....and now, back to PENGUIN$

***************************************

With their long black cloaks drifting around them like living things, the
vampire posse moved with silent, determined strides through the caverns
beneath the city. Walking in their midst, Anita felt herself surrounded by
the power of death and drew on it unconsciously, feeling a giddy rush.

She took a deep breath, rolling her head from one shoulder to the other and
reaching a hand up to massage the tense muscles in her neck. "How much
further?" She murmured to Callidus who strode silently beside her.

"At the end of this tunnel lies what used to be our throne room, Mistress,"
the vampire replied. "The Empress has chosen it for herself. Normally we
would have been met by guards by now. The fact that we haven't is a good
sign, don't you agree?"

Anita shrugged, but said nothing. The noticeable absence of the guards was
not comforting to her. It set every one of her instincts on alert. She
glanced down at the weapon in her hands. One of Lance's vampires had dug the
sawed-off shotgun out of a treasure-trove of souvenirs collected from past
victims. The gun was filthy, damaged and blood stained. Three of its seven
rounds were missing. Still, its weight felt reassuring in her hands.

"Mistress, is there a plan?" Lucifer asked from somewhere behind her.

"Sure," Anita replied, shrugging. "We walk in there and waste her."

"Nonsense," Lance said from the head of the group. "I will issue a clear
challenge. She will fight me."

"She's not a vampire, Lance," Anita said. "She doesn't give a damn about
your politics. We don't have the time to screw around here."

Lance came to a sharp halt and spun to face her. "And exactly how does my
esteemed Mistress suggest we begin the dance?" He spat.

"Okay! Fine!" Anita said, grimly amused at his choice of words. "Go ahead
and issue your damn challenge. In the meantime I'll be busy tearing her
heart out with my bare hands."

"As if it'll be that simple," Lance snorted. "She's powerful. Your main
concern will be to protect your mind from her."

"I'm immune to penguin mind control," Anita replied with a finality that
discouraged questions. "I've seen her. She's huge. Nothing that big can move
fast. This should be a piece of cake."

Lance shook his head in disgust.

As the end of the tunnel grew nearer, the temperature rose and a distinct
red glow could be seen pulsing out of the throne room.  The air hung heavy
with a deceptive silence.

"Okay kids, this is it," Lance said, stopping just before the entrance.
"Anyone need to use the bathroom or anything? This could take a while."

"Can we just keep the chatter to a minimum and focus?" Anita snarled. "I'll
go first if you're scared, Lance." She met his eyes with a look of
challenge.

The Master of Toronto vibrated with anger but pretended to ignore her. He
gathered his dignity about him and fussed with his clothes. "If Empress
Bitch has messed with the decor of my throne room I'll make penguin-skin
boots from her sickly hide," he sniffed. "I put a lot of effort into
choosing those colors." He took a step into the room and gasped at what he
saw. "Now see here, madam!"

Anita watched him disappear quickly into the red glow. She glanced over at
Callidus. "I see a promotion in your near future."

Callidus gave her his usual enigmatic smile and bowed. "Then I will do my
best to survive, Mistress."

Anita nodded and looked at her new pet vampires, all of whom watched her
with fearful eyes. "Think of it this way, boys and girls," she said. "If the
Empress lives, you cease to exist. Got it?"

With a rush of wind the centuries-old undead flew into the throne room.
Anita followed closely behind with Callidus and Lucifer hovering
protectively on either side of her.

Once inside, the petite necromancer squinted into the red glare, forcing her
eyes to adjust. The heat in the room was nearly unbearable and she soon
found herself bathed in sweat.

With the stubby muzzle of the shotgun aimed out in front of her she scanned
the area, immediately seeing that the stone walls were lined with
alien-looking machines from which the red glow and heat emanated. At the
head of the room, images danced on a wide screen TV before a large settee
covered in flattened pillows.

Priceless antique furniture and paintings were tossed about, many reduced to
splinters. A lush, intricate Persian rug looked as if it had been used to
line a birdcage. At the front of the room the ceiling stopped abruptly in a
ragged hole that looked up into an unused level of a parking garage. The
penguins had systematically demolished almost everything in the vampire's
throne room, making it their own.

The Empress was nowhere to be seen.

"Welcome, child."

