"I will find a chink in its armour at some secret juncture," Rich announced. He picked up his bunted hockey stick and held it in front of his face as if he were some kind of freaking samurai.
Hal rolled his eyes. What a drama queen.
"Great." Adrian said. "I'm going to stay the hell out of the way of the rampaging death machine."
"I'm going to uh, sit down." Collin said numbly. The stinger was still there, and it was the size of a cherry stem. His hands felt around the edge of his cheek. "Do you think I should touch it?" Collin asked aloud, to no one in particular.
The idiot Rick mumbled his little Latin phrase and began zipping around, hitting the thing here and there with his wood stick. The big beastie didn't even look like it had noticed Rick at all. Instead it took a few thunderous steps, that huge armored tail swinging back and forth, carving out a bit of the wall behind it.
The beast made a little half shriek again, opening it's mouth briefly while it look around, as if it were irritated and not sure what to do next.
Hal knew the feeling.
"You guys just keep it busy" Adrian said, I'll call up Michael, maybe he can send help or something."
The creature took a few more steps that made the whole room shake. Crushed rock dust drizzled down from the ceiling every time that thing moved. Hal moved towards the creature, fingering his amulet. He should be able to do something.
"Michael!" Adrian shouted into a cell phone. "It's Adrian. It's me! Can you hear me? You have to send help! A portal out of here, something! Hurry! Michael? Are you there?"
Hal walked up to him, keeping his eyes on the creature.
"Yo. So what'd he say?"
"I think he got the message. I think he said he'd try. There as a lot of static. He was cutting out a lot. Maybe because we're in a cave? Though you'd think he could do something about that with magic or whatever."
Hal grunted.
"I'm sure he got the message." Hal said. "Meantime, we gotta hang together here. And keep that freakin' thing from killin all of us."
"Riiight." Adrian said. "And how are we gonna do that?"
"Workin on it." Hal said. Then he marched over to where Collin was sitting on the ground and knelt down to look at him.
"You OK? That bitch who hit you is gonna pay, as soon as we get outta here. Count on it."
"But what is it?" Collin asked. His eyes kept trying to scan down to get a look at the thing, but since it was sticking out of his cheek, all he really accomplished was making himself cross-eyed.
"I don't know man, but it's cool. We'll get you fixed up as soon as we get back. Just hang tight."
"Ok. But Hal, I think-I think this might be really serious." Collin put on a worried expression like Hal had never seen on him before. It looked like the kid was really about to lose his shit.
Hal looked down for a moment, fidgeted. Then he made up his mind, and looked Collin straight in the eyes.
"You'll be fine. I promise." He said firmly. "Jeremy knows a bunch of stuff to fix crap like this. When we get you back, he'll-".
"Because I think I might be allergic to beestings." Collin said.
Hal stared at him. He didn't have the first clue what to say to that.
"I got stung once in fourth grade, and kind of had like this gross rash." He thought about it for a second. "But that wasn't a giant bee though. So it's probably OK."
He adopted one of those innocent "of course I'm not messing with you" looks Collin always had when he was telling a joke.
Hal groaned.
"Dude, don't do that. You had me all freaked out for a second."
Collin fell back onto his side, shaking with laughter.
"Oh that was so awesome." Collin said. "… wish… could've gotten… picture of …face." Collin said through wheezy laughs. "So priceless."
Hal rolled his eyes. Even though he was still Collin enough to be annoying, his face was definitely already looking pale. They should wrap this up quick. Standing up, Hal fixed his gaze on the giant creature, which was still making looking around the room in a slow circle, like a trapped elephant.
Without taking his gaze off the creature, Hal could see Adrian walk up next to him in his peripheral vision.
"Is Collin OK?" Adrian asked.
Instead of responding to the question, Hal said:
"You help the moron distract it, I'll clear the rocks." Hal told Adrian.
Adrian didn't say anything for a second.
Finally, "OK. I'll try. It might be easier if we tried to take the thing out first though, right? You don't want it to try rolling over you again when you aren't looking, like last time."
