"Myuuu," Pommy mused to himself as he scurried quietly along the hallway, trailing a safe distance behind Tolbi and his top bodyguard. "It's a good thing that Pommy snuck out of the room while the door was still open, or Pommy would still be trapped in there!" He pouted. "Pommy hopes Bomberman and Lilith are okay, because those were a lot of guards!" He sighed. "Well, while they're busy, Pommy will talk to Mr. Tolbi and get to the bottom of things for them!"
The creature had no worries that he would lose track of Tolbi. After all, he had enhanced hearing and could hear the footsteps of the man and his bodyguard, soft as they were. Unfortunately, Pommy wasn't entirely sure what he was going to do once he revealed himself and confronted Tolbi about the important information that Bomberman and Lilith said they were looking for. His plan of action at the moment looked something like:
1) Follow Tolbi
2) ???
3) Get Information!
A lesser puffball would have despaired at such a vague plan, but Pommy rather liked the simplicity of it. He pondered what to put in the second step. Judging from the biblical plague of guards that Tolbi summoned on Bomberman and Lilith back in the office, it didn't seem like the man was in a mood to have a casual chat over a cup of cappuccino, so Pommy mentally filled in "Use Extreme Violence" under step 2. He'd seen it work on TV a couple of times, so he was sure that it wouldn't fail him now.
The main problem, Pommy figured as he peeked around a corner, was that scary guy in the red suit next to Tolbi. He'd almost killed Lilith with that gun of his (Pommy was still infuriated about that one), and he was liable to kill Pommy with it too, if he wasn't careful. It would be a good idea to try to get the gun away from him somehow, but Pommy wasn't sure how he'd do that. Maybe it would be better if he just kept on running...
"Mr. Tolbi," the guard asked, "where are we going?"
"The basement," Tolbi answered. "We'll wait until we get word from the other guards that they've dealt appropriately with both Bomberman and Lilith. They've got orders to take those two alive, if possible. In the meantime, we can page the BHB Army from the generator room down there and notify them of Bomberman and Lilith's presence here on Starlight."
"And if the guards can't take those two? They're just grunts, and from what I know, your guests aren't ones to be messed with. In particular, Lilith – "
"I know well enough about her, Iodem," Tolbi snapped, "and about Bomberman as well." He snorted. "But even if they were to evade capture initially, the BHB Army would catch them here sooner or later. They won't leave until they find the generator; their determination is their weakness." There was a rustle of fabric and a soft jangle as Tolbi pulled out something from his shirt. "And even if they figure out where the generator is, they can't get in without these card keys."
Pommy quickly catalogued the information he'd just heard. Basement + generator room + card keys = Important Things!
He spotted Tolbi and the guard – named Iodem, apparently – stepping into what looked like a freight elevator. He popped back behind the corner before he could be seen, and waited until he heard the elevator recede down the shaft a little before scuttling forward to explore the rest of the area. Pommy needs to get to the basement and get those card keys! he thought. But there's only one elevator here, and freight elevators are really slow.
From the freight elevator, Pommy headed right. He looked around the next corner, and was delighted to find a sign hanging from the ceiling helpfully pointing out a door leading to a set of stairs. He was less delighted to find that, as usual, he couldn't reach the door handle. Still, something was better than nothing. He shoved himself against the door in the hopes that it might magickally give way to the sheer force of his Epic Heroism, to no avail.
"Myuuuu," Pommy grumbled, stepping back from the door and glaring at it. "Now what will Pommy do? The freight elevator's not back yet, and by the time Pommy gets on it and goes down, Tolbi and that jerk with him will probably be gone." He sighed. "Pommy wishes Bomberman were here." He suddenly shook his head furiously, his ears flopping around him as he did so. "No! Pommy doesn't need Bomberman! Pommy can do this on his own!" He tapped a paw to his chin (...or thereabouts) as he thought. "Pommy needs to find a way to turn the door handle..."
The creature backtracked to the freight elevator and took a different path. This one led to a series of office doors, some left open and some closed. Leaning against the wall near the second open door was a wet umbrella, with a curved handle.
"Myu!" Pommy zoomed forward and snatched the umbrella, grimacing slightly at the cold water still clinging to the fabric. He dragged the thing back to the stairwell door, where he hooked it around the handle and tugged on it. Pommy once again applied his (admittedly scant) weight against the door, and it swung open with a click. With that mission objective accomplished, Pommy abandoned the umbrella for its owner to find later and hopped down the stairs as fast as he could, hoping that he wasn't too late to catch Tolbi.