Anita's head shot up in reaction to the woman's voice in her mind.  Callidus
turned to her, his eyes concerned.

"Mistress?" He asked.

"You didn't hear that?" She asked.

"No Mistress," Callidus replied carefully. "What did you hear?"

"Never mind," Anita shook her head, trying to convince herself that she'd
imagined the voice.

"Come a little closer, my dead brother's servant, so we can see you."

"Get out of my head!" Anita demanded.

In response, loud, echoing laughter sounded in her mind, bouncing off the
insides of her skull.

"Where is she?" Anita shouted at the vampires while aiming her gun wildly in
all directions. With only four rounds in her weapon she wasn't thrilled
about the idea of firing at anything that wasn't a sure thing.

"Show yourself, bitch!" Lance said in a loud, formal voice. "I bring a
challenge. Are you so unsure of your rule over these lands that you must
hide from us?"

"Tell the dead things to leave, girl, we have much to discuss."

The voice was so loud now that Anita felt her teeth vibrating with it. "I
don't talk to anything that I can't see," she shouted, cringing in pain.
Following her instincts, she aimed the barrel of the shotgun at the pillows
on the settee and pulled the trigger.

Nothing happened. Anita looked at her weapon in astonishment.

"Fascinating little insect you are," said the Empress. "We can see why
Sigmund found you so amusing."

A shimmer of blue rippled across the settee and the space directly in front
of it. When it had passed, the Empress was lounging on the pillows with
Dumass at her feet. A large egg rested in a nest of straw beside her.

Dumass' lips stretched into a smile. He held out his hand. In his palm lay
four shotgun rounds.

"Shit," Anita said. "How's it going DUMass?"

Dumass did not reply to her question or her deliberate mispronunciation of
his name. He remained motionless with his hand extended, the smile on his
face not reaching his eyes.

The Empress settled one wing on Dumass' head and looked at Anita. "Do you
like our pet, child?"

Slowly Anita shifted her eyes away from the Empress' human servant to the
Empress herself and then to the egg. "I can't rightly say, it's not hatched
yet."

"We will consider that a sign of your ignorance, child," the Empress said
angrily, "but had we ruled in favor of impudence you would have been
punished."

"Give it your best shot," Anita snarled in return. "I'm here to see that you
and your penguins never take another human slave again. Your reign of terror
ends here and now."

The mammoth penguin blinked. "Ignorance or Impudence, my pet?" She asked
Dumass.

"Impudence, my Empress," he replied in slow zombie-like speech.

"Agreed. Impudence it is," the Empress said.

A swirling, churning storm of color and light suddenly appeared over Lance's
head.

"Madam?" Lance began, a twinge of fear in his voice. He took a step back,
but the thing followed. The Master of Toronto looked up at it and stopped, a
smile playing on his lips.  "Why, it's beautiful."

"Lance, get away from it," Anita hissed. She rushed towards the vampire,
only to have him send her stumbling backward.

"One thousand thirty two years," Lance whispered, blood stained tears
running down his face. "I thought I'd never see it again."

"What are you doing to him?" Anita yelled in the Empress' direction.

"Keep away, it's all mine!" Lance yelled at his vampires who approached with
caution. They froze in their tracks, their eyes towards Anita.

The Empress laughed again. "We're just giving him what he wants, child.
Something he's fantasized about."

"So beautiful," Lance muttered just before the swirls parted and a stream of
bright sunlight poured down. His body burst into flames. The portal closed
and disappeared.

The vampires flew at the Empress shrieking in rage.

"No!" Anita yelled and then cringed as several struck the force field and
disappeared. The severed bottom half of one toppled backwards onto the
ground, leaking blackened internal organs and fluids. The remaining vampires
stopped and backed away, hissing and snarling. The skin had shrunk away on
the their faces and the bones of their skulls stood out in bold relief.

"The dead things amuse us occasionally, but we are glad to be rid of their
annoying leader," The Empress said as the body continued to burn. "Still, he
was punished for your impudence, child. Think well on that." By the looks on
the faces of the other vampires, Anita could tell that the words had been
broadcasted to their minds as well.

The flames died and the charred remains of Lance's body fell to the ground.

"Now what was it they wanted?" The Empress asked, her tone bored.

