"So where shall we go first?" Nikola asked cheerfully as he picked up their bags and followed Helen who rolled her eyes, "for breakfast I think we should have croissants and baguettes and other French things with wine, your opinion?"
"Well grab an energy bar if you're hungry buy we are headed to the entrance to the cavern," Helen answered.
"All work and no play make Helen a sad girl," Nikola offer mockingly to which she chuckled slightly.
"Aren't you tired?" Helen wondered, "you didn't sleep on the flight."
"Genius works best at night," he replied as they reached their rented car and he threw the bags in the trunk.
"Honestly Nikola you're like a kid in a candy store," Helen pointed out as they got into the car.
"And you're like a wet blanket," Nikola complained pouting, "an extremely hot wet blanket but still."
He couldn't help but smile as she laughed slightly at his comment before turning her attention back to the road ahead of them and he wisely opted to fall silent and let her concentrate on driving since in France they used kilometers rather than miles. His mind buzzing with excitement however, whatever knowledge he had of Paris was at the forefront of his mind as he tried to decide where he should take her when they were done with the abnormal debacle. He had a list of exciting places he knew they'd both enjoy but deciding on when and where to give her gift was the tricky thing, he wasn't going to do it first thing partially because he needed to work up the courage to ans partially because if it did go wrong then their would be so even more awkwardness if he still had a planned but then he didn't want to wait till last thing either.
It was puzzling him greatly and the mixture of excitement and nervousness made his stomach churn and the butterflies flutter, he'd never been this nervous about spending time with Helen, ever and that was saying a lot considering how long they'd known each other. He had both the gift and card with him of course, he hadn't risked packing them in case Helen sorted through the luggage and accidentally found them so instead the card was tucked inside his jacket pocket and the star sapphire necklace in another, one which had to keep refraining from patting to assure himself it was still there.
"We're here," Helen announced pulling up the car and Nikola blinked himself from his thoughts and exited the car.
They were on the very edge of the city, well slightly away from the city if he was honest but he could still clearly make out the city nearby. It was a little way off from the main road which he could see to his right, the occasional car zooming past them as he retrieved the bags from the trunk and slinging them over his shoulder rejoined Helen who was wandering away from the car towards the opening of a cave which led downwards and in the direction of the city.
"Hmmm..." he muttered, "luxurious hotels or dank, dark caves?"
"Nikola," Helen said warningly taking one of the bags from him and searching through it for flashlights and two of the stunner guns Henry had designed, she handed him a gun and a flashlight before shouldering the bag, "after you."
"Ladies first," he offered bowing slightly and allowing her to enter.
"Why thank you Nikola," she replied smiling slightly before switching on the flashlight and heading into the depths.
Nikola hesitantly followed and turned on his own flashlight, not that there was much to see down there. Just a bunch of dull gray rocks that looked the same as every other dull gray rock, the only interesting thing to look at was Helen and the bag she carried pretty much blocked his view of the back of her head. He just hoped they captured the creature soon so he could get back to his plans for Paris with him and Helen.
"Love the decor down here," he commented sarcastically after awhile.
"Did you know sarcasm is the lowest form of wit?" Helen pointed out.
"I never said I was trying to be witty," Nikola retorted playfully.
"Well try be quiet," Helen told him firmly, "Lacers tend to run from noise and we need to capture it, not chase it into the middle of the city."
"I can imagine how that would suck," Nikola muttered half to himself but fell silent nonetheless.
He focused again on the order of the day's events after capturing the thing and began rehearsing his speech for when he gave her the card and the star sapphire necklace, deciding whether he should say a lot or a little was difficult and he had no clue really of how Helen was going to react. In some of his thoughts she rejected him completely and laughed hysterically at him while in others she was overjoyed and confessed her undying love of him, in some she simply cried that she no longer liked star sapphires while in others she was amazed, in some she was angry at him and in others she had forgotten all about the necklace. He had more negative reactions in his mind than positive ones much to his irritation.
