 |
Chapter 10 |  |
Chapter 12 |  |
Fun For All The Family
The recently reanimated Kajiro strode
steadily through the undergrowth. His blue-green skin was almost
torn to ribbons, but the gashes seemed to be sealing themselves
up of their own accord.
He smiled to himself, a twisted grin instead of the once dapper
smile. The foolish Jotun had been willing to believe that the
mascots were accidents. He stopped to unhook a trailing length of
skin from a thorn bush, and continued on his way.
A mascot lunged at him, but he caught it mid-leap and snapped it's
neck like a twig. He hungrily bit into the flesh, but spat it out
again a moment later.
"Poisoned flesh... Interesting, but useless," he mused.
He threw the corpse in the bushes and stepped out into a
nightmare. The ground for miles around was twisted, torn, as far
as he could see. Kajiro stood there, shaking.
"My park..! RUINED! RUINED!"
Kajiro stumbled through the wasteland, horrified at the
destruction. The torn and shredded bodies of mascots lay strewn
across the place, some still twitching, dying slowly from
radiation poisoning. The Jotun must die for what they had done to
his beautiful dream. It would become their nightmare...
Ship had found a skimmer across the lake, and the soggy Jotun
happily climbed aboard. After taking out the mascots with the
pocket nuke, she had taken as many weapons as she could and piled
them in the skimmer.
"Plenty of guns for you boys," she said mockingly. She
gestured to the control panel and the engine roared into life,
and the skimmer began to speed across the lake.
"How did you escape that blast, Ship? And more importantly,
why did you have a pocket nuke on you?" Thjorska demanded
angrily.
"No need to be so grumpy," grumbled Ship. "You
should know that most robots come with pocket nukes. Just for
emergencies, you know."
Thjorska sighed and turned to the others. "Anyone else
carrying extremely dangerous explosives on them? Anyone at all?"
Two of the robots put up their hands sheepishly, and Lokan fished
a small fusion grenade from a pocket. Thjorska turned to Bjors
with a frown.
"Well?"
"Well what?" Bjors replied, nervously.
"What do you have, Bjors? I know you've got something. You're
always buying expensive things which go boom."
"It's a SNAME, a payload of eighty-five kilograms. Chrome
finish, with a traditional red countdown timer display and a
fusion powered energy matrix."
"A Super Nova Anti-Matter Explosive?!" Thjorska blurted.
"Yeah. I keep it in my Beserker, behind an total-barrier
forcebubble," continued Bjors, grinning.
"I should think so! That could blow up the whole system!"
"Exactly."
Kajiro wrenched the huge metal door off it's hinges and descended
into the darkness below. He travelled carefully down a long
flight of steps, deeper and deeper underground. He came across
another door, and tore it out as well. Beyond was a foreboding
gloom, a pale green light that could barely illuminate the vast
room.
He walked into the centre of the room, and surrounding him were
eight large tanks, each emitting the same pale green glow. In
them were dark shapes and shadows, all hunched up like foetuses.
Kajiro walked up to one and stroked the murky glass, pressing his
head against the warm surface.
"Now, my children... Now we will destroy them," he
murmured, and pressed a button on the control panel attached. The
tanks began to gurgle and empty, and the creatures inside began
to twitch and stir. The glass of the tanks shattered as limbs
lashed out, huge scythe-like blades shredding it into thin shards.
"Spread chaos and destruction, my beautiful children,"
he whispered softly, stroking the damp skin of one creature.
"Let none of them leave this place alive..."