"To challenge you," Anita spat out. "You stole their lands. They want it
back."

"Silly insects," the Empress chortled and shifted her bulk on the cushions.
"They thought the death of Pisces would harm us. The human boy was pretty
and highly intelligent. He was to be our ambassador in the final invasion,
but he was truly expendable. We have already chosen another."

"Dumass?" Anita whispered.

This time the laughter was genuine. The large bird tilted it's head back and
squawked loudly. Dumass opened his mouth and made laughing sounds.

"No, child," the Empress said. "You, of course! Sigmund refused to give you
to us. To have you now after you betrayed him and then killed him with your
own hands will be deliciously ironic."

Callidus and Lucifer stepped in front of Anita.

"Don't be fools," The petite necromancer said, pushing them aside. She
turned to the Empress. "And what if I don't want to be your human slave?"

"Then your reward will be your death," the Empress said calmly.

"It's not death if I refuse it," Anita snarled through clenched teeth.

Wet tearing sounds and grunts of disbelief tore her attention away from the
large bird. Anita turned in time to witness the hearts of two of her
vampires ripped from their chests by unseen hands. The two stared with blank
shock at the splattered organs on the ground at their feet. Their eyes both
turned to meet Anita's as they collapsed into the arms of their own kind.
The young necromancer felt the air around her stir as what passed for their
souls brushed by her in the dead heat of the room.

"Those creatures had spent close to a millennium refusing death," the
Empress said. "I simply removed their option to refuse. Now do you see the
power I wield?"

"Then why are you giving me options if you can take them away?!" Anita
shouted. "Why are you asking for my permission?! You want my mind, come and
get it yourself! I won't just hand it too you." In anger, she threw the
useless gun at the Empress, watching it disappear in a crackling flash of
blue. Then a thought struck her and she froze.

"Mistress, do something. Use your power," Lucifer pleaded softly behind her.

"What is it, child?" The Empress asked, chuckling. "Reconsidering?"

Anita narrowed her eyes. "Why do you have to ask, can't you tell? You've
been talking inside my mind since we started this little party. How come you
don't know what I'm thinking?"

The Empress did not respond.

Light dawns, Anita thought. She was now certain that the Empress couldn't
take possession of her mind for one reason alone: The force field. Pisces'
mind altering machine hadn't been able to work with the field up. Forrester
had possibly heard only half of the reason why. The issue was not power
alone.

"Child?" The Empress warned.

But why not drop the force field? None of it made sense to Anita. The
Empress was killing vampires like mosquitoes. Why was she worried about
protecting herself when nothing in the room presented a threat to her?

Anita groaned as the answer came to her. The Empress wasn't protecting
herself, she was protecting something else: The Egg. It was the only thing
that made sense.

Her mother's words came back to her. She realized that the only option she
had left now was to allow the Empress into her mind and meet her in battle
in the place where her power was strongest. It was the only way she stood a
chance of winning. She wasn't sure that she completely understood what she
was about to do, but she knew that her instincts would be her guide.

"Okay," Anita said. "All right, fine. You win. I'll be your servant."

"Mistress!" Callidus hissed.

"Excellent, child," the Empress crowed softly. "Come forward. You will not
be harmed."

"Mistress no," Lucifer said unhappily. His brother placed a restraining hand
on his shoulder.

Anita ignored Lucifer's plea. She began to walk slowly towards the Empress,
preparing herself. Blue static crackled in the air before the settee and a
hum that she had not noticed before suddenly died.
The field was down.

The Empress wasted no time entering her mind. The force of her consciousness
hit Anita hard enough to send the young necromancer to the floor. In
response, Anita instinctively grabbed hold of the Empress' consciousness
with her own mind and released her toe-hold on reality, taking them both
deep into her own darkness, leaving their bodies lying limp and lifeless in
the real world.

***************************

As they hit the sand they were torn apart on impact. Anita expertly rolled
away and came up onto her feet in a fighting stance. Okay, she thought, now
what?

The Empress lay on her back laughing. The large bird turned her head in
Anita's direction. "Your puny fists won't do you any good here, girl," she
said. "You've used your power to pull us into your mindscape. I doubt you
even understand what that is. We suspect that you don't, there are few
humans with the ability to comprehend it. This will work to our advantage."
A shimmer of light appeared around the Empress and she began to change
shape, becoming a tall, muscular creature with blue skin and clawed hands
and feet.