To his immense relief, one of the doors at the bottom of the basement was already open. As he entered, his ears were assaulted with the hum of the air conditioning and other various machines that Pommy didn't know the names of, disorienting him for a few moments.
But with enough concentration, Pommy was able to pick out the sound of footsteps on the bare concrete floor and the gentle swish of clothes on an ambulatory body. He turned and saw Tolbi and his bodyguard heading in the opposite direction of him. Feeling a bit vulnerable, he snatched a wrench from the top of an open toolbox lying on the ground next to a worktable and followed after them, waiting for his chance to pounce.
Tolbi and his bodyguard traveled through the gritty, noisy corridors, talking about This Thing or That Thing. Initially the conversation revolved around the operation of Tolbi Casino, but soon it veered upon the topic of Tolbi's health problems (of which there were many, apparently). They eventually reached a large garage area, strewn with cardboard boxes, grimy forklifts, and a few workers going about their usual duties. Pommy skittered from one hiding place to the next as he continued following Tolbi and Iodem. As he peeked around a loaded dolly stacked high with metal cylinders, Pommy saw them heading towards an elevator located off in a corner of the hold.
Not another elevator, myu! he thought, panicked. And it doesn't look like there's a set of stairs anywhere near here, and if Pommy goes to look for one, Pommy might not be able to find Tolbi again! He gulped, clutching the wrench he held as he realized he had only one option left if he wanted to find out where the Gravity Generator was. Pommy's scared, but...a mimic's gotta do what a mimic's gotta do!
B-O-M-B
"Then I told the asshole, you know what? You can just take your damn plan and give yourself a prostate exam with it!" Tolbi grumbled, huffing as he walked across the shipping garage. The creases on his face deepened with the exertion of his steps. "It's a sad, cruel world when even a rich bastard like me can't afford decent health care."
"Tragic, indeed," Iodem replied, his words edged ever so slightly with sarcasm.
"That last heart surgery I had chewed through my money like a starving kid chews through taffy," continued Tolbi. "Dalia was pissed with me for that, because I couldn't get her the vacation home in Jae Bin Lai that I promised her for her nameday. Said I wouldn't have needed the surgery if I'd stopped eating all those steaks like she told me to." He snorted. "If there's one thing people need to know in life, it's that you never get between a man and his meat, you know what I mean?"
"Not really," Iodem droned. "I'm vegan."
Pause.
Tolbi raised an eyebrow at him. "I don't envy you your life."
"The feeling is very, very mutual."
They stopped in front of the brushed metal elevator doors. Tolbi rummaged through his pants pockets, then his blazer pockets. He frowned. "Iodem, do you have the elevator key?"
Iodem wordlessly produced a flat, square-ish metal key from seemingly nowhere.
"I knew I could count on you." Tolbi took it and inserted it into a panel next to the elevator door, twisting it to open the doors. As Tolbi and Iodem stepped inside, Tolbi reached out and jabbed a thumb at the "close door" button, then turned to Iodem. "So, let me just ask you – "
thump-thump-thump-...
Iodem threw a glance over his shoulder and frowned. "How the hell did that thing...?"
"What – " Tolbi started.
thump-thump-thump-thump-thump-THUMP!
"TO INFINITY AND BEYOND!" Pommy leapt and wedged the wrench horizontally between the closing elevator doors – CLANK! – stalling them for a moment. Like a gymnast on the bars, he swung up and around the wrench twice in quick succession before launching himself into the air – taking the wrench with him and allowing the elevator doors to close – as a whirling flurry of fluff and metal. He clocked Tolbi in the collarbone with the open end of the tool.
WHACK! THUD!
"Ugh!" Tolbi stumbled back against the elevator wall, wincing.
As Pommy fell, he caught a hold of the lanyard holding the four card keys. "Myu, give these card keys to Pommy or Pommy will punish you in the name of the moon!" he growled, clinging stubbornly to the nylon cord with one hand and smacking at Tolbi with the wrench in his other hand.
"Ow! Get off me – ow! – you damn dirty – ow! – whatever-you-are-OW!" Tolbi seized a hold of Pommy, trying to pull the creature off him. Pommy quickly switched the target of his wrench's wrath from Tolbi's stomach to Tolbi's hand.
TH-THWACK!
Tolbi swore wildly, dropping Pommy.
Pommy swung back towards Tolbi, planted his feet against Tolbi's abdomen, and continued his efforts to claim the cards. He tried to scramble up the lanyard, but suddenly realized that holding the wrench made that particular endeavor a wee bit difficult. He paused as he reconsidered his plans.
