Chapter 9
I didn't get a chance to start training Trina that morning, as it turned out, because the monster alarm sounded as I was heading for my room. I ducked inside, grabbed my stuff, and then ran for the weapons room.
"You're going to Africa today, kids!" Wizzit's voice said happily over the intercom. "Specifically, Malawi."
I tried to remember whether I had ever heard of Malawi as I started grabbing weapons. For once, Nicolai wasn't there ahead of me. (Obviously, since he was in Cambridge with Padma.) Let's see, Trina would already have her triple blaster, of course; looking around, I snagged Shelley's broadsword, Mike's club, and Toby's hammer before picking up a small baton for myself. There, that ought to do it.
I should probably mention at this point that the weapons that Nicolai and Padma build for us have some rather peculiar properties. They're very lightweight, for one thing, and, to be honest, they aren't even real weapons, not in the sense that I could hurt you with any one of them. Even if, say, Toby smashed his hammer down smack on top of your head, it wouldn't give you so much as a headache. Same with the other ones. One of Wizzit's strictest rules, made to eliminate the possibility of collateral damage.
Which isn't to say that they aren't of any use. On the contrary, they are highly effective against the kind of beasties we fight -- much more effective than normal guns or knives or even bombs would be. They are specifically designed to disrupt the energies that Enclave uses to power their monsters and other critters. I'm not entirely sure how they work, but I have seen Toby flatten as many as five Zoinks with a single swing of his cartoonishly-large hammer.
"Malawi?" Mike was saying as I came into the common room. "Never heard of the place."
"I have," Toby said, adding, "Thanks, Trev," as I tossed his hammer to him. "Used to be a British colony. It's not very large. There's a big lake all along one side of the country, and they have a moderately-famous international music festival there."
"Music festival is taking place right now," Wizzit added. "That's where the monster is, along the lakeshore. Ready to go?"
I handed Shelley and Mike their respective weapons. She nodded. "Ready, Wizzit. Let's do this. Prime Red, activate!"
"Prime Orange, activate!"
"Prime Green, activate!"
"Prime Blue, activate!"
"Prime Indigo, activate!"
In a flash, the five of us were standing along a sandy beach. What was probably the lake lay before us, with a few fishing boats scattered here and there across the strikingly blue water; there were brown-and-green hills on the sides and in the background. It was a very pretty landscape.
"I don't see the monster," Shelley said, all business as usual. "And . . . I don't hear anything."
She was right. I couldn't hear anything, either, now that she mentioned it. It wasn't that there weren't any unusual noises; there weren't any noises at all. I couldn't hear the waves lapping along the beach or the birds or anything. It was kind of creepy.
"This monster uses some sort of sonic attack," Wizzit explained, "so I have temporarily disabled the sound input to your force shields. Except for Prime-to-Prime communications, you're going to be completely deaf for a while."
"So where is the monster?" Trina asked.
Wizzit snickered. "Just follow the screams."
"Ha ha, very funny," Mike said irritably. "Just tell us where . . . oh!"
I think we all saw it at the same time -- the crowds of terrified people rushing towards us. "Let's go," Shelley said grimly as she began running towards the source of the disturbance.
The monster was pretty easy to spot. A stage had been erected along the beach, presumably for the music festival, and our guy had it all to himself. As we approached, I heard Mike mutter, "Man, what a wally!"
I had to agree. The monster of the day seemed to be a grotesque parody of someone's idea of a reggae singer -- huge dreadlocks, mirror shades, and an electric guitar that he was strumming wildly. "That clobber is just ridiculous," Toby commented. "I've been to the Lake of Stars festival; most of the guys dress nothing like that."
Well, regardless of how silly he looked, I could see that every time Reggae Monster played a chord, the head of the guitar emitted shimmering waves of energy that sent up great gouts of sand wherever they struck. Most of the people who were running away had their hands pressed to their ears, so I presumed that it was also sending out an ear-splitting racket, but of course I couldn't hear it.
Trina drew her triple blaster and sent a few shots the monster's way. The blasts sent him staggering to the back of the stage. Up to this point, he had been more-or-less ignoring what was going on around him, but I guess Trina's attack got his attention. He opened his mouth wide in a roar. (Or maybe he was singing. Who knows? I sure couldn't hear him.) Then he began sweeping the head of the guitar back and forth in our general direction, his fingers moving like lightning on the strings.
Waves of energy from the guitar struck us like a tsunami. The baton I was carrying flew from my hand; I simply couldn't hold onto it any more. Ahead of me, I saw Shelley's sword do the same, and I actually had to duck to avoid Toby's hammer as it came flying past me.
Shelley's voice rapped out, "Green! Can you keep him off-balance while the rest of us retrieve our weapons?"
"No! I lost my blaster as well!"