In a blur of motion it charged Anita. Before she could react it's fist
rammed into her jaw and she was thrown to the ground. Without hesitating it
kicked her hard in the stomach with it's clawed foot. She rolled away in
pain, leaving bright blotches of blood in the sand.

Anita looked up to see it standing over her, hands on it's hips, waiting as
she lay panting and cringing in pain.

"Are we having fun yet?" The thing asked in the Empress' voice.

"What is this?" Anita wheezed, "WWF night on the Starship Enterprise?"

"You don't like this body? It's quite the predator on our home world. How
about this?"

The shimmering glow surrounded the blue creature as the Empress changed her
shape again. This time a large cobra raised it's hooded head and hissed at
her.

"Wha...?" Anita crab-walked backwards as the thing slithered towards her. It
opened its fanged mouth and flexed its hood, preparing to strike. Anita
scrambled to her feet. She spotted a large piece of driftwood sticking out
of the sand and grabbed it, swinging it back and forth menacingly in front
of her.

The cobra froze momentarily, and then seemed to relax. "We forgot that you
have no idea how this reality works," it said. A tentacle shot out of the
side of the cobra and wrapped around the stick, pulling it out of Anita's
hands.

The shimmer of light engulfed the cobra and then in its place, Valeria
stood, holding the stick.

"Oh my god," Anita breathed.

"Nah," the Empress said in Valeria's voice. "No god here. Only you and us."
She smiled. "What's neat about any mindscape is that objects are never only
what they seem to be. Take this stick for example. Does it look like a stick
to you?"

Anita nodded warily, she took several steps backwards, stumbling in the
sand.

"Sure it does," Valeria continued, still smiling, "But what if we did this?"
She partly broke the stick, so that the end of it tilted downwards, and then
brought it up to her shoulder, as if she were holding a shotgun. "We think
you'd better start running now," she said, and took aim.

"Shit!" Anita shouted as flying bullets sent up sprays of sand around her.
She began to run, grabbing her injured side.

"And it never runs out of ammo!" Valeria yelled after her. "See? Even more
reasons to love this place!" She took aim again.

Anita ran desperately, dizzy from blood loss, looking for cover as bullets
whizzed by her. "None of this is real," she whispered to herself like a
mantra, but it didn't change a thing. The Empress, still in Valeria's form,
followed behind at a leisurely pace.

Stopping to catch her breath, Anita looked back in time to see several
snarling rottweilers form themselves out of the sand beside the approaching
huntress.

"Hey!" Someone suddenly yelled from behind her. Anita spun around to find
the near transparent image of Raina, standing only a few feet behind her.

"What is this?" Anita stuttered in shock.

"Oh for crying out loud!" The Munin said. "Welcome to my nightmare. Haven't
you figured it out yet?"

"Figured out what?" Anita yelled in replied. She started to run again but
Raina caught her.

"Can so much stupidity reside in one person?" The spirit of the ex-Lupa
said. "This is your place! Your mind! You can be whatever you want here!
Anything you touch can be a weapon. Now get out there and kick her ass. Stop
this running! I sure as hell don't want that penguin thing controlling this
place. I hate penguins, and besides, I'm not done messing up your life yet!"
She spun Anita around and shoved her hard enough to fall forward to the
ground.

"I think I'm starting to get mad," Anita said, spitting particles of sand
out of her mouth.  She looked down at the ground beneath her, an idea
forming. The sand glittered silently up at her in the moonlight.

"Dis is de end for you, you wascally wabbit!" The Empress had stopped only a
few feet away from where Anita lay, and raised her weapon. The dogs slowly
approached the young necromancer with their teeth bared and their hackles
raised. "Shall we shoot her? Stab her? Perhaps poison her or disembowel
her...so many, many fun things we could do here." The image of Valeria
tapped a slender finger on her lips in mock thought. "And you know what my
love? Each one will feel so very real. By the time we're finished you'll cry
out for our mercy. Then, perhaps when this silliness is over, we can get
down to business."

"Empress?" Anita asked, her voice soft.

Valeria smiled down at her. "What our dearest?"

