Yes, I should have gotten a protective case for my phone, but that was the last thing on my mind considering what we had been through over the last couple of days.
Cursing to myself, I focused on Grace again, telling her to send Chloe to me.
And a few seconds later, Chloe landed behind Stella’s shield, smudges on her face, a bruise forming on her cheek.
“Are you okay?”
“Damn rubber bullets.” Chloe brought her hand to her throat. “What did you do to me?”
“I turned everything to eleven!” I shouted over the roar of the machine. “I want you to generate the biggest, gnarliest, loudest, King Kong-worthy sound that the world has ever heard. Aim it at that thing,” I said, pointing my finger over at the robot.
“Are you sure?”
“It’s the only way that I can think of.”
“You may want to get the others out of the area.”
“Okay, Dorian and I can coordinate that, just start charging and be ready.”
Chloe nodded, lifting back into the air and blasting off.
“Dorian, we need to get everyone far away from here, yet not far enough away that we can’t jump back into action. So…” I looked around. “Okay, maybe that rooftop over there. I don’t think the robot can throw something at us if we’re that far away.”
“I can get some of them, but what about Tulip and Veronique?”
“Bring them in their nets,” I said, both hands on her shoulders now. “This is going to work.”
She teleported away, depositing me on the rooftop and disappearing again before I could say anything clever.
I turned to my left to see the action, the giant robot like something out of NeiR: Automata, swinging his hands at Stella and Grace, and possibly Michelle, wherever she was.
Dorian reappeared a few moments later, immediately turning to Tulip, who was still stuck in the giant net. The monster roared and hissed at me, trying to break free, and as Dorian vanished I approached him, both hands extended.
“Ingrid, it’s me,” I started to tell the beast, who had murder in his eyes. “You have to transform back to your normal self. Ingrid, listen to me. Please.”
Tulip gnashed his teeth at me.
“You don’t want to bite me, I’m your friend, remember me?” I asked, pointing at my own face. “I’m your favorite writer, your leader in a way, your buddy Manchester.”
Tulip gave me a funny look, as if it were cognizant of what I was saying.
“Yes,” I told the beast, continuing along this line of thinking. “It’s me, Gideon, the coolest guy that you have ever met, a father figure to you in a way, the strongest member of the Cherry Blossom Girls,” I said with a grin.
Tulip’s face twitched as he started to morph back into Ingrid, his form shrinking, muscles reforming into skin, hair taking shape on Ingrid’s head.
“Wow, you got her to transform back!” Michelle said, a big smile on her face.
“Did you run all the way over here?” I asked her, wide-eyed.
“Of course I did, Dorian told me to go to that rooftop, and here I am! But congratulations, that’s the first time that you’ve done that with Tulip!”
“Gideon, how…” Ingrid asked, untangling herself from the net.
Veronique appeared, still in her net. She was passed out, and I immediately went to her, healing the metal vampire. As soon as her eyes opened she started draining me, only to realize who I was before letting up.
Michelle and I helped Veronique get out of the net, and it was about this time that we saw helicopters approaching the robot. Dorian flashed into existence again with Stella and Grace.
“Okay, let Chloe know that it’s time,” I told Grace.
“Will do.”
The psychic shifter turned to her left, focusing on the battle, as the robot swiped down one of the helicopters.
“I’m putting up a shield,” Stella said.
“Good idea,” I said.
“I will put one up as well,” Grace chimed in.
“What are you going to do?” Ingrid asked me, wiping the sweat off her brow.
“Chloe’s going to drop a nuke of sound on the robot.”
“Do you think it’ll work?”
“We’re about to find out.”
I felt the building shake as a giant sphere of energy rose from the ground beneath the robot and blew it to pieces, followed by a corona of light. A windstorm of electricity and energy reached us, and it would have blown us off the rooftop had it not been for Stella and Grace’s shields.
“Where’s Chloe?” Michelle asked, once the blowback had started to die down.
“I’ll bring her here; we’re gone after that.” Dorian vanished before anyone could stop her.
“I can’t believe that worked…” I said as I sat down, both hands on my head, taking just about the biggest sigh of relief I had ever taken before.
Chapter Thirty-One: Chinese Pizza FTW
I was relieved as hell to get back to the hotel, away from the mayhem, to a place that was comfortable even if it wasn’t quite home.
We had made it, but unfortunately we hadn’t uncovered anything about Hummingbird, except that his factory was a giant robot that had decimated part of the Yanqing District.
“Great job,” I told the group, always trying to keep it positive.
The truth was, while we had taken down the robot, there had been too many civilian deaths, including our translator Kaito, who seemed like a pretty cool dude.
Distraught at what had happened, I took a seat, massaging my temples for a moment, my eyes jumping to my laptop. Maybe I needed to disconnect for a bit, but something told me that I should tell the Emperor what had happened, that it was the polite thing to do.
I also needed one of their phones.
“Who wants to donate their phone to Uncle Gideon?” I asked.
“You’re our uncle now?” asked Michelle, a goofy grin on her face. “I guess that makes sense, if Father is Father and Mother’s Mother, then you could be our uncle.”
