Bubble, Bubbles, Everywhere
Trolls were supposed to be more or less unique in their horrific mutations; so why were they under attack by half-a-dozen near-clones?
Lalli cursed fiercely under his breath as he knocked another weird blob of bloated, translucent brain matter off its ridiculously long legs. The giant volume of fluid around their brains would act as a horribly effective shield against bullets, so all Lalli could do to stop them was try to keep them down.
Were Sigrun or Emil awake, the fight would already have been over, but they and the others in the Red Herring League were still unconscious from whatever had been added to their sludge. Fortunately, Tuuri’s luck powers had kept Lalli awake, though he wished the luck had chosen someone else. He had barely managed to get the others into the FELINOPEDE before the attack; another pair of hands would have been most useful with that.
A huge, chopstick-like leg slammed down before Lalli, only just missing pinning him like a bug. The near miss shook Lalli; he should be moving much too quickly for the trolls to get anywhere near that close, so he must be feeling the sludge’s effects himself.
Even as Lalli realized his increasing peril, he slowed more and more, until the half-dozen trolls had managed to surround him. Lalli wanted to run past them, but he was so... tired...
Just as the slight Finn wavered on his feet and one of the trolls raised a deceptively dainty foot for the killing blow, the troll burst into bright orange flames. Lalli managed to smile before his legs folded up beneath him. Very shortly thereafter, the conflagration had spread to the other trolls, and they were fleeing in utter panic as Emil half- (really mostly-) carried Lalli back to the FELINOPEDE.
The little calico kitten they’d rescued a few days ago mewled in confused apprehension as the two boys came in. All that was happening around her eluded her minute ability to comprehend, so she was getting scared.
“Where are those blasted Amalienborg troops?” Emil growled angrily as he closed the door. “Are they merely slow in coming to our aid, or did they surrender to cowardice?”
“Think... it’s... worse...” Mikkel mumbled from his position on the front passenger bench, his Danish rendered even less comprehensible than usual (to Emil, at least) by the fact that he was still mostly asleep. “They... helped... make... the sludge...”
“Y’think they’ve turned Quisling?” Sigrun asked through a huge yawn. “Why’d they go ’n’ do something like that?”
“Dunno,” Mikkel replied through a mammoth yawn of his own. “Not sure they have. Just saying they helped with the sludge.”
A snore from Tuuri interrupted him. Emil could feel his own eyelids drooping again, even as he watched Sigrun slide back from vertical to horizontal. Reynir and Lalli, safely ensconced on the floor, entered their own yawns into the growing chorus, but Emil struggled to stay conscious.
With the last of his strength, Emil barely managed to put the FELINOPEDE into LOCKDOWN mode before he joined the others in sleep...
