7．The Capture
A click came from the door to the Dragon dormitories. DayBunny was awoken by the sound, but barely had time to move from his awkward position before the door was forced open. He felt an excruciating pain as he became trapped between the door and the wall. As his eyes filled with tears, he heard someone walk in.
Kalysto entered the Dragon dormitories, and walked past DayBunny trapped awkwardly behind the door without noticing him. She went back into her dormitory and locked the door, and busied herself with the oven.
DayBunny winced as he laid in that awkward position, in severe pain, doubting his ability to have children in the future, as a flash of green lighting struck outside the dormitories, and Pypski materialised. She entered the dormitories purposefully, and noticed a towel on the ground and a pair of legs sticking out behind the door. She peeked around the door and immediately withdrew her gaze, on the verge of vomiting. So THIS was where DayBunny went off to?! Goofing around and getting himself trapped between a door and a wall instead of with her enemies, spying on her enemies' plan?! For all she knew, he must've been lying here all day after herself and JapansAce had captured StrangerD3RK, and the Scorpion King had throught he was spying! Its enemies could have come up with a new plan in that time, and for all the Scorpion King knew, it had no knowledge about the new plan whatsoever! In a fit of blind rage the Scorpion King struck DayBunny with a bolt of lightning from Pypski's hand in the place where it would agonise him the most, adding insult to DayBunny's injury. She then grabbed the towel lying on the ground and threw it over DayBunny, while DayBunny laid paralysed, unable to move. DayBunny watched as, with another swift movement, Pypski had struck all the handles to the dormitory doors she can see one by one. Each door flew open with a loud bang, and she began inspecting for any people inside, while a smell of fresh fish pie drifted out from the open door of Kalysto's dormitory...
As Pypski inspected all the dormitories, DayBunny cursed underneath his breath - his clothes were still inside Kalysto's bathroom, and before he could do anything he must retrieve them, but he could not - he was still trapped. The chances of him having children now looked remote after the Scorpion King had struck him with the lightning bolt, and he suspected that he, the door and the wall had now been fused together by the energy of the blast. He cursed again as Pypski, inside the dormitory she was currently searching, smelt the unmistakable smell of fish pie, following it into Kalysto's room...
Kalysto felt a draught from the doorway and suddenly became aware that the door was open. She saw a green silhouette approach from outside, and without a second thought removed a giant stack of mini fish pies on a baking tray out of her oven. Just as Pypski noticed her, she poured the fish pies into her bag, quickly opened her window and jumped out of it. The next moment, a jet of green lightning struck her windowsill, leaving a small crater.
Pypski walked into Kalysto's dormitory and located the bathroom. She found DayBunny's clothes and armour lying in a heap next to the bathtub. With another fit of rage she picked them up with a disgusted look on her face, went outside and threw them over to DayBunny, still incapacitated by the door and the wall and paralysed from the lightning bolt. All he could do is watch on helplessly as his clothes and gear fell in a heap on top of him. His gun hit him cleanly on the forehead and he passed out once again. The Scorpion King wondered why it put up with things like this from DayBunny, but he was a good spy when he wanted to be, and the spirit remembered vividly that day seven years ago - it was DayBunny's curiosity which had freed him in the first place. With a sigh of exasperation, Pypski walked to the door of the dormitory, and to DayBunny's shock - for he was still literally stuck to the door and the wall from Pypski's lightning bolt, she grabbed the door to which DayBunny was stuck... and slammed it shut with such force that it released DayBunny completely from his position...
A loud scream from DayBunny reverberated in the dormitories.
Kalysto sprinted as fast as she could across the gym, the half-scorpion Pypski now hot on her tail. Suddenly, Kilai appeared out of nowhere, riding on her hippo. Kalysto quickly jumps on behind Kilai, and the two flee from the approaching creature. into the main building of Owl School. Pypski immediately tried to strike them with bolts of lightning shot out of her own hand, and despite a few narrow misses, Kilai managed to dodge them all, as she ran inside the dark main building with Kaly, the pair riding on Kilai's hippo.
Pypski was infuriated - her new plan looked as if it was going to fail. In a fit of rage, she transformed into a green lightning bolt and disappeared from the gym...
As Kilai and Kalysto emerged from the main building into Owl School, Kilai's hippo was suddenly struck by a bolt of green lightning, throwing both of them off, while the hippo ran away, frightened. Pypski materialised in her half-scorpion form and the Scorpion King proceeded to attack Kilai and Kalysto...
Suddenly, two giant golden beams illuminated the night sky and blinded the Scorpion King, and it was forced to slow down. It whirled around in slow motion and saw Birou and Youki both shooting a giant bullet barrage at itself. In a flash it changed targets and aimed a tail strike at Youki, who dodged it easily. MaximusArk quickly dashed towards it and slashed at it furiously with his claws, drawing the creature's attention away from the Dual Gunners. Youki and Birou scattered as MaximusArk drew the creature towards the cherry blossom tree near the Shopkeeper's stall - the Shopkeeper having turned in for the night.
