Justine was in the laboratory, scrubbing down the table after having properly packaged up and stored the severed arm someone had carelessly left there, following double decon protocols, 'just in case'. She'd put it into the analyzer and was awaiting DNA results to see if she could identify where it had come from. Who knew, maybe the previous owner wanted it back. She was jolted from her reverie by thumping noises above the ceiling, loud enough to get through the music. Frowning, she took off her headphones and stared at the ceiling, thinking maybe she imagined it.
THUMP THUMP.
Nope, there it was again. She peeled off her gloves and climbed the stairs to investigate. Through the glass she could see the rift flickering, and the tentacles, but they seemed a bit more--active, today.
She opened the door and was grabbed before she could even realise what had happened. She let out a piercing shriek and managed to thumb her comm unit.
"Liiiiiiiiina!!"
She heard pounding footsteps outside, then the security guard rushed in, looking around frantically. She gestured to the multiple tentacle arms around her.
"Stab it! Stab it with something pointy!!"
A sequence of buttons pressed on her arm, a whoosh, and a--mech?--a powersuit, at least, stood there, raising an arm to fire. That was a bit of an over-reaction. But the bolts hit the thing, and it hissed, releasing Justine. Both of them ran for the door, slamming it shut behind them.
"Y'all might want to avoid the tower room until we...ummmm...get that sorted," Lina panted. They heard more pounding footsteps up the metal stairs, whirling to see Zack push past them and open the door again.
"Let's try to get rid of this thing..."
Justine cheered. "Go Zack!"
"Take that, you monster!" Zack yelled.
"Okay. that's it, it won't die...So lets seal it for now. Hop in the magic dome for a few days. Hopefully we'll be able to get rid of this thing before the seal breaks."
Justine pumped an arm in the air. "Excellent!"
He walked back out of the tower room, swaying. "Managed to seal it for a few days. I'll need Emilly and Hiro's help to defeat that thing. Gosh...It was very draining." He inhaled, looking at his hands. "I used a lot of my mana to cast. I need to go rest. I'm grateful that Lina was there to put magical protection on me or...I'd be done for."
Later...
Justine walked up to the new clinic, seeing Emilly and Deebs there, in time to hear Deebs comment.
"Since you all keep having pest control problems..."
She touched a control on her gauntlet, a lovely translucent work in yellow light, it seemed to be, with half-circles in procession over the back of her hand. "Shields," she murmured, and curving squares of yellow light circled around her. It was mesmerizing.
"Indeed," Emilly said, watching, then shook herself a little. "Right. Zack mentioned something about that. He said he'd contained something in an orb around the round tow--HOLY--"
She'd been in the process of using the hand unit to summon one of Gearhaven's little flying drones to look at the tower room, and was shocked to see the cluster of flailing tentacles near the door.
She cammed in closer and blinked rapidly. 'What the HELL is that??"
"Awesome!" Justine said, still distracted by the shields. "Shields are good!"
Deebs looked up. "The flying kraken..."
Justine blinked. "What? Emilly, what are you looking at?"
Emilly was still peering at the hand unit. "Right so...we'll have to figure out how to, uh...send thta thing back, or...move it to the garden, or....something..." She looked up at them. "The rift in the tower? Zack said something came through."
"Oh, right," Justine said. "I took some photos..."
"Lina called it the kraken, and I thought she meant the wee flying beastie."
Justine shook her head. "No, she used her flame power on the tentacle beast in the tower, and it pushed her out at the flying kraken."
"Wow," Emilly breathed.
"May I take a pop at the kraken?" Deebs asked.
"Sure," Emilly said, responding to Lina's adventure being pushed out the tower window. She looks down at the photos Justine had sent to her hand unit. Low whisper: "Oh, man...Zack looks deeply impressive in this shot, doesn't he? With the elemental flames around him--"
The penny dropped. "WAIT--" she cried out. "NO--THAT ONE'S A PET--" She looks over at Deebs, wringing her hands. "No no no--the one INSIDE the tower--"
"Well, let's go see," Deebs said. She put away the energy bow and took off towards Steam.
(Continued in part LXXI.)
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