"Allow me, Mr. Tolbi." Iodem pulled the gun from his shoulder holster.
"Don't use that thing here!" Tolbi snapped. "And not while he's still on me!"
Iodem smiled grimly. "You doubt my aim?"
"I doubt the frickin' round dog crawling on me! Get him off!"
Around them, the elevator descended with a hum.
"Really, it would just be easier if I put a bullet through this thing's brain," Iodem muttered, "assuming that it has any." He replaced the gun in its holster and stepped forward.
"Myu!"Pommy flung the wrench up into Iodem's face, landing a hit square on his nose. WHONK!
"Augh!" Iodem's palms flew to his face, catching the blood streaming from his nostrils. He sniffled and swept the crimson liquid away with the back of his hand. "Okay, that's it, this thing is dead!"
"Uh-oh!" Pommy scaled the lanyard in record-breaking time (were there such a record for "Climbing Up a Lanyard Cord Attached to a Furious Casino Owner With His Bodyguard Set to Kill Mode"). He snatched the lanyard cord, hopped on top of Tolbi's head with it in hand, and then dropped to the floor, yanking the thing from Tolbi's frantic fingers. "Got it!" he exclaimed. He started to run –
STOMP! Iodem's foot landed on one of the cards, pinning the lanyard to the ground and causing Pommy to tumble backwards. "I don't think so," he sneered, bending over to reach for the cards.
Pommy promptly bit the side of his hand. CHOMP!
"Son of a bitch!" Iodem swung his arm wildly as he attempted to shake Pommy off without also taking off a chunk of his own skin.
"Nom nom nom" was Pommy's only response.
Ding-ding!
The elevator settled to a halt. The metal doors slid open with barely a sound.
With a growl, Iodem finally flung Pommy off his arm and into the brightly lit hallway now open before them.
"Myuuuu!" Pommy sailed through the air, still miraculously clutching the lanyard. He bounced into a wall ("Oof!") before crashing to the floor ("Oww!"). As he got to his feet, he saw Iodem pull out his gun and aim. Pommy yelped a particularly vibrant expletive (learned from Bomberman but embellished with The Pommy Touch™), clamped down on the lanyard cord with his teeth, and took off at top speed as Iodem opened fire.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
Pommy zigzagged his way to the first intersection and veered right, almost crashing into a bucket of sudsy water and a mop leaning against the wall. He reached out with a round paw and knocked the mop over just as Iodem rounded the corner.
THWACK! The mop handle clocked Iodem in the head.
"Dah!" Momentarily distracted, Iodem stumbled around a bit – and ended up tripping over the bucket, spilling its contents.
CRASH-KA-SPLASH!
A disgruntled man in a janitorial uniform poked his upper body out of an open door just as Pommy sprinted by, a cheek bulging with half-chewed food. He frowned at the commotion and the new mess in the hallway. "Hey, what's the big idea? I just finished that – "
WHAP! Iodem backhanded him out of the way as he passed by, slamming the man's head into the doorframe. The man slumped to the floor, dazed.
Tolbi paused a moment. He ran inside the room, grabbed a still-cold fountain soda sitting on a table next to a sandwich, and stuck it in one of the man's hands.
The man stared up at Tolbi, irritated and googly-eyed.
"What?" Tolbi said, narrowing his eyes. "Go to the infirmary or something if you want an ice pack." He jogged off to catch up with Iodem.
Meanwhile, Pommy skidded on the tile as he put down a hand for balance and swung a hard left, the card keys arcing around him with his momentum. He continued straight past an intersection, having absolutely no clue where he was going. He tried to listen for the hum of the Gravity Generator, like he had back on Aquanet, but there were too many other machine-like sounds mixed in and he was too distracted running for his life to differentiate them. He was so distracted by this minor issue, in fact, that he ran straight into a pair of femininely-shoed feet emerging from a side door.
"Myu!" Pommy tripped and tumbled over the toes, landing with his face in the tile. WHUMP! "Ow..." He rolled over and quickly disentangled himself from the lanyard.
"Oh!" The woman's blond curls bounced around her face as she squatted down. "Hey, are you okay? Are you lost?"
"Aha! There you are!" Iodem's shout rang through the halls, his feet pounding out an impending death beat on the floor as he ran.
"Uh-oh!" Pommy scrambled up the woman's leg and into her billowy cotton dress.
"YEEEEEK!" The woman could only waddle awkwardly in place like a crucified penguin as Pommy sought shelter under her clothes.
