I don't know about Trina, but I know Padma avoided speaking to me for the rest of the day and the following morning. She stayed in her room most of that time, in fact, and she was much more subdued that afternoon when she reported for our training session. In fact, she looked decidedly glum as she trudged into the gym, eyes downcast, and stopped in front of me.
"Trevor," she said without looking up, "I would like your honest opinion."
"Sure," I said with a shrug. "About what?"
"Should I quit?"
"Quit the Primes?" I was so flummoxed that for a moment I could do nothing but stare at her. "Of course not! Why on earth would you want to quit?"
"It is not that I want to. It is just that . . ." She finally looked up at me, looking so miserable that I thought she might be about two seconds away from crying. "Trevor, I am just no good at this!"
I blinked in surprise. "What do you mean? You're doing fine!"
"Am I?" she cried bitterly. "I am so bad, I can't even beat you on your worst day at free-fighting. I make stupid mistakes, like trying to block your kick with my arm, and when my arm breaks, I fall down and starting crying like a little baby, and you have to pick me up and carry me to my room!" This was when the tears started to flow.
I put my arms around her and held her close. "Oh, come on, Padma," I said, "it's not that bad."
"Nicolai tells me that I am doing quite well with creating weapons," she went on, her voice muffled by my chest, "but I think he is saying that just because he likes me. Everything is so very hard to understand, and I feel so stupid all the time." She pulled back to look me in the face. "Do you know what he has me doing? Making gloves and boots! As if anyone would use gloves as a weapon. I think he is just trying to keep me busy so I don't feel bad."
I narrowed my eyes. "Wait a minute. Gloves? Like, regular-sized gloves with pouches across the knuckles and along the backs of the fingers, and the electronics all over everything?"
"Why . . . yes. That is exactly what I am making. And boots to match."
"Padma, I could kiss you!" I exclaimed. "Do you know how long I've been after Nicolai to make that stuff for me? He always said it was too hard to fit everything into something so small. He wanted to make me a pair of boxing gloves. Tell me, are they ready now?"
"Yes, I think so," she said doubtfully. "I gave them to Nicolai to finish up last night. The electronics were hard to fit in, but in the end, all I had to do was to reduce the power a little, and then everything just . . . what is the phrase? . . . fell into the place?"
"Fell into place," I corrected her.
"Yes. Fell into place. Nicolai told me I was very clever to think of that, but I wasn't. It was just obvious. I thought he said that just to be kind. I thought this was a novice's problem he had set me, and I had taken weeks to solve it."
"This was no novice's problem." I grinned at her. "Let's go see Nicolai, shall we? Training is postponed. I am really eager to see what those gloves you've made are like."
The monster alarm began to sound as we were trotting towards Nicolai's workshop. I groaned. "Looks like I'll have to try them out some other time. I have to go back to my room to get my battle vest and my belt."
"I'll go get the gloves," Padma volunteered. "I won't be allowed to go to the battle anyway. I will meet you in the common room."
When I got to the common room, I saw Padma excitedly talking to Shelley, and for some reason she was wearing her Prime Violet belt. She waved me over. "Trevor!" she said, "Shelley says that I can go with the team today, if you are willing to be my . . ." She struggled for the right word for a moment, but then she grinned. ". . . my minder. Would you? Please?"
I chuckled. "Well, that depends. Do you have the boots and gloves?"
"They are right here." She handed me the gloves, but then her grin dimmed abruptly. "Only, I am afraid the boots will be too small for you. Nicolai gave me the gloves, but I had to make the boots myself, so I sized them to my feet."
I pulled the gloves on. They fit perfectly, and Nicolai had even remembered to fill the pouches with steel shot before he sewed them shut. "Never mind about the boots. You can wear them yourself if you like. These are what I really wanted."
"Are those sap gloves?" Shelley asked curiously.
"Yup." With the steel shot to cushion my fingers and knuckles, I could punch even a concrete wall without injuring my hands, or even feeling any pain. "Padma outfitted them with our tech, too, so they should be nearly as effective as our other weapons against monsters and Zoinks."
"And Wizzit's cool with them?"
"I asked him about them before I talked to Nicolai. He said yeah, because they're more for protection than for attack."
"Neat idea." She nodded approvingly. "Let me know how they work out. I may want a pair myself."
"So I can go?" Padma asked eagerly.
"Sure," I replied. "The more, the merrier."
"Oh, thank you, Trevor!" And she flung her arms around me and planted a kiss on my cheek.