“No, I take that back. I’m not your uncle, and seriously, who isn’t using their phone?”
“None of us use our phones except Michelle, Dorian and Ingrid,” Chloe said. “And Michelle’s been banned from phone usage.”
“I’m still banned?” Michelle asked with a pout.
“Yes,” Veronique said.
“You can have my phone,” Chloe told me. “I’m fine without it. I don’t think it’s charged, though.”
The sound manipulator’s face was still red from what she’d done back at the factory, her hair a bit frizzy too. She sat down next to me, and I instinctively placed my hand on her leg, pushing forth some healing energy.
“Thanks.” Once I was done healing her, Chloe went to the other room and returned with her phone and charger, plugging it into the wall. The green battery flashed on the screen, letting me know that it would fast charge in about fifteen minutes.
Nice.
I remembered back in the day when it took phones forever to charge, but not any longer.
Once I gave it a few minutes to charge, I signed in and went to my inbox, ignoring the other messages as I clicked on the Emperor’s last email.
I didn’t know how to word it so I just came right out with it, that we had gone to investigate one of the supers that was able to create advanced technology, or at least that’s what we thought Hummingbird’s power was, and that he had turned his factory into a giant robot and ended up killing Kaito.
Yikes.
From there, I scrolled back to my inbox and saw that someone from the James Andrew Hour had gotten back to me, that they were willing to set up an interview anywhere we wanted to set one up. And they would move fast too, promising to set it up within twenty-four hours or less depending on the location.
I also saw an email from Jake, asking me where I had been, and why I hadn’t answered any of his emails aside from telling him my interview plans.
I started my reply, basical
ly giving my agent a synopsis of everything that had happened since we arrived in Asia.
Well, not everything.
I left out a few of the juicier details and I also didn’t go into some of the more desperate moments, like how Veronique had almost died, and how this power had emerged from within me, as well as the civilian casualties and the guy I killed. My agent wasn’t the right person to talk to about this stuff anyway, that person would be Father.
Speaking of which…
I clicked ‘send’ and went to my draft inbox. Sure enough, there was a message from Father telling me that everything was fine in Colorado, that he was satisfied with what he had been working on and that Clarence missed us.
I started another email, telling him what had happened, my fingers clicking away rapidly as Michelle watched them go.
“I hope I can type that fast one day,” she said.
“It was my first superpower,” I told her.
She snorted. “You’re so funny, Gideon.”
“See?” I told the rest of them, all of whom ignored me.
A few of the CBGs headed to the bedrooms to change. Dorian was the first to step out in a pair of black jeans and a tank top, her tattoos on display. Chloe changed as well into a flowing dress, and Stella wore some of the yoga clothing that we had picked up in Nepal.
“Don’t you want to change?” Michelle asked.
“Sorry, when I start working I get distracted and…” I shrugged. “Well, I get distracted.”
“Watch how quickly I can change clothes,” Michelle said, zipping away and reappearing about ten seconds later in loose yoga clothing.
“That was fast,” I told her.
“I’ve seen her do it even faster,” Ingrid said from the couch. She hadn’t changed yet, and from what I could tell by the expression on her face she was completely pooped, the beast morpher sprawled out and fanning herself with her hand.
“I’m waiting for you to heal me before I change,” Veronique said, “and possibly feed me.”
“You can feed on me,” Michelle said, offering her hand to Veronique.
“With pleasure,” the metal vampire said, placing her hand on Michelle’s.
“Whoa,” Michelle said, her shoulders starting to loosen. “That feels so crazy when you… Do that…”
“Not too much,” I told Veronique, looking up from the message I was typing to Father. I almost hit send, but stopped myself, remembering that we weren’t communicating in that way.
Instead, I closed my laptop and placed my hand on Michelle’s shoulder, healing the damage that Veronique had caused.
“Thanks, Gideon,” Michelle said as she zipped away, Veronique taking her place so I could heal her as well.
“There has to be some food to eat around here,” Ingrid said, still sprawled out on the couch.
Grace turned the television on with her mind by telekinetically using the remote. She went straight to a news channel and sure enough, the destruction at the factory was the number one story.
“I really wish we had a translator,” I said.
“What happened to that one guy?” Michelle asked.
“He didn’t make it back,” I said firmly, exchanging glances with a few of the others who understood what I meant.
“Too bad, he seemed pretty cool.”
“Did someone say something about food?” Ingrid asked.
“I’m with her,” said Dorian. “The sooner we eat, the better I’ll feel.”
“And... there we are,” Grace said, as images of our battle against the robot appeared on the television.
I couldn’t tell by the newscaster’s face how they were going to spin this, if the Chinese were going to say that we were helping, or if they were going to say that we were enemies of the public. Either way, it was best for us to keep a low profile.
As usual.
“Grace, you’re up,” I said, nodding to the door. “I’ll go with you, and together we can see about getting some room service.”
“Pizza?” Michelle asked.
“I don’t know how good pizza will be in China,” I started to say.
