into their
brutality.  He focused on the rain-soaked ground and spoke to its magic with
words only the Earth could understand.  The skies rumbled, and the ground
heaved.
     Suddenly, and without warning, the Earth rose up and engulfed the
combatants up to their shoulders, gripping them fast.
     "Let us go!" one of the mages called out.  "Now that we've got those
bastards where we want them, let us finish them!"
     "Lousy magic-using freak!" one of the Revolution recruits fired back.
"You knew you couldn't beat us in a fair fight, so you had to resort to
trickery!"
     "I did nothing of the sort." snapped Wonder Grunion, "What you all seemed
to have overlooked is that there is magic in everything.  I simply have the
power to release it, and allow it to act.  I gave the Earth itself the chance
to decide the outcome of your battle.  This was its response.  It seemed only
fitting, since it's the one at risk here."
     Everyone suddenly became aware that the prison was quiet now, except for
the wind.  Wonder Grunion began to move off.
     "Wait!" cried the Revolutionary, "What about us? Aren't you going to let
us go?!"
     "It's out of my hands, I'm afraid," said the grunion. "If I were you, I'd
start hoping that the Earth is feeling charitable this evening."

(continued in part four...)