Chapter 6
"We have breaking news…"
"A new story is developing…"
"This just in…"
"At a gala last night, hosted by the Cincinnati Society―"
"New evidence has been brought to light…"
"A shocking discovery…"
"Horrifying…"
"Gut-wrenching…"
"Shade is being cast on the legacy of America's first president, George Washington―"
"George Washington―"
"George Washington―"
"Fallen from grace in the public's eye…"
"Far-reaching historical ramifications…"
"A letter that contained―"
"Anti-palindrome epithets…"
"Vile anti-palindrome obscenities…"
"Anti-palindromic slurs…"
"Including use of the P-word…"
"The P-word―"
"More anti-palindrome sentiments are now being discovered in other documents written by George Washington…"
"Uncovering more anti-palindromic rhetoric…"
"What might be the biggest political scandal in memory…"
"George Washington's name is mud―"
"The historical inaccuracies have lead to the firing of hundreds of high school and college history teachers nationwide…"
"Many historians are being discredited…"
"Conspiracy theorists are having a field day…"
"It is well known that Washington was a Mason, he owned slaves, why are Americans surprised that he was also an anti-palindromist? …"
"Now this one historian is claiming that George Washington actually wasn't anti-palindromist…"
"Talk of banning the One Dollar Bill…"
"I was ashamed when my child asked me who George Washington was…"
"Can we rename Washington D.C. to something else, please?"
"This just in―"
"We're now learning that…"
"President Isabella Flynn―"
"―Spoke in support of Washington―"
"―At the same gala where Washington's anti-palindrome statements were discovered…"
"President Flynn was reported to have given high praise of Washington's character and legacy…"
"Saying, 'Washington has always been a hero to me'..."
"'Someone we should all strive to be like'…"
"President Flynn it seems may also hold anti-palindrome sentiments…"
"President Flynn is now claiming that she had no knowledge of George Washington's anti-palindromist views…"
"The President says she was not aware of that side of George Washington at the time she gave her speech…"
"Denies being an anti-palindromist…"
"Despite her public statements, President Flynn's popularity still plummets to all-time lows…"
"It seems the damage has already been done…"
"Americans are questioning why they ever voted for President Flynn…"
"Some Congressmen and women are calling for her impeachment…"
"Impeaching President Flynn…"
"President Flynn will not be impeached…"
"President Flynn will soon be impeached…"
"President Flynn might be resigning…"
"Rumors of impeachment are reportedly false…"
"Everyone is asking, why didn't we see this coming?"
"Has the timeline been changed?"
"Now NASA is being blamed―"
"Conspiracy theorists say NASA was hiding the Washington Scandal from the timeline from the beginning…"
"Some say their loved ones have not come back from the future since the apparent timeline-shift…"
"Physicists are stumped…"
"Russia, North Korea leave UN, severing diplomacy with America for first time in nearly a decade…"
"Phineas and Ferb say they are looking into the apparent timeline-shift…"
"Phineas and Ferb have lost America's trust, many believe―"
"―Moral character of the nation's leaders are in question…"
"Preppers are hoarding―"
"―Purchasing food, medicine, and other supplies in bulk quantities…"
"Believing that the end of the world is coming…"
Washington, D.C.
September 28, 2049
In atypical Monday morning fashion, PJ trudged into his office and sank onto his chair, exhausted from the maelstrom that had been this weekend. He was angry. A heavy air pressed down on his team as well, who this morning were far from the supportive and encouraging folks they had been when they came to visit him in his recovery room at the hospital two days before. They all felt a little bit of the doom and gloom that had gripped the nation. Not even Eliot was bouncing about, cracking his usual jokes.
Normally, PJ was always totally focused and ready to roll up his sleeves and get to work, even on Mondays. He supposed today should have been different; after all, it was his first day back since being in the hospital. But after so much had happened over the weekend while he could do nothing but lay in bed, resting, arriving at work and greeting his team felt like something out of an eerie dream.