She was all set to power up right then and there and 'port out with me to fight whatever Enclave was ready to dish out to us. I had to explain to her that it was customary for us to activate in sequence, Red down to Violet, and then teleport out as a team. Between that and telling her to put her new boot-weapons on, I was so busy that I totally missed Wizzit's explanation of whom we were fighting and where.
We arrived in an empty field outside of some small town or other. With Shelley in the lead, we ran to what looked like the town's marketplace. To judge by the faces of the people running past us in panic, we were somewhere in rural Asia. If that were true, then the darkish skies would mean early evening rather than early morning.
The monster that Enclave had sent down was one of the fangier ones I had seen. Huge jaws, teeth as long as my fingers, pointy ears, blue-gray fur all over, and a big bushy tail that was probably also an offensive weapon of some sort. "Aw, geez!" Mike exclaimed, "not one of the wolf types. I hate those things!"
He had nailed it; this thing looked exactly like the Big Bad Wolf from someone's demented telling of "Little Red Riding Hood", standing on its hind legs. Or maybe it was from "The Three Little Pigs", except that I hoped it didn't have any sort of "blow the house down" super breath.
I grabbed Nicolai's arm. "Hey, Yellow," I asked, "did Wizzit say anything about Zoinks?"
"No, just this thing," he replied. "And he said that Lily might be here; he and I have been working on a way to isolate her physical readings, and we think we have a positive this time."
"Thank, I'll be on the lookout for her. Say, where are we, anyway?"
He turned to look at me. "You really weren't listening, were you? What's the matter, too busy kissing Violet?"
I held up a hand. "Take it easy, Yellow. There's nothing going on with me and Violet. I'm just Violet's babysitter for this mission, and Violet got excited."
Nicolai grunted. "Whatever. We're in eastern Vietnam, somewhere near the Chinese border. You don't know any Vietnamese, do you?"
"Only about three words," I started to say, but he was gone to help Toby and Mike. Shelley shouted for me and Padma to come help her and Trina move the locals away to safety. I motioned for Padma to follow me and ran to help, shouting out, "Please leave the area!" in as many languages as I could.
I heard Nicolai yell, "Look out!" I turned and saw Big Bad Wolf flying through the air straight toward me, his jaws gaping.
"Don't let him bite anyone!" Mike shouted. "A lot of these wolf-guys are biters, and it's a full moon out tonight!"
Was he serious? I stepped forward to meet Big Bad with a straight right to the jaw. That staggered him, but not nearly as much as I had hoped. How much had Padma had to reduce the power to the gloves, anyway? I buried my left in his gut, which doubled him over slightly, and then I clasped my hands together and brought them up hard to connect with
his chin. Err, snout. Whatever. That, at least, had more of the effect I had been hoping for; sparks flew and he went reeling back.
I heard the sound of running feet off to my left. I turned in time to see Padma leap up and deliver a jumping sidekick straight to the side of Big Bad's head. "Good work, Violet," I said. "Now back away."
"But why, Tr-- I mean, Indigo?" She hit Big Bad with a roundhouse-turning sidekick combination. "He is not so tough."
She set herself for a whip kick, but BBW caught her leg with both paws as she delivered it. He raised it up to his gaping jaws, ready to crunch down onto her knee. I dashed forward, skidded on my butt under Padma's captive leg, and started punching the wolf's exposed belly as hard and as fast as I could.
I heard the sizzling sound of a blaster hitting the monster. It wasn't a powerful enough hit to be Trina's triple blaster, so one of the other Primes must have taken a potshot at him. He started howling, and the distraction was enough to let me pull Padma free.
"That's why," I heard Shelley's voice say calmly. I looked over to see her holstering her blaster. "Indigo is babysitting you for a reason, Violet. Do as you're told. Indigo knows what's going on better than you do."
"Y-yes, Red," Padma stammered, stumbling away. "I am sorry."
A different, though well-meaning, team leader might have stepped in at this point and tried to straighten things out by issuing orders to us both. Not our Shelley, and I was grateful for that. Minding Padma was my job, my responsibility; all Shelley had done was reinforce that.
Shelley lunged forward and was now taking on Big Bad herself. After a moment, I stepped in to help her. "Do more of those hit-and-run attacks," I instructed Padma. "Especially the kicks. That'll let you bring your special boots into play."
"Yes, Indigo," Padma replied meekly. "I will." A few seconds later, she did just that, hitting BBW in the head with another jumping sidekick that knocked him off his feet. I'll say this for Padma -- she gets a lot of height with those jumping kicks. The wolf was slow in getting up, so I pulled out my blaster and snapped off a few quick shots to the head while he was still down.
He howled some more, then leaped away from us into a crowd of civilians. I turned to go after him, but then I heard Padma scream, "Trevor, look out!"
