Author's Note: So someone is posting reviews that I can't Read? Well that's annoying, not to you anonymous reviewer you keep doing what you're doing and I'm looking forward to getting back to you eventually. I'm talking about FanFiction that seems to be having a conniption fit and won't let me read them. In the mean time Read, Review, Favorite and Enjoy!
Chapter 19: Destruct-a-palooza
The arena was, frankly speaking, huge. The Tharpods apparently took advantage of a massive crater that had formed when the original Loki meteorite crashed down into the planet and turned it into a coliseum. Apparently they found it necessary to build tourist attractions for the thugs coming to pillage their planet now. Still 'Destruct-a-poloza' looked like it brought in a huge number of aliens of varying shapes and sizes who were now cheering in the stands. One alien, a vaguely lizard lizard like creature who was wearing the hide of some unfortunate creature, walked into the center of the fighting area proper with a micro phone in hand as he welcomed the crowd.
"Good afternoon ladies and Gentlemen! Our good friend and sponsor Ephemeris has just gotten back with it's latest bunch-o creatures that we get to capture, torture and throw into the fighting ring for your entertainment pleasure!" A hover lift was now floating over the area, inside of it's crate a monster was roaring trying to break free without much luck. "But before we get to our main event, we got ourselves a little problem." The would be ring master gestured to the would be contestants. "Too many thugs, not enough monsters! So for our first round everyone here needs to have two entry badges!" Immediately the sound of bodies flying could be heard. "When this timer reaches Zero!" Alien symbols appeared above the Thug Leader's head on the screen he was pointing at. "Then the first round of Destruct-a-poloza will begin!" It was in that moment that the thug leader noticed two things. The gasping reactions of the crowd and the sudden awkward silence.
"Ah..." The tapping to the Thug Leader's head felt like it was going to cave his skull in. "Sorry it took me so long." The Thug leader turned around to face Manny who had a mock apologetic look on his face and a massive sack. "There were more than I thought." Saying that Manny held up the massive sack containing thousands of contestant badges. The Thug Leader's scaley face was wide open with shock, his eyes drifted to the giant pile of bodies that had been built up directly behind the halfa, before that is he promptly slapped himself in the face and got back to his old self.
"Ladies and gentlemen! Our competitor!" The Thug leader shouted grabbing Manny by his wrist and holding it up in the air. "Don't worry about the rest of the competition though!" With the snap of his fingers the Thug Leader sent the bodies Manny had stacked up into a trap door. "That's what clones are for! But while we're working on that why don't we have our friend here help us out with a little infestation problem!" With a snap of his fingers the Thug Leader had produced several platforms from below producing several blue puff balls the size of a fully grown thug, even more surprising is that with a cough they spat out more blue puff balls which then grew into more fully sized proto-pets. "These proto-pets were picked up by Ephemeris several days ago, and they have been reproducing like crazy!" Suddenly the Proto-pets snapped with maws full of sharp pointy teeth. "And I hear that some Loki have even gotten into them." The crowd responded with several boos, thoroughly aware of what Loki are really like. "So with that in mind our competitor has just three minuets to eliminate all of them." Once again the Thug Leader pointed to the count down screen. "Ready? G-!" The Thug Leader didn't even get the chance to scream before an explosion of ecto energy wiped the playing field.
Little Knife was happy he didn't enter the arena himself, he would have been killed twice over already, that wasn't to say that he had any designs on letting Manny go only that he needed more information to accomplish his task. Luckily he would be getting that information soon. The Thug Leader peeled himself off of the wall, if not for his premium nano-tech and armor that explosion would have killed him and this little butt pain knew it.
"Ahem. We will be back after a quick word from our sponsor." Then the Thug Leader promptly collapsed, exhausted from the injuries Manny gave him.
"Well this is going smoothly." Dani had been able to collect a few bolts on her way here, for some reason people just leave them lying around all over the place in easy to break crates, and had twice already bet everything they had on Manny, the first time he had three thousand to one odds landing them nine hundred million bolts and the second time he had twenty to one odds landing them eighteen billion. Dani could buy a fleet of war ships with this kind of scrap, hell she could probably build them but that was not the important part right now. The important part was that Dani could buy all the parts she wanted, and even a few left over for Manny. Still after thoroughly beating into the enemy the utter hopelessness of actually beating Manny into submission Dani didn't see much point in doing anymore betting.
"The following match is brought to you by Croid Industries." A holo screen depicted a familiar looking Frumpoid. "Maker of the highly customized Thruster packs you'll be seeing in this next match."
"Hmm..." Dani grabbed hold of her chin as she looked up at the screen recognizing the face of a Frumpoid scientist. "Weren't you the one working with that Yautja earlier?"
"Excuse me miss." One of the thugs had sneaked up on Dani. "We deeply apologize but there was a error with your transfer earlier, if you'd like to come with us we can have it sussed out in no time."