PJ decided to start the day with a short meeting, to get everyone focused. "I know a lot has been going on recently with the news," he said to start things off after calling everyone together, "but none of that concerns us. Our job is to find the Conspirium. We'll let the President's PR team worry about the politics."
"Sir," Olsen spoke, "with all due respect, since we were wrong about Suzy being at the gala, we're back to square one."
PJ raised an eyebrow. "Were we, though? Yesterday, Phineas and Ferb found residual levels of potassium chloride in my blood tests. My heart attack was no accident―I was poisoned."
When he saw the surprised looks on everyone's faces, PJ further explained. "The poison wasn't ingested. Toxicity levels suggest the serum was injected into my bloodstream somehow. Somebody from the Conspirium was there Friday night. And right now, the two top suspects are Dr. Nathaniel Turnstead and Kyle Konig." He counted them off on his fingers.
"The two men who sat next to you during the dinner," Coombs breathed.
"One of them had to be who injected me," PJ nodded. "But we couldn't find an injection site, oddly. We don't know how they did it, but Phineas and Ferb are working on it."
Eliot inhaled sharply, jumping in his seat to grab everyone's attention. "Phineas Flynn was also sitting next to you throughout the dinner!" he exclaimed. "Maybe it was him!"
Everyone gave him ridiculous looks.
"You're right," he retreated. "Bad idea."
PJ turned to the rest of his team. "So here's the plan. Waters and Olsen, I want the two of you to go see Dr. Turnstead. We don't have a warrant yet, so we can't search him. Until we do, you'll just have to watch him, poke around, ask some questions, do some digging. Tui and Willy, you're coming with me to see Konig. Eliot and Ramirez, you work on getting us search warrants, then help Coombs and Lee with reconnaissance. Send some time drones back a few days and tag them."
"Yes, sir!"
"If you find anything, report it to me immediately. It's very probable that one of these two people has been in contact with Suzy sometime within the last seventy-two hours, so stay focused, be observant, and let's go find the son of a gun who's behind all this!"
Lee led the way as Coombs, Eliot and Ramirez followed him down to the lab. It was a couple of floors down from where their offices resided, and though it was technically still above ground, there were no windows in this part of the building. Ceiling lights radiated a sterile, flickering glow in the sunlight's place. Lee halted at a door and hunched down to enter the five-digit security code before swinging the door open. They all entered to find themselves in a square room with computers and instruments lining all the walls, and four countertop islands separated from each other at evenly spaced intervals. Some basic tools were laid out on a couple of counters, while the remaining tables were spotlessly clean. Lee shrugged off a jacket and sat at a console near the first countertop like he was comfortably at home.
Coombs likewise took a seat and reached out to begin typing at a keyboard. Ramirez, who didn't specialize in technology, pulled up a chair behind them to watch, ready to be of assistance. Eliot, on the other hand, paced over to the nearest wall and began inspecting the various doohickeys, thingamabobs, and doodads.
"I wouldn't touch that if I were you," Lee said over his shoulder. "Pushing that button will instantly create a black hole and jeopardize the entire planet!"
Eliot froze with his finger extended toward the pale blue button on a electronic contraption the size of a microwave oven. After a moment, he slowly turned to give Lee an odd look. "Wait, you're telling me we have a black hole-generating machine just sitting here?"
Lee swiveled around, the grin on his face all but screaming, 'gotcha!' "Well, it does produce 'black holes,' and they are dangerous―dangerously delicious!" He stood to reach up and press the button, and zap! In a flash of light, a plate of freshly baked chocolate donut holes materialized inside the box. Lee pulled open the down-swinging oven lid and popped one into his mouth. "See? Black holes."
"Oh!" Eliot grabbed one too, and took a bite. "Black donut holes!"
"And the button next to it also produces black holes," Lee said as he sat back down. "But really, it's just the switch that opens the chute the mail slides through." He swiveled around in his chair to make eye contact. "And seriously, don't touch anything." Once Eliot nodded, he swiveled back and returned to his work.
"Can't believe you guys never told the rest of us about these snacks," Eliot muttered as he hopped up to sit on the countertop island.