"Let me try!" Mike drew out his own blaster. Now, Mike's pretty fast. You've heard of cat-like reflexes? Our buddy Mike has to slow down to about half speed to have mere cat-like reflexes. Even so, he was able to snap off only one, maybe two shots at the monster before his blaster went sailing away like the rest of our weapons. "Damn! I just couldn't hold onto it!"
"Nobody else move!" Shelley snapped. "Let's not lose any more weapons than we have already. Green and Orange, go round up the ones we've lost so far. I don't want them to go into the lake."
Trina and Mike took off running. I could see our weapons still tumbling down the beach, propelled by the monster's energy waves; my baton, being the lightest, was almost to the water. As I watched, Trina grabbed her beloved triple blaster and hugged it to her chest, then she snatched up Mike's blaster. Mike was already ahead of her and closing in on his club, Toby's hammer, and Shelley's sword.
"Blue! Indigo! Over here. I want to try something." Shelley's voice called me back to the situation at hand. Toby and I struggled forward towards her. Reggae Monster was still shredding away on his guitar, and making forward progress against those energy waves was like wading through quicksand.
"Stand in front of me to make sort of a windbreak," she ordered when we finally reached her. "I want to see whether you two can block those energy blasts while I get out my blaster."
Toby and I linked arms and stood shoulder to shoulder (well, okay, shoulder to mid-chest, because Toby's a lot taller than I am) in front of Shelley. It wasn't easy to maintain my position; I could feel Reggae Monster sending wave after wave of his sound blasts at my back. Man! I thought. How long can he keep this up?
"Steady . . ." Shelley was saying. She drew her blaster which, miraculously, did not fly out of her hand, and took careful in the space between my arm and Toby's side. She squeezed the trigger.
A second later, something that felt like white-hot rain spattered across my back. Instantly, I let go of Toby's arm and flung myself to the side, scrambling to get out of the way of whatever Reggae Monster had just sent our way. Beside me, Toby did exactly the same thing. "Damn! What was that?"
"Sorry," Shelley muttered. "That was my blaster shot." She had quickly holstered her weapon, I noted, so as not to have it blown out of her hand. "Looks like our regular blasters don't have enough power to penetrate the monster's sound wave, and the energy from my shot got washed back right onto the two of you."
"Sort of like peeing into the wind, then?" Mike asked cheerfully from somewhere down the beach.
Shelley repl
ied dryly, "I wouldn't know anything about that. Never tried it myself."
"Yeah, thanks for the mental image, Orange!" came Toby's voice. "Now I'm going to have to take a shower after we're done here."
"My pleasure. Anything I can do to help."
"Would my blaster do better?" Trina asked. She and Mike had collected the last of the weapons, it appeared, and were holding them tightly in their arms as they made their way back to us.
"I don't know. It might," Shelley replied.
Toby said, "What about Indigo's sap gloves?"
"Even better. Do you have them with you, Indigo?"
I patted the pockets of my battle vest. "Yup, got 'em right here."
"Good. Let's try it out. Blue, we'll stand in front of Indigo. Orange, shield Green and we'll try the triple blaster as well."
Shelley, Toby, and I shifted around so that they were sheltering me from Reggae Monster's blasts of music, while I donned my sap gloves.
Sap gloves, in case you have never heard of them, are special gloves that have sand or steel shot in pouches sewn across the knuckles and other striking surfaces. They aren't exactly offensive weapons like brass knuckles, so Wizzit gave me the okay to use them in battle, but when I'm wearing them, I can punch a cinder block and not hurt my hands. And, thanks to some fancy tech work by Padma, this particular pair is also fairly effective against Enclave monsters.
"I am ready to shoot," Trina said as I was tugging my gloves into place.
"We're staying back out of his range," Mike said. "I don't want to have to go chasing all our weapons all over again."
"Fair enough," Shelley replied. "Take a few shots, Green, and then we'll turn Indigo loose."
"Here goes."
I saw Trina snap off a few blasts. It was no good. I could see the pulses speed towards the monster, but they seemed to lose steam and vanish just before they reached him.
"Move closer," Shelley commanded. "Do you need us any more, Indigo?"
"Nope. Gloves are on tight. I'll go take on Bob Marley over there while you and Blue help Green."
That, however, was easier said than done. I staggered back a step when Shelley and Toby began running towards Trina and Mike, and I took the full force of Reggae Monster's ongoing blast. I marveled at how long he was keeping that up. Most monsters would have started fading by now.
Regardless, I pushed forward, feeling like I was trying to run through maple syrup. It got harder the closer I got, until eventually I was having to work just to stay in place. I could see Reggae Monster's fingers working like mad on his guitar, creating a shimmering wave of energy that held me back like a brick wall.
"How are you doing, Indigo?" I heard Shelley call out.
"Not great. I can't push forward any more."