I felt something strike the back of my neck. Not just a foot or a hand, but the weight of an entire body. If I hadn't been shielded, it might have broken my neck. As it was, I fell sprawling to the ground, my blaster flying from my hand.
I tried to turn the fall into a roll, but whatever had hit me was holding on and wouldn't let me turn. I felt something strike the back of my head hard enough to drive my forehead into the packed earth, and I saw stars.
"Get off him!" I heard Padma shriek. Then, "I have your blaster!" and I heard her fire off a bunch of shots. I assumed that she missed, because I didn't hear any of them hit. My assailant drew back for a moment, though, and I managed to get a leg under me and roll over, dislodging him.
No, not him. Her. Lily Lee, or rather, Crazy Kung Fu Zombie Chick, to judge by the lack of expression on her face. And by the way she launched herself at me like a rabid wolverine. I backed away, fending off her attacks. At least I was having more success with that than Mike had had.
"I -- I do not understand," Padma said, "I shot her four times and it merely surprised her."
"Blasters don't affect her, remember?" I said. Zombie Chick flexed her knees and launched herself at me. Luckily, I had expected something like that and met her with a sidekick directly to the midsection. She folded neatly in half with an "Oof!" and dropped heavily to the ground.
She didn't stay there for long, though. Recovering with a speed that surprised me, she sprang to her feet and leapt straight at Padma. Violet's sidekick wasn't quite as fast or as high as mine; it merely glanced off Zombie Chick's legs just above the knees as she sailed over top, her hands reaching out for Padma's throat.
The two of them collided and rolled over several times, ending up with Lily on top. My blaster had flown out of Padma's hands off who knew where. Lily appeared to be trying to throttle Padma, while Padma was clawing at any part of Zombie Chick's face that she could reach. Zombie Chick was clearly the better fighter, but Padma was shielded, so I wasn't sure which of them was getting it worse. Regardless, I made a mental note not to try stealing a kiss from either one of them without asking permission first.
"Lily, stand down!" I ordered. Nothing. Zombie Chick didn't even blink. I figured as much; Enclave is too smart for such an easy trick to work more than once. The two women continued to wrestle; Padma was driving spear-hand attacks directly against Zombie Chick's kidneys. Lily, for her part, had grabbed handfuls of Padma's hair and was trying to bash her head against the ground. For Padma's sake, I figured I had to separate the two of them.
I ran forward, thinking to grab Lily, but darned if one of the locals didn't beat me to it. He was a youngish guy, tall and heavily built. He stepped forward out of nowhere and, grinning like a fool, put both arms around Zombie Chick's waist and heaved her up.
I honestly don't know what the guy was thinking. Maybe "Me get pretty wife!" Truth be told, he didn't look all that smart. I think he learned a hard lesson in short order, though.
Lily started throwing elbows behind her, left and right, bashing his head on both sides. Her legs weren't idle, either; she caught him with several painful-looking kicks on his thighs before she finally managed to get a heel smash right between his legs.
He turned pale and sort of crumpled to the ground. I cringed in sympathy. I've been kicked in the groin before, and let me tell you, it's not funny, despite what the movies might tell you.
Lily pulled herself free and looked around -- not like she was confused, but like she was trying to figure out the best spot to launch another attack. Most of the locals had scattered by now, and the other five Primes were attacking Big Bad. Lily evidently decided that her work was done, because she took off running down a side street.
I started chasing after her, calling for Padma to follow me. We ran down several twisty little streets lined with houses; Lily evidently knew exactly where she was headed and was dodging around from one street to another so fast that our greater speed was not much of an advantage. Suddenly, as we rounded a corner, I felt a weird tingling all over my body that set off all kinds of alarm bells in my head.
"Violet, stop!" I shouted at Padma as I skidded to a halt myself.
"But I almost have her," Padma called back. "Just a few more feet."
"No! Stop running! Now!"
"Okay, Indigo, if y--" Her reply was cut off in mid-sentence. I saw her form outlined in light for a brief second, and then she vanished.
I swore at myself under my breath. Of course, Lily had been leading us into something like this. Why else would she run? I should have seen it coming. Stupid, stupid, stupid! Now Padma had been captured by Enclave, and I would have to be the one to get her out.
I opened a comm link to the rest of the Primes. "This is Indigo," I said. "Violet has been caught in a teleport trap. I'm going after her." Then I closed the link before Shelley could order me to stay where I was. After all, babysitting Padma was my job, my responsibility. I had to be the one to go. I took a deep breath, muttered a command to my force shield, and ran forward.
Chapter 17