After a short spell of typing, the coding for the time drones was complete. An invention that was simultaneously any spy agency's most valuable tool and greatest nightmare, the drones were a masterpiece of mechanical miniaturization. To the naked eye, they were indistinguishable from fruit flies. On the inside, however, they were equipped with sophisticated cameras, ultraviolet and infrared sensors, audio recorders, and even their wings were covered in tiny solar panels so that their batteries recharged during the day. Despite weighing less than a tenth of a gram, they could collect and store up to 2 gigabytes of data each, when there wasn't a secure wifi connection for them to readily send files through. Tiny barbs on the drones' legs allowed them adhere to any surface, wall, or ceiling, spying on their targets completely undetected. The underside of the wings were also coated with a special UV-tinted paint that discouraged birds from eating them. Their biggest limit was that they could only fly at a top speed of about two knots, meaning they could be almost useless outdoors if there was any sort of headwind.
Coombs had already prepared a small box containing a batch of drones, and Lee initiated a program to download their specific instructions for this mission.
"Twelve drones," Coombs said in his slight lisp, a speech impediment that wasn't really his fault, considering he was born deaf. It was impressive he could speak as well as he did when he missed the chance to experience spoken language at the crucial developmental stages of his childhood. "The other three are damaged."
"So, we'll send six to Turnstead and six to Konig," Lee quickly decided. He hit a few keystrokes. "All right. Testing drone one." He typed a command, and the first drone noiselessly ascended to hover in the air. Lee nodded in approval as the other drones responded to his commands, one by one. "Everything looks good."
"I'll go get the time pod ready." Coombs arose and made his way over to the lab's time machine, on the far wall. This time machine was much too small for humans to travel in, but that was no problem, since it was designed specifically for the drones. Coombs opened the pod door and started hitting buttons on the control panel, while Lee directed the drones to fly as a swarm into the pod. It looked like a tiny whiff of smoke passing through the air as they stayed hovering close together to conserve energy.
Ramirez and Eliot watched in awe from the sidelines. Once the drones were inside the time pod and the door had been shut, Coombs activated the machine, and with a pop, it fired to life. Instantly, the drones vanished.
"So, how long until the drones get back?" Eliot asked.
"They're already here," responded Lee, who walked briskly to the lab door and opened it. "I programmed them to arrive back at the lab at precisely this time." Sure enough, in flew a couple of barely perceptible specks. "One, two, three," Lee counted. "Four, there's five, and six? That's it? Only six?" He stuck his head out and checked both directions in the hallway.
"What happened to the others?" Ramirez asked.
"They are never late," Lee pondered aloud, "and sometimes birds will still eat one or two, but six? That is unlikely." He sat back down at his computer station to start decrypting the data from the six punctual drones. "The only other possibility is that the rest of the drones were damaged―or discovered―somehow."
"So the other six drones never returned?" PJ asked through his communicator.
"All the drones that were sent to target Konig never returned," Lee summed up. "We have only just started to analyze the data from the drones that returned, and so far we haven't seen anything suspicious about Turnstead. But for all six of the drones that were assigned to Konig to vanish, that can't be a coincidence."
"That makes sense," PJ said. "I had a feeling Konig was the one. He's gotta be our link to Suzy and the Conspirium."
"So what now, boss?" Eliot's voice crackled.
PJ rotated his communicator's camera so that it shared his view out the window. "We're looking at Konig's front porch right now. Sensors indicate the house is empty. He's not here."
Wordlessly, PJ, Tui, and Willy had been watching the electronic touchscreen on the vehicle dash for almost half an hour, waiting for the confirmation of their search warrant authorization. At last, the notification popped up on the screen.
Immediately, PJ said, "There's our green light! Let's go!"
The platypus led the way to the front door and rapped hard on its wood varnish. "This is Agent PJ, from the Department of Homeland Security," he shouted. "Open up!"