Iodem slowed to a stop. "Not to worry, miss," he said, "just stay still and I'll deal with him for you." He aimed a hand at what he thought was a suspiciously large lump squirming just below the small of her back –
SWAT! The "lump" clambered out of the way just in time.
"AAAH!" The woman flinched before glaring at Iodem. "Pervert! That was my ass!"
Iodem turned red. "Wait, I didn't mean – "
She slapped him. KA-THWAP!
Pommy peeked out from the V-shaped neckline of the woman's dress, eliciting another startled yelp from her. "Myu, time to fly!" He launched himself from her collarbone and onto a recovering Iodem's head – TH-THUMP! – and then sprang up from there into an airborne somersault. He hit the floor running and zoomed right through the open legs of a surprised Tolbi as he backtracked to the last intersection and took a different path.
Myu! Pommy thought as he ran. Pommy needs to find a place to hide! Pommy's way faster than these guys, but Pommy's starting to get tired! But where... He suddenly glimpsed the path to salvation up ahead. Well, perhaps it was more like "the longer road to hell," all things considered.
Whatever it was, Pommy gathered the card keys into his paws and picked up his pace...
B-O-M-B
Breathing hard, and rubbing the spot on his face where he'd gotten slapped earlier, Iodem skidded to a stop in the middle of the hall.
He looked around him.
Right.
Left.
Ahead.
Behind.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
"Damn!" He stomped his foot. "He's gone."
Tolbi snorted as he caught up with Iodem, although the disdain in the action was muted by his comically red and sweaty face. "That thing couldn't have gotten far," he panted, bending over and resting his hands on his knees. "I bet he got or is getting lost in these halls. Leustheria knows even I get lost here sometimes."
"Tch." Annoyed, Iodem kicked at a haphazard pile of large cardboard boxes in a shallow alcove off to the side, denting one of them slightly. "I'll go look for him and get the card keys back. Wait for me in warehouse 9B."
Tolbi nodded. The two headed in opposite directions.
Silence descended in their wake, but tripped on the rattling of a dolly cart in some faraway corridor. It gracefully recovered and marched stately forward.
...
...
...
...
...
"...myuuu," Pommy mewed, peeking out from an oblong pre-cut hole in the side of the dented box. "That was close – Pommy thought he'd be discovered for sure! Good thing Pommy chewed on this cord to keep quiet." He crawled out from under the box with the partly-frayed lanyard in hand and lifted one floppy ear into the air to track a certain someone's footsteps. "Well, Pommy will go see where Tolbi is going! Hopefully it's to the generator room."
B-O-M-B
Augustus Tolbi walked briskly through the maze of the sub-basement of the executive wing of his namesake casino. He nodded brief, silent greetings to any workers that he happened to meet along the way, but this particular area of the basement was mostly empty during this time of day. The real workday began at night, when soldiers from the BHB Army used this level as a safe haven for resting, restocking, and planning. It was a bit of an annoyance, but the funds that the BHB Army gave him in return for his cooperation helped keep his large business afloat while others crashed, burned, and sank (and sometimes not even in that order).
Of course, it also helped that the one to negotiate this particular contract had been the unearthly beautiful Odessa – or Zhael, rather, though she preferred for him to call her Odessa. The young woman had been quite persuasive in her...reasoning. Tolbi had fallen for her at first glance, intrigued by her beauty, her wit, her talent. Somewhere in the rounded corners of his artery-clogged heart, he'd known that he was being used by her, that she hadn't cared a single whit about him at all. But her affection, loveless as it was, had still been enough for his ailing body to live on, and the short-lived affair he'd had with her had been worth the pain of her inevitable loss. Worth the invasion of the strange, soulless soldiers into his business haven.
Worth an eventual run-in with the infamous Scourge of the Spaceways.
Tolbi shuddered even as he found himself amused at the memory of his first face-to-face encounter with Lilith Reynard. Such a pretty young thing was not what he had expected at all from the Scourge who had offed many of his business competitors and partners, and severely damaged the operations of other peers with her piracy and assassinations. She couldn't have been much older than Odessa, or perhaps even slightly younger than her! He supposed that was why he hadn't felt much threatened by Lilith initially. And her companion – the one called "Bomberman" – didn't look all that impressive either. Tolbi had a hard time believing that someone who looked like he'd barely gotten out of high school could be causing so much trouble for the formidable BHB Army, but he wasn't privy to the full range of BHB intelligence on this particular wanted criminal. All he knew was that the BHB Army would handsomely reward anyone who caught Bomberman and Lilith, and money was the new oxygen these days.