As soon as MaximusArk had lured the half-scorpion beneath the tree, Birou had fired another golden beam at it. At the same time, Youki had spotted a weak spot in the creature's armour and immediately fired two quick bullets from each gun into it. Birou then leapt backwards, tossing out grenades towards the creature as she went, which exploded in a brilliant flash of white light. The creature was immediately stunned by a combination of all three skills. MaximusArk quickly sprinted away from the creature, as Magics, Sahara, and Runaria quickly stepped out from behind several bushes, and were quickly joined by Kalysto. The four Elementalists quickly muttered the same incantation, surrounding the creature in a quadruple forcefield. Fierce green lightning crackled inside the glowing blue orb as the creature tried desperately to escape, but it was useless - try as it might it could not pass through the forcefield. Every time it would shatter one layer, another layer was reinforced on top by one of the Elementalists, until finally Noemig would suddenly paralyse the creature with a jet of lightning from her gun, rendering it helpless to move. Kalysto placed her bulging bag of mini fish pies onto the floor and it was quickly emptied as everyone made a dash for them.
And thus, the Scorpion King had been captured.
A few hours ago...
"Hey, wait a second... isn't that Derky's Momo bag?!" Magics winced - Youki's bullets had grazed him in lots of different places.
The last statement had roused everyone. Youki, still hugging his daughter, deposited the bag of Momo fruits on the ground beside Magics.
"I thought Derky went for a walk..." Kari gasped.
"Yeah, she did... alone..." Bui said.
"Something must have happened to her! She never leaves her Momo bag behind!" Kilai observed - and it was perfectly true. StrangerD3RK wasn't called Overlord Momo for nothing.
"The creature must have gotten her!" Sahara panicked.
"What creature?" Youki asked, puzzled.
As Birou took her father aside to fill him in, the others quickly formulated a plan to save StrangerD3RK.
"We don't even know where the creature's taken her, so even if we do succeed it'll be very hard..." Yuumei observed.
"Let's focus on one step at a time," Magics told them. "We have to capture Pypski first, then force her to reveal where she's taken Derky. I have the perfect plan..."
"There might be something in here which can help us," Sahara said, opening StrangerD3RK's bag. After browsing through the top layer of Momo fruits, she thrust her hand in, and grabbed one from deeper within the bag...
"One Momo fruit surely can't hurt..." Sahara thought, as she took a bite, but her mouth closed on something metallic and hard. She pulled whatever it was from inside the Momo fruit, and saw that it was some sort of small, weird ring... she spat it out into her hand.
"Weird, what's this?" Sahara thought, examining it closely...
As soon as Sahara had removed the weird ring-like thing from the Momo fruit, it had started to tick. Sahara heard it very faintly, and held it up to her ears to verify that it was indeed coming from the Momo fruit. Magics, who by now had finished telling everyone his plan, looked around and looked slightly worried at seeing Sahara listening to a Momo fruit - was she going mad?! What could a Momo fruit possibly say to her?!
Magics then saw what Sahara held in her other hand... it looked like a tiny safety pin...
And he put two and two together...
He dashed forward and quickly grabbed the Momo fruit from Sahara, and without a second's hesitation threw it far away into the Meep enclosure. As it landed, the ticking stopped, and the next second the whole Momo fruit had blown up in a vast explosion.
"Whoa... thanks a lot, Magics!" Sahara told Magics, shocked by what she had nearly done.
"No problem," Magics said. "Be careful next time..."
Magics grinned to himself. It was just like StrangerD3RK to hide a grenade inside her Momo fruits, possibly as a harsh deterrant to anyone who tried to eat them. He can just about imagine it - StrangerD3RK taking out a grenade-inhabited Momo fruit and eating it, carefully avoiding the safety pin. Once she had finished, she would insert the grenade into a fresh Momo fruit. The grenades she used were so small, that it didn't need a big hole to insert them into the Momo fruit at all... chuckling slightly at the deviousness of StrangerD3RK, he turned back to the bag, and reached all the way to the bottom.
Magics gasped in pain and quickly withdrew his hand to find one of his fingers bleeding - he had cut himself on something sharp inside StrangerD3RK's bag. More cautious this time, he reached in and took out the offending object.
It was a jet-black whip, lined with double-edged backwards-facing, vicious-looking barbs. It was on one of these sharpened barbed edges that Magics had accidentally slashed his finger. As Kilai rushed over and healed the cut, Magics stared in amazement... StrangerD3RK had talked about the whip many times before, but this was the first time he had ever seen it. He was even doubtful of its existence until today... Magics grinned, these will be very useful in the second phase of his plan. He was sure StrangerD3RK wouldn't
"Max, Kaly, Kilai, Birou, Youki... you know what to do."
Noemig and Runaria were guarding the trapped Pypski, while the others were searching for possible places where StrangerD3RK could be. Runaria was adding more forcefield layers as quickly as Pypski broke through them, aided by Noemig, who stunned and froze Pypski at regular intervals. Inside Pypski's mind, the Scorpion King was working hard, formulating a plan to escape...
Inside the cave in Mara, Lushen and JapansAce felt something stir in the back of their heads. They glowed an eerie green as the Scorpion King controlled them, and they walked into the darkness of the cave. StrangerD3RK was fast asleep, still tied to the stalagmite.
"Well... we've finally caught her," Noemig said, freezing Pypski with four blasts of ice from her gun.
"Yeah, let's hope nothing else happens now," Runaria said as she encased the creature in another forcefield.
Suddenly, two green silhouettes appeared behind Noemig and Runaria. Both of them suddenly felt rapid, powerful claw strikes as the two ninjas attacked them. The two collapsed, dazed, as a hand clapped on each of their mouths, and a green mist suddenly emerged from JapansAce and Lushen, while Pypski broke free of her forcefield...
The five of them then vanished into the night with a brilliant flash of green, as if nothing had ever happened...
Scorpion King, two; everyone else, zero...
...and all this time, DayBunny had laid where Pypski had left him, still pained from his recent experiences...