Ah yes, Dani both had a strong guess about the error and what they intended to do to fix it. On that note once the thug had turned around Dani made a clone of herself and had her possess the alien. For now Dani just let the body run on auto pilot, let the Thug guide her to where they intended to execute her with more intangible clones following her, her suspicions were all but confirmed when they arrived at an abandoned out of the way alleyway no where near the betting area.
"Here we go..." Several thugs appeared behind Dani and got ready to open fire, Dani's clones possessed them without so much as a fight. "All of our accounts have been emptied into yours." The Thug stated tapping a few keys on his wrist computer. "Sorry for the inconvenience, here is a gun for your troubles."
"Thank you." Dani promptly used the gun to shoot the group of thugs in their heads, reabsorb her clones, before going back to her seat in the stands. Fix-It was already working on improving the gun in several ways while she watched the arena. It appeared to be called a omni-gun: able to be customized on the fly with a variety of nasty effects: Dani planned on adding a few more though.
"Thank you Doctor Croid, now onto the next event." Several rings leading into the nearby canyon opened up, floating in mid air were large energy rings, the purpose of which would soon become clear. "A Run through Nether Canyon!" A platform opened up beside Manny revealing a comically small, in comparison to Manny, Jet pack. "Using our Thug's for less approved Jet pack our contestant will have to fly through each ring in our obsta-kill course in three minuets all the while being attacked and harassed by the Nether's that we've trapped inside of the canyon with Dr. Croid's patented new Nether Shield!" That got quite a few cheers out of the audience. "Available for purchase on your way out of the coliseum at our souvenir stand!" The Ring Master explained as he moved out of the way, less Manny decide to get explosive again. "Is the contestant ready!?" Manny made a point of shoving away the jetpack that was given to him and he bent down into a position like a sprinter getting ready for a race. "Set. GO!" Manny took off like a rocket, going from zero to two hundred in a instant, and back zero again just as quickly.
"Ouch!" Manny had a head long collision with the 'Nether Shield' that Doctor Croid had set up, leading him to conclude that 'Nether Shield' = 'Ghost Shield.' And Manny was already on the clock.
"It seems that for once our contestant finds himself stymied, I hope no one's bet their life savings on him completing this race." Manny had no time to deliver a trollish retort. He went back to the start, turned into human form, and strapped on the jet pack.
"Let's try this again." Manny activated the Jet pack, hovered a couple of feet into the air, before the pack promptly died a scandalized death. "What a shame! It seems that our jet pack doesn't have enough fuel to carry the big stupid brute."
"'Oh it doesn't have enough fuel.'" Muttering that Manny chucked the jet back, went ghost, shot himself full speed at the first ring, and turned back to human before he came into contact with the shield. As such he was sent flying through the first ring. And only the first ring. Manny was sent straight up through the air and sailed above the canyon into the forest on the other side.
"The contestant has left the play area. Which means that he is disqualified!" The Thug Leader announced looking down in satisfaction at his accounts rose. Indeed the massive betting in Manny's favor had proven that no one expected him to lose this fight and the Thug Leader's account went up, however he did not recover the losses incurred by the one better who had made use of the ghost child.
"Glad I didn't vote for him this time." Dani figured that after the first couple of rounds Manny would become well known enough that the Thugs could cobble together some countermeasure against him, or put him into a challenge that had nothing to do with fighting. Sadly the fact that the two came in together and their family resemblance were both noticed by the Thugs.
"I just got this notice." The Thug Leader made a show out of having his men escort Daniela into the arena proper. "In compensation for her brother cowardly leaving the fighting arena his sister has graciously volunteered to take his place."
"Have I now?" Daniela stated the look on her face one of someone who tried, and failed, to wrack her brains for the memory of this volunteering. "Very well then." Daniela stood up and walked into the arena.
The fact of the matter was that Dani was on a time table, a time table that now included tracking down Manny, and a time table that would culminate with Ephemeris leaving Magnus: with their ship. Immortal or no she did not have time to fight off a hoard of enemies, especially ones who have managed to figure out their own variant of Fenton tech.
"What is this challenge then?" The Thug Leader gestured to Nether Canyon, the same one that Manny bounced off of so gracelessly. Dani took one look at the Jet Pack Manny 'attempted' to use, still a smoking wreck. "You don't expect me to make use of the same Jet Pack my brother fried with his muscle do you?" The platform with the Jet pack on it disappeared into the mechanical whirring below and popped back out with a new jet pack on it. "Very well then." Dani walked up to the jet pack and held it in her black arm. Fix-it put his genius level intellect and vast technological resources to work modifying and upgrading the jet pack in numerous incomprehensible ways in the same amount of time that it takes most people to figure out how to put the thing on. "Are you ready?" Dani strapped the pack on and pulled out the Omni-Gun that Fix-It had been toying with for the past several minuets. "What do you think?" Dani and the Jetpack flew into the Nether Canyon. Course being thrown into these fools death trap against her will gave her no reason to want to complete their gauntlet and towards that end went straight up. Unfortunately the Thugs had the foresight to erect a second barrier on top of this one, one designed to blot out the mundane instead of the super natural, leaving her with no other course but to complete their course: with a thousand hungry eyes staring back at her.