And where money was involved, Tolbi knew no fear.
So he'd started up a rigged blackjack game with one of the most dangerous pirates known to current society, gambling with her freedom. Because clearly there was nothing, nothing at all, that could have gone wrong with that scenario. But if there was one area where he thought he could match or even best the Scourge, it was gambling – and cheating at it. He'd won, of course, despite Lilith's own attempts to turn the game in her favor, but it hadn't mattered in the end; she hadn't taken the outcome lying down. In retrospect, he really should've anticipated that and just sicced his guards on her earlier. After all, what else but violence could be expected of a woman of her dubious title?
No matter – I got out of there alive, and that's what matters, Tolbi reassured himself. He didn't sound very convincing. Even if the other guards can't deal with her, once the BHB Army gets their hands on her she'll be out of my hair for good. He self-consciously ran a hand through the greying black strands on his head. Not that I seem to have much of it nowadays.
Tolbi stopped in front of a black door marked "9B." This was one of the main rooms "rented" by the BHB soldiers as a hideaway. Only another BHB soldier, Iodem, or Tolbi himself could access this room or others like it. Tolbi pressed a gray card key to the flat reader just off to the side, and the door swung open.
The spacious warehouse reeked faintly of sweat and cigarette smoke. It had initially been built and used to house one of Tolbi's more...illegal...business operations. Most of the movable apparatuses and the inventory had been moved to a different warehouse, but the larger machines remained bolted to the floor, and in one corner there were a few rows of shelves holding boxes of old but still important documents. The warehouse was dotted with sleeping bags, garbage, clothes, empty boxes, and other miscellany. Crowded around one large machine were stacks of food rations and canned beverages. A collection of guns and other such tools of carnage were piled under a metal staircase to an upper level, where the control room for the warehouse was located.
Tolbi kicked aside a sleeping bag in his path as he headed up the stairs and crossed the grated metal platform to the control room. He unlocked the door. Inside, three large switchgear panels lined the length of the wall. He ignored them and headed for a matte black computer screen built into the wall perpendicular to the switchgears. The screen flared into life at the touch of his fingers, displaying a keypad with odd characters. Tolbi carefully tapped in a code.
Not far from the control room, in a conspicuously empty area of the warehouse, a steel column emerged with a whirr from a now-open slot right next a large metal door. The top of the column stood waist-high and was cut at a diagonal, like the sheared tip of a bamboo stalk. It sported four identical card readers in a row.
Tolbi shut off the screen with another well-placed tap of his finger and sighed in relief. He'd done all he could for the moment. Now it was time to rest and wait.
Rest and wait...
CH-CHK!
Tolbi blinked, and stood deathly still.
"D-don't move!" came Pommy's squeaky voice. "Or Pommy shoots!"
Tolbi laughed. "I'd be surprised if you even knew how to use that thing," he retorted, his posture visibly relaxing.
"What's so hard about using a gun, myu?" Pommy shot back. He stood in the doorway of the control room, clutching a black handgun in his paws. He wore the lanyard of card keys around his...er...neck area. "All you do is pull the trigger, right?"
"Did you even check if it's loaded?"
"...myu? How do you do that?"
Pause.
"...GRAAAAUGH!" Tolbi roared and whirled on Pommy.
"Myu!" Pommy dropped the gun in fright and sprinted from the door.
Tolbi rushed over to snatch the gun from the floor. He ran out to the railing and aimed...but Pommy was nowhere to be seen, even from his high vantage point.
"I'd just give up those card keys if I were you!" Tolbi called. "After all, I'm sure neither of us would want to see what this gun could do to your little body!"
B-O-M-B
Hiding under a generously large pile of sleeping bags and dirty clothes, Pommy shivered after hearing Tolbi's threat. Now what will Pommy do? he whimpered. Pommy has no weapon now, and if Pommy runs out to try and get one, Pommy might get shot! He sniffed and then made a violently disgusted face. But if Pommy stays here any longer, Pommy will suffocate from this smell, myu!
"Ah, but even so," Tolbi continued, his footsteps slowly descending the stairs, "I'm not a violent man at heart. I dislike violence, in fact; that's why I ran away from my military-minded family and went into business school. It's why I employ people like Iodem – Leustheria bless his vegan bones – to do this sort of dirty work. However, since he's conveniently absent at the moment, the dirty work falls upon me. But, of course, I just said that I have no fondness for this sort of thing.
"So let me amend myself." His feet touched upon the concrete warehouse floor. "If you hand over the card keys, you have my word that I won't hurt you in any way."