He lost track of time as they wandered through the tunnels, him blindly following her lead and beginning to wonder how they were going to find their way back out of there. His arm started to get tired from holding the bag after awhile and his stomach began protesting about his lack of food and drink, he was shocked when he glanced at his watch to find it was after midday, they'd been down there for hours. It put a crimp in his plans for Paris, he had had morning things planned and would have to alter his mentally prepared list.
"How long until we find this thing?" Nikola complained in a whisper as to not interfere with the creature.
"We're getting close," Helen whispered back sounding amused, "I'm impressed you've gone this long without talking to be honest, were you asleep?"
"No I was thinking," he protested glancing to his right as he thought he heard something.
"About...?" Helen prompted but his attention was taken by the noise, scrabbling of limbs against rock.
"Helen," he told her quietly.
"Since when did you refer to me in third person?" she wondered curiously.
"No, Helen," he pointed down the tunnel the noise was coming from, "I hear something."
"Wha-"
She was cut off by the creature's shriek as it bounded towards them, it was larger than he had expected with its width being almost the same of the tunnel. It had six legs with sharp claws on each of them and a slick spiked tongue which flicked out at random intervals at it charged forwards faster then he could think, Nikola and Helen both aimed their guns at it and fired but it had little to no effect. In fact it only seemed to make it angrier and the creature thrashed wildly, its whip-like tail crashing into the walls with enough force to make the ground shudder, worse than shudder. It shook violently, throwing both Helen and Nikola off their feet.
The creature itself must have been frightened by the walls and it only screeched louder and thrashed more forcefully, the walls floor shook and rumbled with a sound louder than thunder. Nikola tried and failed to get to his feet as the floor continued to move, the flashlight and gun had been lost from his grasp and then the ceiling started to collapse all around them, it was all he could do just to protect his head and try not to be jerked around too much. His now human heat beat frantically with fear for his and Helen's lives, he longed to call out her name but didn't for fear of making the situation even worse.
Abruptly the creature stopped and Nikola could vaguely see it appeared to have been hit on the head by the falling rocks, knocked unconscious or killed he didn't know but the shaking began to slow before grinding to a halt completely. Breathing heavily he moved his arms down and saw all around him strewn with the gloomy shapes of rocks, he scrambled for his flashlight and thankfully found it and scanned his surroundings for Helen, suppressing the overwhelming urge to call her name.
Much to his immense relief he saw her, crawling for her own flashlight which she found and shone the beam at him looking as alleviated as he felt. He gave her a faint smile as she tenuously made her way towards him, going carefully presumably for fear of making the situation worse before finally reaching him.
"Are you hurt?" she asked in barely more than a whisper and he noticed a small but on her cheek.
"No," he answered equally quietly, "you?"
"Just a scratch," she offered, "I'm going to go check to see if the Lacer is alive or not, don't move or talk too loudly."
Nikola bit back a sarcastic reply as she turned towards the creature only stopping instantly when it moved, he held his breath as it groggily lifted its head and hissed in their direction before scampering away up the tunnel, much to Nikola's relief. It was the first time he had seen a Lacer and he certainly had not taken a liking to it. With a sudden worried thought he shone the flashlight back over his shoulder, seeing much to his horror that the passageway from whence they came was now completely blocked.
"Helen," he whispered to her as she returned by his side, "don't look now but we're caved in."
"Damn," she muttered glancing at the new wall of rock.
"You realize we could be sipping wine under the Eiffel Tower right now?" he pointed out, "and they have the best wine here, Bordeaux, Merlot, Chablis-"
"Yes instead we're stuck down here," Helen cut him off, "look on the bright side, you, me and the Lacer are all alive. We were lucky it got knocked out when it did."
"I think we'd be better off if that thing was dead," Nikola commented dryly, "how do you propose we capture it anyway since we're trapped down here and undoubtedly some or all of you equipment was lost in the cave in?"
"We'll be fine Nikola," Helen told with an attempt at a cheerful smile, "we've been in far worse situations and between us I'm sure we'll figure it out."
"Shall we head down that tunnel than? After the crazed lizard creature?" he wondered shining the light in the direction of the only tunnel not currently blocked.
"We shall," she confirmed, "but first we see what we can salvage of our gear, these stunners just seemed to make it angry."