“What kind of crazy answer is that? Pizza is good anywhere.”
“She makes a strong argument,” Dorian said, watching the action on the television.
“Fine, fine,” I told the group, “we’ll try to get some pizza and something healthy.”
“Nothing healthy,” Ingrid said. “I’m stress-eating tonight.”
Chapter Thirty-Two: I Can Show You the Wall
I actually got some writing done.
You would think that I would be tired after our fight with the giant robot, but it had emboldened me for some reason, and after dinner I’d managed to crank out a couple thousand words.
A breakthrough of sorts.
It dawned on me then, as I closed my laptop, that we had failed to do something, or more specifically, I had failed. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d thrown milk in the morning, as per the Mongolian shaman’s instructions.
Don’t be superstitious, I reminded myself. We seemed to have made it through without following the ritual, and there was little I could do about it now. But still. Talk about vibing on a bad omen.
There was another thing bothering me at the moment.
According to a few Internet searches I had already done, the Chinese were actively blaming the Cherry Blossom Girls for what had happened. Their national newspaper—government-run I might add, which sort of defeated the purpose—had already posted editorials peppered with patriotic cries for the country to unite together and do something about us.
So, as usual, we were enemies of the public.
And it sort of made sense, even if I didn’t want us to be on the receiving end of what the public felt. We were a threat to them because of our abilities, and our abilities had brought out some pretty wicked things, from giant robots to the superhero fight in Washington, DC.
The list went on and on.
So I got that part, but it was exasperating at times, and it sucked to want to be the hero yet constantly be typecast as the villain.
“You’re still up?” Chloe asked, coming out of one of the bedrooms.
“I sure am. Just finishing up here.”
“Are you coming to bed?”
A curl of her brown hair fell into her oblong face and she swept it aside. The sound manipulator was in a silk robe, which was open at the front revealing that she only had a bra and panties on beneath.
“Is that an invitation?” I asked her.
She came into my lap, lightly running her fingers along the side of my face.
“I was just finishing up,” I told her again.
“What are you working on?”
“Something new. Trying to get my notes together, and I have a few other ideas I want to explore.”
“You’re just so full of ideas, aren’t you?”
“I guess you could say that.”
Dorian came out of the bedroom as well, also in a silk robe with a black tank top on underneath.
“I know, I know, I’m coming to bed,” I started to tell her.
“Who said anything about sleep?” she asked, looking to Chloe.
“Was there something else you two had in mind?”
“Actually, yes, we thought it would be fun to go on a little trip.”
“Go on…” I told the punk rock teleporter.
“What’s the most famous structure in China?” Chloe asked me.
“The Great Wall, hands down.”
“So what if we took a little midnight flight? Dorian could teleport us to the area, and we could go from there.”
“I mean, that would be a dream come true,” I finally said.
“See? I told you he’d be into it,” Dorian said.
I shrugged. “What can I say? I’m pretty spontaneous.”
Chloe grinned. “Okay, so you’re ready?”
“Wait, you two are going in your robes?”
“Yeah, why not?” Chloe aske
d. “Unless you prefer that we go in our underwear.”
“I…” I took my glasses off and used a napkin on the table to clean them.
“Do you want to wear a robe too?” Dorian asked, not waiting for my answer. “All the rooms here have nice silk robes.” She flashed away and reappeared in a matter of moments, a robe in her hands.
“Okay, sure, I’ll get undressed right here,” I said, lowering my voice. “Are you sure Michelle isn’t up?”
“No, I saw to that,” Chloe said.
“Good.”
I stripped down to my boxers and slipped into the robe from there, keeping my socks on just in case my feet got cold.
“Are you ready?” Dorian asked after she had pulled her black hair into a tight ponytail. Chloe stood next to her, holding her hand.
“Most definitely.” She reached out for me and I stopped her. “Wait, you already know where you’re going, right?”
“That’s the fun in it.”
The three of us vanished, reappearing somewhere near the factory from earlier, a smoking crater below. Chloe took over, flying us in a northeastern direction.
The wind beat the ends of our bathrobes as we took off. I eventually tightened mine, not wanting to lose it and find my crazy ass flying over the Great Wall in my underwear.
“This is fun, right?” Chloe asked once we got further away from the bustling Yanqing District. I could see lights on the horizon, which I assumed were coming from the Great Wall.
“Unexpected, for sure.”
“It’s fun to be spontaneous,” Dorian said. “Speaking of which, do they do tattoos here in China?”
“I think they do tattoos everywhere. Also, you have to be careful what you get in another language.”
“Why is that? And who said anything about getting a tattoo in another language?” She laughed. “You’re way too cautious, Gideon.”
“It’s better to be safe than have a shitty Chinese tattoo that says Xi Jinping.”
“Who?”
“We should get tattoos when we get back to America,” Chloe said.
“You’re in?” Dorian asked.
“Maybe. Well, probably not. But if I did, it would likely be a musical note or something.”
“Hey, you’ve got to appreciate your talents, which is why I have a typewriter,” I told her, patting my tatted shoulder.
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