Pommy almost considered it. Surely Bomberman and Lilith must have escaped the guards and figured out where the Gravity Generator was already. They were cool like that. (Lilith moreso than Bomberman.) And even if they didn't know, they could figure it out by themselves, couldn't they? So even if he gave up the card keys now, all three of them would still be able to find out a way in, with or without Tolbi.
But then Pommy remembered that Zhael had made a similar promise to help them out, too.
And she hadn't meant it.
At all.
Pommy can't trust Tolbi, Pommy thought, resigned. Pommy can only trust himself!
As Tolbi continued to ramble, Pommy carefully peeked out from under the sleeping bag he was using as cover, considering possible plans. He spotted a podium with four card swipers across the way, but quickly dismissed that as an immediate option. It was way too tall for him to reach without help, and unless he dealt with Tolbi first he wouldn't have time to get something to climb onto. Pommy thought about just escaping from the warehouse and trying to find Bomberman and Lilith, but the entrance was closed, and unless he dealt with Tolbi first he wouldn't have time to find something to reach the handle with.
...right, then, the creature decided. Pommy needs to knock Tolbi out before doing anything else. Time to Use Extreme Violence!
Tolbi's left ankle, wrapped in an ugly argyle-patterned sock, suddenly loomed large in Pommy's view.
Pommy didn't think twice before chowing down.
CHOMP!
Tolbi let out a yelp of pain. "You goddamned son-of-a – !" He hopped around for a bit, trying to shake Pommy off. He spotted an ankle-level metal rail fencing off a machine nearby – meant to force breathing space for the contraption – and he rammed Pommy into it.
WHAM!
"Myu!" Dazed, Pommy released his Jaws of Death and tumbled to the floor.
Tolbi bent over (with some difficulty) and triumphantly grabbed the lanyard of card keys as Pommy was still recovering from the direct hit to his head. "I'll be taking these, thank you," he said, smirking.
"Y-you're not welcome, myu!" snarled Pommy. With one hand on the rail that had knocked him silly, he made an awkward swipe for the keys – and successfully caught hold of one of them.
Tolbi growled and yanked at the lanyard cord.
Using the rail for leverage, Pommy gritted his teeth and yanked back.
A moment's tug-of-war...
KA-SNAP!
The flimsy plastic clasp holding the cards together snapped.
"Myuuu!" Pommy went flying backwards in a low arc, landing painfully on the concrete next to a crushed beer can. WHUMP!
"Dah!" Tolbi's arms pinwheeled wildly as he stumbled back and crashed into a stack of boxes behind him.
Three of the four card keys to the Gravity Generator room clattered softly to the floor. Cl-cl-clack!
As soon as he recovered, Tolbi quickly swept them up and tucked them away in a pants pocket before glaring at Pommy.
Pommy innocently blinked back at him...then realized what he held in his round pink paw.
Wide-eyed, he held up the shiny red-and-white card key.
Tolbi gave a feral grin and nodded, taking a step forward.
Another pause.
...Pommy blew a raspberry and scampered off.
"Like hell you will!" Tolbi thundered. With gun firmly in hand, he slipped into the space between two machines to take a shortcut as he pursued Pommy.
Pommy glanced back to see Tolbi on his tail...metaphorically speaking. "Uh-oh!" He willed himself to run faster – not that it seemed to be doing much good.
Then again, Tolbi wasn't looking so hot, either, slowly dropping further and further behind as the two continued their wild goose chase. Clearly his history of health problems was catching up to him. Panting, he slowed to a walk, aimed, and fired three times.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
A perilously arranged four-foot-tall stack of cans right near Pommy collapsed as Tolbi's shots knocked out a couple of them, punching holes in the metal that leaked beer.
"Aaah!" Pommy was nearly swept off his feet by the deluge of cans and booze. He leapt up in time to can-roll and can-hop his way over to a stack of food ration blocks nearby. He scrambled atop the tower of fake-food just as Tolbi put a few more bullets into the side of it. Pommy reached down and began grabbing the rations from just beneath his feet and tossing them at Tolbi like bulky shuriken.
WHOOSH-WHOOSH-WHOOSH-WHOOSH –
Tolbi groaned as he was pelted with barely-edible foodstuffs, alternately flinching and dodging as he advanced upon Pommy. He swatted away two more rations before aiming and firing again.
BANG!
"Myu!" Pommy dove off the top of the food rations just as a bullet ate into the very spot where he'd been standing moments earlier. He hit the ground rolling and then sped off, swerving around miscellany in his way.