"Shut up!" Anita said as she scooped sand into her cupped hands, brought it
up to her lips and blew on it hard. Then she shut her eyes and concentrated.
The billions of tiny grains sprayed out ahead of her, each one growing and
changing shape to become a bullet.

The hail storm of ammunition slammed into the dogs. One by one they exploded
into bursts of sand and disappeared. The Empress shrieked, light shimmering
around her hands as she tried to conjure up a defense that was far too late
in coming. She shuddered as her body was riddled with bullets, then swayed
on her feet before dropping to the ground.

"Hee!" Anita giggled, delirious with blood loss. She pushed herself to her
feet, still clutching her own wound. Cautiously she approached the body of
the Empress, trying to picture the image of the large penguin instead of the
body of Valeria lying on the blood soaked sand.

There wasn't as much damage as she'd hoped. Half of the Empress' face was
gone revealing a mess of bone splinters and brains. One eye hung limply on a
pale cheek, the other stared sightlessly ahead. Most of the left arm had
been blown away and Anita could see clear through to the other side of a
gaping chest wound. What surprised her was the sight of the other injuries
that she hadn't noticed before. There were deep fang marks scattered
randomly across the body, possibly reflections of the damage being done to
the Empress' physical body by the vampires.

The now familiar shimmer of light began to engulf the Empress again, growing
steadily. Anita took several steps back and thought hard about what she
wanted to do next.

Multiple racks of shiny black AK-47s and crates of ammunition began to rise
out of the sand around her.

The Empress was trying to heal herself and shape shift, but appeared to be
having trouble. Several of the bullet wounds closed up, but the bite marks
and the head injury remained. After a while, the light faded until only a
point of it was hovering over the center of the body.

"Very well done, we are impressed," the voice of the Empress said. "You have
hurt us. My true body is dying."

Anita did not relax her stance. "This game is over, Empress."

The light climbed higher in the air and, as it did, the replica of Valeria
dissolved into sand.

"The end of this game, perhaps, but there will be others, the Empress
replied. "My true body is old. I must return to it now one last time in
preparation for the transference to a new, more powerful one. Then our reign
on Earth can truly begin." The light began to slowly fade.

"New body? The egg!" Anita gasped and began firing at the light. The bullets
passed harmlessly through it before it disappeared completely.

Dropping the gun she willed herself back into her physical body where it lay
in the underground cavern, slamming into it so hard that she felt her heart
spasm.

Anita tried to push herself to her feet but stumbled back to the floor
again, feeling strangely weak and dizzy. A sharp pain flared in her side and
she doubled over, blindly running her hands over her body to find the source
of it. She found a deep, freely bleeding gash; the same injury she'd
sustained in the mindscape. A heavy weariness was quickly settling on her,
and somehow, in the midst of the unbearable heat, she began to feel chilled
to the bone and realized that she was going into shock.

"Callidus! Lucifer! Destroy the egg!" She yelled, her voice sounding strange
to her. She raised her head to see if either vampire had heard her and froze
at what she saw.

The ground around her was littered with body parts and gore that glistened
in the red glow. Of the posse of Vampires, only Callidus was left. He lay
sprawled on the ground before the Empress' settee, drenched in blood but
apparently intact. Dumass still sat complacently at the Empress' feet, gore
dripping slowly down a crackling blue force field that protected him.

The Empress lay limply on her cushions, her eyelids fluttering. A shimmering
glow surrounded her body as it had in the mindscape. In the nest before her,
the large leathery egg split open on top, blossoming like an ugly flower.
Something was moving inside it, pushing at the stringy, veined material that
lined it.

A wave of sizzling energy washed through the room like a hot wind, and a
large purple head began to push it's way out of the egg. Slowly, as more of
the hatchling emerged, it began to unfold itself, shuddering and letting out
a strangled, plaintiff squawk.

The hatchling kicked it's way out of the remains of the egg and opened eyes
that were solid black. It's head rotated smoothly as it stared around
itself, looking, Anita thought, for either it's mother, or it's first meal.

Assuming the latter, she began to struggle, dredging up every last drop of
her remaining strength to push herself to her feet. The movement caught the
attention of the infant monster. It hissed at her and then snapped it's
sharp crystalline beak.

