Welcome to chapter 8! As usual *'s means notes at the bottom, (P) means a perspective change from one character or scene to another, and italicized words means I'm quoting a character. Let's go!

CHAPTER 8 – The Beginning Of A Showdown

"You don't want to hide this time?" I asked of Marlene as we walked towards the exit. "No. It's time we got over our fear of him. He's just another dolphin. We'll take him," Marlene said very determined. "I swear, the more we're on this adventure, the more you're getting to be like Skipper," I said.

Marlene smiled at the thought of that as we walked through the door, "I guess while we were dating, some of his personality rubbed off on me. At least I'm not paranoid of everybody," Marlene said. "If you were as paranoid as Skipper, you'd probably have taken me down the minute you got here," I said.

"But I did take you down, remember? I tackled you," Marlene said. I smiled at that. "That was a cheap shot. You ran towards me and I didn't have time to react, but I'll count that regardless," I said. (P to Blowhole)

"It's so hard to find your captive in any big city, no matter what dimension," I thought to myself. "Next time, I'm going to take a captive out to the middle of nowhere so I can spot them easier," I continued thinking while flying in my pod. Suddenly, the light from the sun reflected off something and I got blinded for a second.

"I need sunglasses later," I thought to myself while blinking. I suddenly saw two creatures walking out of a big building. Using my mechanical eye, I zoomed in to get a better look. * I saw that one of the creatures was the human from earlier. "I thought I scared him off," I thought to myself. I looked at the other creature and it was my former captive, the otter.

"I'll finally have my revenge on Skipper once and for all when I capture her," I thought to myself. But I noticed something different about her. Instead of in fear, she looked very determined to do something. She also kept talking to the human. "How did she become friends with a human? Well, he knows my name, so there's something up here. After I capture the two of them, I'll question them," I thought and then started to plan an attack. (P to Marlene and myself)

"Hey, Marlene. I'm trying to weigh our options here, so I've got a quick, kind've odd question," I said to her. "Go ahead," Marlene said curiously. "Well, you've said before that you have the power to control your savage side. ** Does that mean you have the power to suppress it or use it? It's all right if you don't want to answer that question, by the way," I said.

"Well, on some of my dates with Skipper we actually tried that. The first few times I tried, I, uh, well, it didn't work," she explained. "Oh. Then forget I said anything," I said apologetically. "Wait, I didn't finish. As we tried more often, I eventually could. However, I'll only use it in a last-ditch scenario," Marlene finished.

"Then we'll only use it in a last-ditch scenario. Unlike Skipper, who makes Private use his quantum-hypercute a lot," I said. *** "Yeah. I don't want to be feral for very long even when I do use it. A few times I've gone a bit too far and it took Skipper to get me back to normal," Marlene explained. "How'd he do that?" I asked curiously. "Guess," Marlene said slyly.

"A kiss?" I asked. "Yep. Works every time when it comes from him. It must trigger something in my subconscious, as Kowalski would say," she said. "That's sweet. Hopefully you won't have to go feral, though," I said. "Yeah, I hope not," Marlene agreed.

Suddenly, we both heard a blast coming from somewhere. "Duck!" I shouted and we did, dodging the blast. "Well, well. Seems I've finally found you two," Blowhole said as he came closer in his pod. "Mind if I ask you why you're doing this before we fight?" I asked.

"Why not. Well, Skipper stopped me from blowing up the sun and since then he's been my archrival. I've been trying to find a way to get to him and I think I did," Blowhole explained as he glanced at Marlene.

"I remember him saying that," I said. "How did you get to know them?" Blowhole asked of me. "It's a long story," I said. "Well, when I capture you two, you'll have plenty of time to tell me," Blowhole said. "The correct word is if," Marlene said.

"Well, haven't you grown up fast?" Blowhole taunted. "Don't underestimate me. That was a cheap shot back at the zoo," Marlene said. "Touché. Well, we don't have all day," Blowhole said. With that, we started to fight.

He aimed another blast at us, which was red this time. Again, both Marlene and I got out of the way before it hit either of us. We powered up our weapons and got ready. "Take this," Marlene shouted as she shot a dart at Blowhole. He dodged the dart and circled around, preparing to fire again.

Blowhole fired again and we both jumped out of the way as the blast hit a garbage can. It suddenly was inside a cage. "Careful of the blasts, Marlene! If you get hit, you'll wind up in a cage!" I warned her. I think she acknowledged me by firing two more shots at Blowhole. One missed entirely, but another hit his Segway, knocking it out.

"Hey, I need that!" Blowhole shouted as he landed a bit roughly on the floor. "Work, darn you!" Blowhole was shouting, while pressing buttons. Since he was temporarily distracted, Marlene and I both took our chance to regroup inside of a store. "How many darts do you have left?" I asked of her. "About a dozen," she replied. "How many did we start with?" I asked. "We started with fifteen darts," she replied again.

"I've got an idea. You distract Blowhole by firing some shots at him while I try to get behind him and stun him with the phone," I said. "I'll give you cover fire from behind that box," Marlene said, while pointing at a box outside. "Let's go!" I said. ****

Blowhole had gotten his Segway up and running again, except for the flying part. Marlene jumped behind the box and started shooting darts every few seconds so I could get across the street. Blowhole was more concerned with her at the moment, so I took my opportunity and got across the street. *****

Marlene stopped firing when she saw I had gotten across the street. Blowhole kept trying to get her encaged. He kept missing and hitting the various boxes and garbage cans she kept jumping behind. "Stand still!" Blowhole shouted at her. I started creeping towards Blowhole, ready to shock him.

Suddenly, one of the blasts hit a mirror and gained speed towards me. I quickly dodged it even though it came within an inch of myself. I turned the amount of shock to full on the Taser and tried to hit Blowhole. I missed, but once again got his Segway. "Quit doing that!" he shouted.

Again, Marlene and I ran down the street to regroup. "How many do you have now?" I asked. "I've got five. How much charge does the Taser have?" she asked. "It's got about…" I started to say, but the case starting sparking like something had gone wrong. To protect both of us, I threw the case off my phone to a few feet away, where it caught fire!

"How'd that happen?" I asked. "I did it," Blowhole answered from a few feet away. He started shooting at us again, but we both dodged again. "I hate prototypes," I said as we dodged blasts.

Darn Blowhole for hacking that thing. Please rate and review. See you in chapter 9! Time for a few notes.

* He probably has a telescope or binoculars built into his robot eye.

** I'm quoting Marlene from the end of "Littlefoot."

*** Reference to "Cute-Astrophe", "Littlefoot", and "High Moltage" where Skipper kept making private use the Quantum Hypercute.

**** Marlene's turning into quite the soldier.

***** Seriously, the streets in Downtown San Francisco are wide and long. Street view them on Google Maps.

BONUS: This chapter, towards the end, went through a revision. I hope it works better.