B-O-M-B
An over-exerted Tolbi tried his best to follow the hyperactive fluffball through the orderless labyrinth of warehouse 9B, to no avail: all too soon, his out-of-shape body smacked him with a white flag of surrender. The casino patriarch plopped his bottom onto a metal folding chair abandoned in an aisle between shelves of boxed documents and leaned back in it. With his free hand, he took out a handkerchief from a shirt pocket and wiped his sweaty face with it. He took big, gulping breaths as he attempted to find his normal blood pressure again.
Damn that...that...whatever that thing is! he cursed. It's too fast for me! If only Iodem were here. His eyes narrowed. What the hell is taking him so long, anyway? The sub-basement's a maze, true, but he's been down there often enough to know his way around. With a frown, Tolbi pulled out his communicator and punched in Iodem's number.
"...we're sorry, but the number you have dialed is not picking up..."
Pah, Tolbi thought, snapping the communicator shut. Idiot probably forgot his communicator somewhere. He's good for the nitty-gritty, but he can be as senile as a turtleduck about the most common sense things. He paused. Do turtleducks even get senile? He shook his head and shoved his train of thought onto a more useful track. Namely, how to deal with a certain living marshmallow.
Tolbi snorted. Of the three who showed up in his office today, he hadn't expected Pommy of all people...er...things...to give him this much trouble. The creature seemed to have a natural sugar rush going for it (him?) that allowed for foot escapes at mach speeds, but surely that was bound to wear out sometime, right? Only problem was, Tolbi knew he had no chance of tiring Pommy out himself. The other option – aside from just waiting for Iodem – was to go out and search for Pommy, but that would leave Tolbi open to a guerilla attack courtesy of Contra Pommy.
Well, I didn't get anywhere in my life by just sitting around and waiting for a white knight, did I? Tolbi mused amusedly to himself. After another minute's rest, he placed his hands on his thighs, pushed himself to his feet...
...and promptly got conked in the skull by a half-full cardboard box of documents shoved from above.
THUNK!
"Gaaah!" Tolbi staggered, bumping into the opposite shelf, his eyes seeing stars and other such things. Grimacing, he looked up –
FWAP!
– and got smacked in the face with a cardboard box lid.
As soon as his vision cleared, Tolbi spotted a peach-colored round body hide behind a now-opened document box just before the box tipped over and spilled forth a cascade of papers. "Gotcha now!" he snarled, fetching his gun from beneath a pile of pink sheets.
"Myu!" Pommy jumped from the top shelf to the top of a row of red metal lockers lining the nearby wall, with some of their doors hanging partially open. Before Tolbi could fire off a shot, though, Pommy whirled and brandished out the card key he'd stolen. "Back off, you son-of-a-myu!" he snarled as menacingly as he could manage – which wasn't much, admittedly. "Or this card gets it!"
"...you realize that if that card happens to be destroyed or lost, I can just get a new one from the BHB Army," Tolbi said softly, stepping close to the lockers.
Pommy blinked. "M-myu? Really?"
Actually, Tolbi didn't really know. He was sure that they could, not that he knew how it'd be done. But whether they would was a different story. They wouldn't think highly of him for it, that was for sure. And reputation was almost as valuable in his world as money. "Indeed. You already know of my...significant...connections to the BHB Army. It would be relatively simple to exploit those and simply get a replacement."
"Then why the myu are you chasing Pommy for this card if you could just get another one from the BHB blockheads?" Pommy snapped, looking peeved.
"Hmm, let me explain my logic to you." Tolbi pretended to think. "Filing the necessary paperwork to the BHB Army: 100 Delta Dollars. Getting a Suprastel standard issue pistol from a known military hideout: free. Gunning down an innocent creature that's almost straight from some annoying children's cartoon..." He bared his teeth. "Absolutely priceless."
Pommy shivered. "P-Pommy thought that you said you didn't like violence!"
"Oh, I don't, believe you me," Tolbi said. He lifted his gun and aimed. "But I've done many things I don't like to get where I am today." He laughed. "Of course, I've done many more things that I've greatly enjoyed."
Pommy dropped his gaze to the card he was holding, weighing his options.
"Come, now," Tolbi coaxed, holding out his free hand and taking another step closer to Pommy, standing right next to the lockers. "Just hand that over and we won't have to waste any more time here. Surely you'd want to go back upstairs and help your friends out, wouldn't you?"
A long pause.