Without even waiting after the courtesy knock for anyone to answer, PJ stepped aside and jerked his head toward the door, giving the two gigantic men permission. Together, they kicked in unison, knocking the door clean off its hinges. It fell inward and slammed flat onto the floor. PJ waited for them to walk inside before entering last.
The front room looked more like a museum than a sitting room. Glass displays showcased old-looking historical documents and antiques, such as a Confederate soldier uniform, an early design of the American flag, coins and medallions, and the corroded barrel of a flintlock pistol. On the wall, a large painted portrait hung, the label declaring it as belonging to one General Horatio Lloyd Gates.
Tui and Willy had already moved on to search elsewhere, and PJ pushed on behind them. Past the front room, the rest of the dwelling looked uninhabited. There were more glass display cases running throughout the parlor. These transitioned flawlessly into some furniture in the main living room, where everything was covered under protective plastic drapes, which themselves had a significant layer of dust. It was clear the house had not seen much use in at least the last year. PJ pulled the plastic sheet off a bookcase to inspect the various tomes, even pulling at a couple like he was checking for secret passages.
Thundering footsteps were coming his way. PJ looked up to see Tui and Willy re-enter the room. Tui was carrying a recording device. "Sir," he said, handing the recorder over, "we found this. It says it's for you."
"What says it's for me?" PJ took the recorder and ran his hands over it.
"The sticky note that was stuck to it," Tui said, giving him the slip of paper next.
The note was written in delicate handwriting. To PJ the Platypus. With Love, From SJ.
"Suzy Johnson," PJ snarled. "She knew we'd be here." He hit the playback button, and held it up so they could all listen.
"How's it going, PJ? It's been a while." Suzy's pitchy, saccharine drawl was unmistakable. "Sorry about slipping you that poison at dinner the other night. I promise, it was nothing personal. Well, maybe it was a little bit personal! Ehehe!
"It's your own fault, though. You keep interfering in the Conspirium's business, and The King isn't happy about it! Oh, we've tried blowing you up, staging crashes, shooting you, but whenever we kill you, Phineas and Ferb always go back in time and warn you of your impending death. Then we have to cover our tracks by going back to stop ourselves from killing you, over and over... It's getting ANNOYING!" Her voice turned shrill. She paused, then resumed in her normal, sugary tone.
"Fortunately, the game of chess is finally over. You and your country are already in checkmate. So consider this your final warning, platy-breath. You still have enough time to save most of the ones you love―if you leave, now. If you don't, you will lose everything!
"If you don't believe me, just know, we've been watching you for a long time." PJ turned to the window and peeked through the shutters. "We've been perfecting our plan for even longer. The future is certain. We will win. I have already been there and seen it!"
Suzy erupted in a laugh of utter wickedness. "It is glorious! And it all starts today! The day of the Final Revolution! A day that will be remembered for a thousand years, when the lies of freedom and democracy finally died!"
She twittered in laughter again. "The choice is yours, PJ. Or, maybe it isn't. After all, I already saw what you're going to do next. That's the funny thing about time travel. It makes you wonder if we really do have any free will at all. Well, since we both know you won't quit, guess that means I'll be seeing you soon. Tata!"
With a beep, the recording ended. PJ furiously hurled the device at the floor and stomped on it, smashing it to bits. He was shaking in anger, his breathing labored. Looking up to see that Tui and Willy were watching him closely, he balled up his fists to prevent his shaking hands from showing.
"Now what do we do?" Willy inquired.
"Who is 'The King?'" Tui added.
"How did Suzy know we'd be here?"
"There can't be a revolution, can there? I thought nobody could change the future?"
"Can the Conspirium do that?"
"I don't know," PJ said, stopping the cascade of questions. "I don't know any of those answers. But here's what I do know. Kyle Konig is the closest link to Suzy we have. We know he was at the gala Friday night, so we're going back in time to arrest him right then and there. And then he is going to take us to Suzy. And if that doesn't work, we'll go back further in time, to when Suzy was still working for the CIA. And if that doesn't work, we'll keep going back, all the way to the day she was born, if we have to, to stop her from doing whatever it is she's about to do. I don't care if we'll be breaking the laws, I don't care if we'll be preemptively arresting her before she ever committed a crime. She's too dangerous. She has got to be stopped. We're putting an end to all this, once and for all!"