"We should have brought some of the death rays I invented," he complained as they began searching through the rubble.
"Those things -which by the way have never been built- would kill the Lacer and I want it alive," Helen said pulling the bag she'd been carrying from beneath a small rock, "its a rare species of abnormal, there's not that many of them left."
"And we're even rarer species of abnormal," he offered sardonically crouching beside her to see what hadn't been crushed, which wasn't a lot, "I say we save ourselves and come back for Godzilla later."
"Nikola..." Helen began but seemed to think better of it and just shook her head at him, "we have one of the guns Henry designed, it creates an electric net which shocks and traps the abnormal which should suffice for the Lacer, who we are not calling Godzilla by the way. We also have one bottle of water intact and some emergency rations."
"What no wine?" Nikola complained to lighten the mood and succeeded in stealing a smile from her.
"Just carry this please," she said standing and handing him the bag while she took the gun.
"You and guns Helen, really," he mocked playfully, pleased he had made her smile, "although I shouldn't complain, you look so sexy with a gun."
"Focus Nikola," Helen chided, "now come on."
"Yes, if we hurry we may still make it for dinner," Nikola replied cheerfully and he noticed her merely roll her eyes and press onwards.
He fell silent again to reflect on his statement, he did still believe it was possible to capture the creature and find a way out of the maze of tunnels before midnight where he could take her to dinner and then give her the star sapphire necklace. It was slightly disappointing that he wouldn't get to spend the day drowning her in luxury, he wasn't too bothered himself but he had wanted Helen to relax and enjoy herself for once, to be happy in a way that wasn't work related.
That's all he had ever really wanted to do, to make her happy although like everything else he did with her it seemed to come out wrong. They had to be back in Paris, well above ground in Paris by midnight at least as if not he'd have to wait another year to give Helen her gift and tell her how he felt which was disappointing as bringing up the courage to tell her his feelings was harder than he had thought. Besides by next year John could have returned or she could have started dating someone else or they could have fallen out again, there were just so many variables.
"Nikola can you hear that?" Helen questioned breaking into his thoughts and dragging his attention back to the reality of dull gray rocks, he was about to ask her what he meant before he heard the scrabbling sound again, the same one he had heard before.
He exchanged a glance with Helen and nodded to confirm he heard it was they crept deeper into the barely lit darkness, this time they saw the creature before it saw them. It was so immersed in what it was doing, tending to seven pulsing amaranthine egg shapes, what Nikola presumed were its young. It made sense actually, he may not be as well versed in abnormals as Helen but most species got protective of their young which was probably why it had been causing a stir in Paris, it was defending its children from the unknown humans. He looked in Helen's direction in askance of what they should do but the creature noticed them first.
It howled and instantly flicked its whip-like tail towards them, knocking him and Helen to opposite sides of the tunnel. Nikola groaned at the force he was flung against the hard rock and looked up to see the creature advancing on Helen who was helpless as the gun must have been lost from her grasp, frantically he scanned for it. His heart beat nervously and he finally located it but it was too far away to run there in time, like a light bulb appearing in his mind he knew what he could do, why go to the weapon when he was a living magnet? Reaching out his hand he called the gun to him and caught it easily.
"Hey Godzilla!" Nikola yelled to distract it and it instantly turned its black beady eyes on him.
He fired the weapon without a second thought but nothing happened, panicked he looked down on the weapon and whacked it a few times all too aware of the creature advancing on him. It lashed out with one of its clawed hands which Nikola attempted to dodge by diving out of the way but it still caught him painfully on his arm, shoulder and general left side of his body and his head bounced forcefully off the wall. He was dazed and barely had time to scrabble for the gun and pull the trigger one last time, to his amazement whatever fault it had must have corrected itself because a net shot out at the creature moving it away from him.
Nikola felt dizzy and disoriented, he tried to stand but only fell onto the floor where he could see the blurry shape of the creature being shocked by an electrical net, he heard Helen's voice vaguely and tried to smile at the revelation that she was okay but failed as his aching head dragged him into the depths of unconsciousness.