The Empress began to shake violently, squawking words in an alien tongue
that echoed through Anita's mind. The shimmering light completely engulfed
the large bird's body and then floated upwards, leaving only the dead shell
of the old penguin monarch behind. The light hovered for a moment and then
streaked towards the hatchling.

The monster tilted it's head in question, and then howled in rage as the
light penetrated it.

Anita took a stumbling step backwards, unsure of what to do.

The hatchling's agitation quickly subsided and it's head fell forward. The
body stood silent for a moment before it's head rose slowly again. Anita
could now sense an ancient, deadly intelligence in the glittering obsidian
eyes that had not been there before.

"We hunger," said the Empress' voice in her mind.

"I'll order you a pizza," Anita snarled, her hands clenched into fists.

"Dumass," the Empress said. "Come to us now. Your sacrifice will be your
greatest gift to us." The monster flexed it's huge talons and took a step in
Dumass' direction. The blue force field around the human slave died.

"No. Not him. Not anyone," Anita said. Propelling herself forward, she raced
to Dumass' side and began to shake him. "Come on! Wake up! Run!" She slapped
him. Dumass stared mutely ahead.

"He is ours, child!" The Empress said with calm menace. "Just as you will
soon be."

"No," Anita said through clenched teeth.

The Empress looked over the young necromancer's head at Dumass. "Ignorance
or Impudence, my pet?" She asked.

"Impudence, my Empress," Dumass replied blankly.

"We must punish impudence," the Empress said, raising a glistening, razor
sharp wing. "We are no longer amused. Though if you survive, we may forgive
you."

Anita stood her ground on shaky legs with her arms spread in front of
Dumass, protecting him from the horror before them. She held her breath,
preparing herself for the blow with her eyes locked defiantly on the
Empress.

At that moment a voice rang out, causing both Anita and the Empress to turn
their heads in the direction of the sound. The voice had a distinct Texas
twang: "Get away from her, you bitch!"

A woman that Anita did not recognize stood at the entrance to the throne
room with Valeria and Christi behind her. All three wore protective suits
and were heavily armed. The woman dropped to one knee and brought the
strangest weapon Anita had ever seen up to her shoulder. She then patted the
back of her head.

"Fire in the hole, Blake!" Valeria yelled.

It was all the initiative Anita needed. Turning, she shoved Dumass to the
ground and covered him with her own body. She looked over her shoulder in
time to see a bright shiny lozenge of liquid metal shoot from the end of the
strange weapon and streak towards the monster penguin.

The screech of rage that echoed through Anita's mind was cut off suddenly as
the Empress' new body exploded violently, splattering large globs of purple
goo in all directions. It rained down on the young necromancer, stinging
sharply where it touched her bare skin. Dumass jerked beneath her, making
unintelligible sounds.

A long stretch of silence followed, interrupted only by the sounds of thick,
wet things dripping to the floor. Anita heard footsteps and lifted her head
to see the three women hurrying towards her.

"That was too easy!" she said tersely, cringing as the stinging grew more
pronounced and began to itch. "She can't be dead yet. I can still sense her!
She's all around us!"

"No kidding, literally," Valeria said, looking around her.

"Well, she sort of is and isn't dead," Christi said, staring down at Anita
with worried eyes. "Things like her knowledge, memories and personality have
been destroyed, but her basic consciousness, her essence was split when the
body divided. She's about to be reborn a hundred times over."

"We can't let that happen!" Anita cried, starting to push herself to her
feet.

"Wait a minute here, hold on. Don't move," Christi ordered. "You're covered
in primordial baby purple penguin goo. It's highly toxic and can eat the
flesh right off you if you agitate it. We can't do a thing until it's off
you." She looked up at Valeria and the other woman. "We'll have to let it
form and move on it's own or it'll kill her. All I can do is give her a shot
of antidote to ward off the poison."

Anita felt the sting of a syringe in her arm. "I can feel it moving," she
said, wide eyed. "Get it off me!"

"Easy," Christi said. "It's trying to get to somewhere cooler."

"This heat should've slowed them down, but for some reason it isn't," the
other woman said. "Anita, my name is Chris Ely and I'm with the resistance
forces. Do you think you're well enough to stand and fight, because in a
second these things are gonna try to eat us."