The platypus marched out the door, his tiny body radiating all the testiness of a confined and hungry tiger. Tui and Willy glanced at each other before following.
PJ already had his communicator out. "Lee, get the department's time machine ready, and call in Olsen and Waters. I want everyone ready to time jump ASAP!" He swung open the agency vehicle door for Tui and Willy to climb in before entering himself. "Have it ready by the time we get there."
With that, he snapped his communicator shut and punched the emergency button on the auto-nav. The car's siren began whirring loudly as the vehicle lifted off the ground and flew towards headquarters at full speed.
Before PJ could get fully settled in, the auto-nav screen lit up with an alert. "An emergency is being reported in the downtown D.C. area," a cool, feminine voice in the computer system informed him. "I may not be able to take a direct route to HQ."
"What now?" PJ demanded the computer.
"Police scanners indicate a riot broke out an hour ago. Multiple shootings have occured. Twelve people are confirmed dead. The Metropolitan Police Department have so far been unable to contain the violence."
"Then give me control," PJ said, assuming the driver's seat.
"Manual control confirmed," the computer calmly stated. PJ took the wheel and revved the engines to full thrust.
"A riot?" Tui asked from the backseat. "How the heck did a riot break out? Where are the temporal control officers?"
Willy connected his tablet to the car's wifi and brought up the news. "Oh, jeez," he said. "The riot broke out during a huge protest of the city name―something about wanting to rename it something other than 'Washington.' Shots were fired, and with thousands of protesters there, the officers are overwhelmed. Oh, jeez," Willy repeated, looking more closely at his screen. "It says Ezekiel Okeko was spotted, and his gang is taking credit for escalating the protest."
"Okeko?" Tui shook his head in disbelief. "What's he doing out of LA?"
"His last name is a palindrome," explained Willy. "Must've been triggered by George Washington being anti-palindromist."
"Oh, jeez," Tui agreed. "Sir," he turned to PJ, "maybe we shouldn't take the route through the riot. With Ezekiel Okeko behind it, things could be real ugly down there."
"We'll make it," PJ said simply. The flying car jerked forward through the air as he accelerated.
"I'm bringing up a live broadcast of the riot," Willy announced as he tapped his screen.
"―sheer pandemonium," a male news investigator was reporting on scene. "As you just saw, the two men with rifles were seen pushing people away from the iconic statue of George Washington at Washington Circle. We cannot confirm if the armed men wore the signature tattoos and scars of Okeko gang members at this time. Their intentions with the statue were also unclear. Now, if you look just thirty yards this way, you'll see―"
A loud blast cut off the reporter's next words. The camera was correspondingly knocked over by the concussion. Quickly, the image re-stabilized, zooming in to focus on a cloud of smoke.
Rising to his feet, the reporter continued his commentary. "Oh my goodness! That blast came from the George Washington statue! Let's see if we can get a closer look…" The camera followed the reporter as he pushed through the crowd towards the column of smoke. "The smoke is starting to clear up now―it looks like the statue was blown up!" The camera struggled at first to penetrate the dust and smoke, but slowly, the image began to clear. True to his words, the base of the statue was all that could be seen amidst some debris and rubble.
The reporter turned to face the camera properly. "It appears that the iconic statue of George Washington riding a horse has been blown up, possibly by Okeko's gang. From here, we can see some bystanders who were injured by the blast. The riot is continuing to spiral out of control."
"It looks bad down there," Tui said over Willy's shoulder.
"Well, we're in a flying car," PJ pointed out, "so we should be fine." He looked out the windshield ahead at the oncoming building high rises. The riot was going on somewhere in the streets below those landmarks.