"They...they don't need Pommy's help..." Pommy murmured. He suddenly glared down at Tolbi. "And Pommy doesn't need their help, either! As the greatest hero in the universe, Pommy will defeat you!"
A derisive laugh. "Oh, really? Did you forget who's got the gun here, or are you naturally that marshmallow-brained?"
Pommy answered by dangling off the top edge of the locker with his free paw and swinging down to ferociously kick a half-opened locker door into Tolbi's face.
WHAM!
Tolbi stumbled to the side and dropped his gun. CLANK!
In half a second, Pommy landed on the ground, scampered over, and...
WH-WHAM!
He sent another locker door crashing into Tolbi's back.
WHAM!
"Argh!"
WHAM!
"GAAAAH!"
WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM! WHAM!
Scurrying back and forth at sugar rush speeds, Pommy bounced Tolbi's stunned body between the doors on either side of the man before...
WHAAAMMM!
...slamming a door one final time into Tolbi, shoving him into the dark, cobwebbed recesses of the locker.
"This ends now!" Pommy declared, jumping up. "INDIGNATION!"
And the little creature – guided by his memories of Bomberman's fights – roundhouse-kicked the door into closure.
KA-WHAM!!
Cl-click!
Tolbi's incensed yells reverberated from within, practically rattling the metal.
Pommy landed firmly on both feet, smirking. "See?" he gloated. "Pommy told you Pommy would defeat you, right? And Pommy did!" He cackled and pointed triumphantly at the locker. "You just got served, myu!"
"I'll serve you at the buffet with a stick through your body and an apple in your mouth when I get out of here!" Tolbi threatened, pounding his fists and feet against the closed door.
"Uh-oh!" Pommy suddenly froze in his victory dance, ignoring the rest of Tolbi's colorful ranting. "Now that Tolbi's locked in there...Pommy can't get the rest of the card keys! What will Pommy do?"
"Allow me," said a dangerously familiar voice.
BANG! BANG!
Two well-placed gunshots demolished the lock/handle of the locker, effectively opening the door.
"Leustheria damn you, Iodem!" Tolbi wheezed, sliding out onto the floor. WHUMP! "I just had my hand on the lock! You came thisclose to blowing my hand off, you trigger-happy turtleduck!"
Pommy gulped as he saw the red-suited figure of Iodem towering over him. "Oh, no..." he whimpered.
"Oh, yes, my little friend," Iodem sneered, the barrel of his gun now pointed squarely between Pommy's eyes. "How about you say hello to my other little friend?"
Pommy could only duck his face and mew in desperation.
KA-BLAAAAMM!!!
Three nearby lockers suddenly toppled over and skidded on the concrete as an explosion blew out the wall behind them.
SKKKRRRAAASSSHH!!
"Myu!" Pommy flinched.
Iodem swiveled around with his gun.
"The hell?" Tolbi exclaimed, scrambling to his feet and backing up against the lockers.
From the smoking hole emerged...
Iodem's eyes widened. "You!" he snarled.
Pommy looked up and cheered immensely. "Myu! It's – "
Lilith grinned as her eyes glowed gold for a brief instant. She swung a boot into the locker lying just in front of her, sending it flying at Iodem. CLAANGG!
Iodem turned and dodged it by a hair, the metal edge just skirting his chest. The locker sailed into a shelf of boxed documents, collapsing the entire thing.
WHAM-CRAASSH!
Iodem swung his gun arm back around to aim at an oncoming –
WHACK!
Bomberman knocked the weapon from Iodem's hand with a strike to the inside of Iodem's wrist. That same hand then curled under Iodem's wrist as the back of Bomberman's free hand made contact with the underside of Iodem's jaw. Bomberman hooked a heel behind Iodem's outside foot and then – with a grunt – twisted his own body down and to the side in a sharp arc.
WHUMP!
Thrown off-balance, Iodem landed backfirst on the floor.
In two swift steps, Bomberman planted one sneakered foot on one of Iodem's hands and the other foot on Iodem's face.
"Mmmpph!" Iodem mumbled. His un-smooshed hand grabbed at Bomberman's ankle, trying to get his foot off his face.
Bomberman only shifted the punishment from Iodem's face to Iodem's other hand.
STOMP!
"AAAUGGH!" Iodem howled. "You mother-f – "
Ka-blam! A low-power ice bomb encased Iodem's head, silencing him for the moment.
Bomberman exhaled down at him. "You can thank Moira for that idea, red boy." He then arched an irritated eyebrow at the pale-as-a-corpse Tolbi. "So," he uttered. "How about that Gravity Generator, huh?"