Rick was still running around trying to find a place to hit the thing, but mostly he had to act quickly to not get stepped on. The creature's feet were as thick as phone booths. If they wanted to actually hurt it, they'd have to climb it. Or maybe lodge it in a wall or something. Maybe he could throw it somehow?
"Yeah maybe. But I don't think I can kill all of its weight. The thing is huge."
"I hear ya". Adrian said. He looked thoughtful. "Maybe you can make it heavier instead?"
"Heavier?" Hal scratched his head. "Maybe, why?"
"Just an idea. The thing is already massive. Maybe if you make it even heavier, we could figure…something else out, while it's handicapped."
Hal shrugged.
"Sure why not?" He said.
He started stalking toward the creature, but then turned a bit wide, to get at it from the side. Would heavier work? Maybe if he tried lighter first, maybe he could at least make it light enough to tip it up a bit. If he could knock it over, he bet it would have trouble getting up again.
He gripped his amulet tightly, and approached the things massive rear leg.
Meanwhile, he saw Adrian run up the far cave wall a bit, and jump off it. He should've only sailed a foot or two, but Hal, with his understanding of Prime energies, could see how Adrian extended the force of his jump, stretching it out so that he sailed through the air right by the creature at its knee's height, as if he were superman.
Well, gimp superman who could only fly across a cave like 5 feet off the ground.
"Look at me, I'm retarded!" Adrian shouted as he sailed by.
The creature looked at him sharply with its long flat snout. As Adrian flew by, the creature snapped at him, its tail jerking tip upward with the effort. The motion missed Adrian by a mere foot.
The motion carried Adrian towards the far wall of the cave, where he tumbled to the ground.
"If I weren't so scared, I would piss myself." Hal heard Adrian's voice saying, echoing off the cave walls.
The creature made an annoyed gesture with its jaws, opening and snapping them shut like a crocodile. It took a few booming steps to one side, so it could turn to see Adrian.
Rick had stopped his useless dance, and was panting now, resting on his hockey stick.
Hal waited until that huge foot came down again, and then he touched it with the amulet. He focused on the force of gravity that was pulling on the creature. It looked like a giant unseen band of pressure, pulling down, like one huge invisible rope. He tried loosening the rope, focusing through the amulet, like he did on himself now all the time.
It was like trying to loosen a knot in steel wire with your hands. He couldn't even get a grip on it. So instead, he focused on pulling the ropes. He imagined making them slightly bigger, swelling their strength, forcing the thing down even more than it already was.
This was a lot easier.
The creature let out a startled squeal, like a car trying to brake all at once, and its leg on the other side dropped to one knee.
"You're doing it Hal!" Adrian shouted as he flew by again, this time from a more
respectable distance. "Keep it up!" He added, his voice fading as he soared further
Suddenly, that head jerked around and down, to look directly at Hal.
Oh crap. It must've felt from which direction the heaviness was coming from. Naturally the gravity would be stronger on the side Hal was pulling on.
Those black eyes regarded Hal with hate. The creature struggled and with effort, got its leg up under it again, and then, its knees buckling, it lifted a massive foot with claws the size of scythes up enough so that it hung over Hal. It had to wobble to the side to do so, since it was built naturally low to the ground.
But everything was relative. It was massive enough that it a shadow drew over Hal now. He barely had time to jump backwards while the thing smashed its foot into the ground where Hal had just been.
Its foot shining metallic foot pulverized the cave floor a good couple of feet, now that it was even heavier. Shattered rocks fired out in all directions Hal dropped his hold on the creature's gravity, and tried instead to dodge out of the way of the rocketing bits of stones.
He was about to try cancelling his gravity again to get out of dodge, when a fist sized rock shot right towards hi. There was a flash of pain, and then he went out.
When he came to, he no longer saw the massive legs standing on all sides of him. Where was it? It's not like an armadillo the size of a bus could just disappear…
Hal looked up from where he lay on the ground.
The creature was all the way towards the top of the cave, and falling back towards Hal rapidly.
Apparently armadillos could jump a lot higher than their own size. As Hal watched a giant armored creature from beyond begin to fall back down to earth like an ailing jet liner, his only thought was the he really didn't want to die in the stupidest freakin way ever.