PJ stopped listening to the continuing news reports coming from Willy's device in the back and scanned the airstrip ahead, designating the allocated flight path for his vehicle. They were approaching the city limits from the northwest. HQ was just across town, on the other side of the Anacostia river. Probably due to the riot, there was little traffic in their airstrip, and they were making good time. That would change if they took a different route. They couldn't turn south, because in that direction lie the heart of the Capital, a strict no-fly zone, except for in rare cases of extreme national emergency, such as evacuating the President. On the other hand, if they veered east, they would have to take the highway all the way around the city, which would take at least an extra fifteen minutes, if not more with the extra traffic being diluted that way.
In this day and age, time is always relative. Maybe taking the safer route wouldn't hurt, PJ thought to himself.
His communicator broke him out of that train of thought. "Agent PJ, sir?" Coombs' voice strained to enunciate.
"Go ahead."
"Olsen and Waters just made it back in the teleporter. The time machine is ready, we're just waiting for your orders, sir."
"Hold your position," PJ commanded. "Wait for Tui, Willy, and me to get back. We're coming over the riot in downtown D.C., but we shouldn't be long."
Coombs copied that. PJ set his communicator back down and sped on ahead. A police barricade had been set up, forcing PJ to slow down. When the official manning the barricade saw that the car was US Government issued and PJ had his siren on, he didn't hesitate to wave him through the perimeter of the riot. PJ accelerated again. They were just passing over the tops of some of the taller buildings in the financial district now. A quick glance showed that one of the nearby rooftops held a couple of people on it, perhaps looking to escape the streets. PJ didn't bother to look any closer as he was focused on driving. Just then, an alarm on the dash started screaming at him.
"WARNING! MISSILE INCOMING! WARNING!"
PJ reflexively checked his rearview mirror, where he saw it. One of the folks on that rooftop had fired a rocket-propelled grenade at them. The highly trained agent didn't stop to ponder the ramifications of that information. Reacting immediately, he had just enough time to swerve, causing the RPG to deliver a glancing blow rather than impact them head on. The explosion rocked the flying car, jolting PJ so much his arms went slightly numb at the steering wheel.
The vehicle spun out of control. PJ fought with the thrusters to control the spiral, yet they plummeted toward the highrises like a wounded Apache helicopter. They didn't fall far before they crashed into the side of one of the buildings, smashing all their reinforced, bullet-proof windows. The brick and concrete wall held, causing the car to ricochet back and arc the rest of the way down. It hit the pavement with a wail of wrenching metal and screeching steel before they skidded to a stop.
Grunting at the strain of lifting his head, PJ felt a brief wave of nausea and disorientation as he looked out the broken glass. They were at least right-side up. He checked himself. A couple of bumps and bruised, nothing appeared to be broken.
"Tui? Willy? You all right?" he called back.
Willy coughed a little. "I've had worse. Remember that linebacker from Georgia Tech that laid me out?"
"Yeah, that dude was mean," Tui replied.
PJ sighed with relief before unclipping his safety belt. He pushed against the door to find it wedged shut, so he crawled through the gaping windshield instead. A loud grunt and the sound of metal crumpling told him that Tui had managed to force the door open.
Clapping his hands to get the dust off, PJ looked up to gather in his surroundings. The street sat in the shadow of a manmade valley, channelled between rows of dizzyingly tall buildings serving as artificial mountains. There were a handful of onlookers, staring in shock, having been interrupted from whatever business they had near the crash moments ago. It appeared that there was not much action going on, then he noticed that all the businesses in sight had already had all their ground-level windows smashed in. The riot was here, it had just moved on.
Behind him, Tui and Willy had extracted themselves from the smashed chassis. PJ reached for his communicator. "Coombs, are you still there?"
Silence. Checking his communicator more closely, he saw that it had a huge crack along its side. He tossed it away and looked at his agents. They had pulled their tactical gear from the wreckage and were inspecting it for further damage.
PJ saw movement out of the corner of his eye. "Strap up," he told them as he reached out and was handed his assault gear from Willy. "We're about to have company."