"Well, stay put for now. Green's going to try another shot."
Looking around, I saw that Shelley, Toby, and Trina had managed to advance to nearly the spot where Shelley had tried her blaster. Mike stayed back, sheltering the other weapons. Trina steadied herself, aimed, and snapped off a shot. I saw it sizzle past me, burning off energy. The bolt struck the monster right across the bridge of his broad, flat nose. His sunglasses flew off his head, revealing huge bloodshot eyes.
I don't think Trina's shot really did him any damage, but it sure made him mad. He jumped up, spun about, and pointed the head of his guitar straight at the three of them. His fingers finally stopped that crazy shred pattern they were making, and he gave one hard strum. A blast of energy shot out and struck Shelley a glancing blow on the shoulder. She collapsed onto the sand with a cry.
The wall of force in front of me was finally gone, thank goodness. I snarled and began running toward Reggae Monster. He let loose another blast which caught Trina square on the chest, sending her sprawling backwards. Then he aimed his guitar at me and fired, but I was already rolling across the sand. His shot went high, and I didn't give him a chance to take another. I hit the guitar neck with a rolling side kick, then turned my momentum into a punch to the monster's knee.
I sprang to my feet after that, determined not to let him do any more blasting. I grabbed the neck and punched the body of the guitar as hard as I could with my other hand, which sent sparks flying everywhere. After that, I delivered a turning side kick to the monster's chest. He fell backward, but he didn't let go of the guitar, which dragged me down as well.
Somehow, I managed to pin the guitar beneath my body, and I kept it pinned despite Reggae Monster's increasingly frantic efforts to yank it free. We traded punches for a while. To be honest, I'm not sure who was getting the worst of it, but I don't think it was him. Then I heard a sound that warmed my heart -- the whistling sound of Toby's hammer as he smacked it down on the side of Reggae Monster's head.
Reggae Monster's grip on his instrument slackened, and I lost no time in getting it (and myself) out of his reach. I probably looked ridiculous, skittering along the sand lying on top of his guitar, but I didn't really care at that point. Once I was away, I rolled to my feet and picked it up. Spotting a rock poking up out of the sand, I propped the instrument neck up on it and began punching the body as hard as I could. I did not want the monster using that thing against us again.
Now, I have broken three-quarter-inch pine boards with a single, bare-fisted punch before. In fact, I had to do it as part of my fourth-Dan test. I don't do it that often because it stings like hell and bruises your knuckles something awful (and my mom would kill me if she knew I was messing up my fingers that way), but my point is that I can do it if I have to. Still, despite that and the fact I didn't have to hold back because of the protection of the sap gloves and that the gloves were mucho effective against Enclave tech, it still took me, oh, seven or eight punches before the damn thing began to splinter, and another five or so before I broke it completely. Pretty stubborn of it, I thought.
Up to this point, I had been pretty much ignoring the monster, figuring that the other four Primes could handle it. As I finally punched through the guitar body, though, I felt the pressure wave from an explosion behind me, and I heard Toby mutter, "Wow. I sure didn't expect that."
I turned around to see Toby and Shelley staring at what was left of the monster (which wasn't much), their weapons poised to strike. Shelley slowly turned to face me. "Indigo, did you do that? 'Cause we sure didn't."
"You mean, destroy the monster?" I slowly shook my head. "I don't think so. I was just trying to smash up that stupid guitar of his."
"Stupid guitar was his power source," Wizzit's voice told us. "Destroying it was what made him blow up. Otherwise, you could have beat on him all day and not done a whole lot of damage."
Shelley snorted. "Thanks for telling us that now, Wizzit."
"I completed my analysis about thirty seconds before guitar went boom-boom," Wizzit replied. "Indigo was already destroying it; telling you then would not have speeded things up. Are you ready to go home now?"
Shelley looked around. "I guess so. Orange and Green weren't able to retrieve Indigo's weapon, though."
"Locating . . ." I saw a small explosion of water shoot up out of the lake. "Weapon is eliminated."
"So where are Orange and Green?" I asked as I felt the familiar tingling at the base of my skull that meant we were about to teleport.
Shelley didn't reply until the haziness had faded and we were back at HQ. "The monster's blast knocked Green cold," she said. "Orange went back with Green." She called out, "Hey, Mike! How is Trina doing?"
Mike emerged from the lounge. "She'll be fine. Wizzit says a bruised chest and some cracked ribs, and she whacked her head pretty good on the sand when she landed."
Wizzit chirped, "She will be good as new in . . . eight minutes, fourteen seconds. I will initiate healing comas on Red and Indigo in two minutes. Get ready, kids."
Shelley and I glanced at each other. I knew I had taken a pounding from Reggae M
onster's fists, and Shelley had gotten that blast on the shoulder. I grinned. "Oh, well, I could use a nap about now, anyway."