"Under the circumstances I think I can manage," Anita said wryly, cringing
and clenching her fists as the goo slithered off her body.

"Good," Chris said. "I'm putting an assault rifle beside you on the floor.
I'm not even gonna bother asking if you know how to use it."

"Okay, Blake, it's off you, get up now! MOVE!" Christi yelled.

Anita pushed herself to her feet in one smooth move. She reached down for
the gun and then stared at Valeria.

"How come you get a flame thrower and I don't?" She demanded.

"Oh for crying out loud, here!" Christi shoved her own flame thrower at the
petite necromancer.

Though the goo at Anita's feet was still forming, all around the rest of the
room hundreds of tiny, perfect copies of the monster body that the Empress
had inhabited were closing in on the humans. They snapped their small beaks
and flexed their tiny talons. They demanded to be fed, screeching in harsh
voices.

"Damn, we've run out of time!" Chris said bringing her weapon to her
shoulder and taking aim.

Christi raised her own weapon. A loud whooshing sound indicated that Valeria
had primed her flame thrower.

"Ready, Blake?" She asked.

Hunger had seemed to overrule the caution of the tiny webbed-footed
marauders. They charged at the humans, screeching at the top of their little
lungs.

"Here! Eat this!" Valeria yelled and unleashed a stream of flame. "Wooo
hooooo!"

The first wave of penguins toppled backwards in retreat, hissing and beating
their tiny wings. They were growing steadily larger, the heat of the room
was doing nothing to stop their progress.

Both Chris and Christi began sending bursts of controlled machine gun fire
into the sea of tiny bodies. The birds panicked and ran in all directions to
avoid being hit.

As the battle raged around her, Anita stood motionless, holding her weapon
and staring at the tiny approaching purple bodies.

"Blake! What's wrong!" Valeria yelled over the commotion. She kicked at a
penguin that was trying to chew it's way through her protective suit,
sending it flying back out into the wiggling mess of bodies. "Come on!
Defend yourself!"

"I can't do it!" Anita replied loudly. "I can't just kill them in cold
blood."

"Dammit Blake," Valeria shouted angrily back at her. "This isn't like you. I
haven't got time to go look for the pod!"

"They're only babies. They're innocent and hungry," Anita said. "They didn't
ask to be born. They're just like my penguins. They need me. Stop shooting
at them!"

"No way!" Valeria replied. "When those things look at us they see Golden
Arches!"

Anita glanced with regret at the flame thrower and then put it carefully
down on the ground.

"What are you doing?! Anita this isn't funny!" Chris yelled at her.

"I'm going to talk to them," the young necromancer said. "I'm going to tell
them that I care about them. I'll be their mother. We all need mothers."

"Yeah, and if mine were here she'd ground me for the rest of my life if I
stopped shooting!" Christi snorted.

Watching the crush of tiny bodies that quickly formed around her feet, Anita
took a deep breath and prepared to yell the only maternal thing that she
could think of at the moment. She was pretty sure it would work, because it
was something that she'd heard a lot of mothers say to their kids at the
local mall.

"STOP THAT RIGHT NOW! I MEAN IT!"

The entire purple hoard froze in their tracks.

"Hold your fire!" Chris yelled, putting up her weapon.

In the silence that followed the small flightless attackers remained frozen
in place.

"Whoa," Valeria whispered in awe. "Blake. How the heck did you get them to
do that?"

"It's not as impressive as you think," Christi said, glancing upwards.
"Considering what they're staring at."

"What?" Valeria said, following the direction in which the tiny heads were
pointed. "They're all looking... up. Oh." She started to laugh at what she
saw.

Chris looked up and grinned. "Well it's about time," she said

"If a single one of them hurts my penguins they die," Anita snarled, also
looking up.

Crowded around the lip of the gaping hole in the ceiling of the throne room
was the cat army, their eyes glittering and their tails fluffed and swaying,
poised to attack. Among them stood a sizable army of humans made up of the
previously foo-ed emergency crews, the surviving ex-human slaves, and the
members of Team Toronto. They all held weapons aimed down at the petrified
purple penguins.

Fred poked his head out from the crowd. "Somebody here order a pizza?" He
yelled down, grinning. "Okay you penguins! Put 'em up!"

************************************

...Continued in Epilogue  of PENGUIN$

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