More humans, whom he could tell were clearly looking for trouble, were slithering out of the nearest hole in the building they had collided with. PJ hurriedly shrugged on his kevlar vest and strapped his sidearm to his belt just as they reached talking distance. PJ quickly took a count of the various sneering, bandanaed, and sullen faces. Over two dozen. He could smell a fight.
PJ raised his weapon―a smaller variant of the Beretta M9 model that was specially issued for him due to his size―and fired a bullet into the air. "That's close enough," he told them, leveling his arm to swoop his gun across them. "We don't want any trouble."
"That's them, all right," one of the hoodlums said through rotting teeth. "The talking platypus? Suzy was right."
The color drained from PJ's face. Oh, no, Suzy is behind this, too.
He didn't let his reaction show, but brought the barrel of his gun round to point at the one who spoke. "You shut your mouth, dog. I don't want to see those disgusting teeth again."
The thug's eyes popped slightly in fear. He glanced at his companions. Like a concerto where the instruments were the clicking of cocked guns and swooshing sounds of moving hands, they all raised their weapons at PJ and his men. Tui and Willy drew their firearms in sync with the mob. Three against many. One could hardly call it a standoff.
Now finding himself gazing down well over twenty barrels, PJ knew he was had. "Okay," he said, showing his paws, and slowly lowering his pistol. "You win." He laid it on the pavement. He made eye contact with his agents, and Willy and Tui did the same.
Then, quick as a flash, PJ snatched a grenade-like orb from his belt and threw it high over his head. The device clicked, activating its core of powerful neodymium magnets. Before anyone in the mob knew what had happened, every gun was sucked out of their hands, into the sky, and squished into a compact ball of rods and barrels, wound around the grenade. There was a flash as the grenade's thermobaric charges ignited, blinding everyone who didn't look away in time and instantly vaporizing the entire blob of metal.
BANG!
PJ, Tui, and Willy charged. The mob was disoriented from the explosion, and it made for easy pickings. PJ leapt up to the shoulders of his nearest attacker and threw all his weight behind his knuckles as he punched the center of the man's nose. From there, he sprang over and kicked mightily at the man standing beside him. And so he went, flying from person to person, striking them ferociously.
Willy and Tui thundered across their foes like juggernauts, picking them up, bodily throwing them across the street, knocking others out with just a single punch. With all their advanced training in hand-to-hand combat, they hardly ever even took a hit themselves, and when they did, it didn't even seem to faze them. Meanwhile, anyone they were able to land a hit on would be instantly on the ground, and lucky to get back up.
Being the smallest and most agile person in the skirmish, PJ adjusted and began zigging and zagging underfoot of his assailants to further confuse and disorient them. He'd tuck under a kick or a punch and roll behind the next guy, getting behind them to have an easy crack at a joint or pressure point before dodging and twirling around another guy to do it again. He zipped between one pair of legs, simultaneously swinging up with his tail to deliver a painful blow to the sap's family jewels. Then he leapt up into the air to avoid being toppled on, using his momentum to power an uppercut combo to one of the goons Willy had just tossed like a rag doll in his direction.
Something grabbed him from behind and threw him. PJ braced for a hard landing, but fell on one of the unconscious bodies left in Tui's wake, cushioning him nicely. He got back up, and saw that it was the same ugly dog with the rotted teeth. PJ charged, feinting a punch and then instead sliding between the thug's feet. He grabbed a ankle and yanked as he passed through. The rioter was caught completely by surprise and fell on his face. PJ speedily pounced on his back, grabbed him by the hair, and smashed his head against the pavement, knocking him out cold.
PJ stood up to catch his breath and was able to see Tui and Willy finish off the the last of the company. Now the street was littered with a bunch of bludgeoned, bruised, and bloody bodies, which oddly made the sight of the crashed car look slightly less out of place. Tui, having delivered the final blow, was joined by Willy in a fully choreographed dance where they pretended to spike a football, initiated a series of about a dozen high-fives in various poses and accompanied by a lot of "heys!" and "oh yeahs," and then jumped together and bumped chests in midair. Their touchdown celebration dance from their college days, he realized. It made him snort and shake his head. They weren't out of this yet.