generator shot by a Seven Card. She slammed her homburg flat and spun it around and around over her head as if she were a cowgirl from the American West working her lasso. The NRG bolts sheâd caught streaked out from its edges, shooting into a Four Cardâs kill spot.
The soldier folded up, inanimate.
Her next victim didnât present himself so readily. It would have been difficult enough fighting so many card soldiers even if they hadnât been well armed. But armed as they were, with whipsnake grenade and orb generatorâ¦
Time and again she unleashed her homburg, which rattled and jarred and dented the soldiers without inflicting serious harm. Her wrist-blades in perpetual motion, her belt sabers whistling through the air, whining to make contact with the enemy, she at last pierced the Six Cardâs kill spot with a sword from her backpackâs never-diminishing supply of blades.
Three more to go.
The Five and Seven Cards fired their AD52s. One hundred and four razor-edged cards ripped through the air, clanged against her centrifugal-spewing wrist-blades and skittered away from her. An Eight Card took aim at her with an orb cannon. The blades of one bracelet activated to deflect the incoming razor-cards, Molly used her free hand to whip her homburg at the Eight Card and then cartwheeled toward him.
The homburg knocked the cannon from the soldierâs grip andâ
Still cartwheeling, she caught it before it hit the ground, fired.
The orb generatorâs explosion engulfed all three rogue soldiers. In the blastâs aftermath, they lay twitching in the street, outer steel scorched, inner circuitry in need of rebooting. Working her way from the Eight Card to the Five, Homburg Mollyâhalfer, orphan, supposedly untrustworthy bodyguard to a queen who didnât need oneâthrust a blade into their kill spots, quieting them for all time.
She stood for a moment, catching her breath, not quite believing what sheâd accomplished. Level Z. She had completed what no one elseâ¦
But then she saw what she shouldâve seen sooner: a puddle where no puddle should have been, surrounded as it was by dry pavement on a sunny day. Concentric ripples expanded outward from the puddleâs roiling center, and in a sudden froth of waterâ
A Glass Eye launched into the air.
Several more Glass Eyes leaped from nearby puddles. In the whorl of action, it was hard to tell exactly how many there wereâmore than Molly could defeat with just her Millinery weapons, that was for sure. So she ran. The Glass Eyes fired their weapons, cannonballs searing toward her, hatching open to become giant spiders.
She ran straight for the brick outer wall of the nearest buildingâthe Hotel Burberry. She looked as if she were going to slam right into it, but at the last possible moment she dived to her right. Too late for the spiders to change course. They latched on to the hotel and began to crawl up floor after floor, on the hunt for prey. Food was food to a cannonball spider, whether Alyssian, Londoner or tourist.
Dink! With her homburg shield, Molly swatted away a spikejack tumbler, that nightmare missile consisting of six flesh-grating spikes that stabbed out in all directions from a common center.
She had to take a risk. The unnatural puddles dotting the street, maybe she couldâ¦
Another spikejack was tumbling toward her. No choice. She gripped her homburg firmly in her hand and took a running jump into the nearest puddle, plunged under the surface, pulled ever deeper by the portalâs gravity until she slowed, reversed directions and was pushed up, up andâ
Whoosh!
She came twisting out in a spray of water, her belt sabers slicing into a Glass Eye that had the misfortune to be standing nearby. Time had seemed to slow down while she was underwater, but her disappearance and reappearance above the surface were nearly simultaneous. She again dove into the puddle, came leaping out
The soldier folded up, inanimate.
Her next victim didnât present himself so readily. It would have been difficult enough fighting so many card soldiers even if they hadnât been well armed. But armed as they were, with whipsnake grenade and orb generatorâ¦
Time and again she unleashed her homburg, which rattled and jarred and dented the soldiers without inflicting serious harm. Her wrist-blades in perpetual motion, her belt sabers whistling through the air, whining to make contact with the enemy, she at last pierced the Six Cardâs kill spot with a sword from her backpackâs never-diminishing supply of blades.
Three more to go.
The Five and Seven Cards fired their AD52s. One hundred and four razor-edged cards ripped through the air, clanged against her centrifugal-spewing wrist-blades and skittered away from her. An Eight Card took aim at her with an orb cannon. The blades of one bracelet activated to deflect the incoming razor-cards, Molly used her free hand to whip her homburg at the Eight Card and then cartwheeled toward him.
The homburg knocked the cannon from the soldierâs grip andâ
Still cartwheeling, she caught it before it hit the ground, fired.
The orb generatorâs explosion engulfed all three rogue soldiers. In the blastâs aftermath, they lay twitching in the street, outer steel scorched, inner circuitry in need of rebooting. Working her way from the Eight Card to the Five, Homburg Mollyâhalfer, orphan, supposedly untrustworthy bodyguard to a queen who didnât need oneâthrust a blade into their kill spots, quieting them for all time.
She stood for a moment, catching her breath, not quite believing what sheâd accomplished. Level Z. She had completed what no one elseâ¦
But then she saw what she shouldâve seen sooner: a puddle where no puddle should have been, surrounded as it was by dry pavement on a sunny day. Concentric ripples expanded outward from the puddleâs roiling center, and in a sudden froth of waterâ
A Glass Eye launched into the air.
Several more Glass Eyes leaped from nearby puddles. In the whorl of action, it was hard to tell exactly how many there wereâmore than Molly could defeat with just her Millinery weapons, that was for sure. So she ran. The Glass Eyes fired their weapons, cannonballs searing toward her, hatching open to become giant spiders.
She ran straight for the brick outer wall of the nearest buildingâthe Hotel Burberry. She looked as if she were going to slam right into it, but at the last possible moment she dived to her right. Too late for the spiders to change course. They latched on to the hotel and began to crawl up floor after floor, on the hunt for prey. Food was food to a cannonball spider, whether Alyssian, Londoner or tourist.
Dink! With her homburg shield, Molly swatted away a spikejack tumbler, that nightmare missile consisting of six flesh-grating spikes that stabbed out in all directions from a common center.
She had to take a risk. The unnatural puddles dotting the street, maybe she couldâ¦
Another spikejack was tumbling toward her. No choice. She gripped her homburg firmly in her hand and took a running jump into the nearest puddle, plunged under the surface, pulled ever deeper by the portalâs gravity until she slowed, reversed directions and was pushed up, up andâ
Whoosh!
She came twisting out in a spray of water, her belt sabers slicing into a Glass Eye that had the misfortune to be standing nearby. Time had seemed to slow down while she was underwater, but her disappearance and reappearance above the surface were nearly simultaneous. She again dove into the puddle, came leaping out
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