Grower not a Shower

  Yuki shook her head. Bangs and explosions could be heard from up ahead. All they could see were piles of junk and goblins moving around. She and Pumpkin moved back. The cat was so agitated, Yuki was afraid Pumpkin was going to impale her with the tail blade as she flicked it back and forth. When they returned to the group, all eyes turned towards them.

  “It’s not good. The goblins have thrown up defenses and are firing at the humans. We couldn’t get close enough to see how the humans were doing, but they need help. NOW.” Yuki explained.

  Honey started off down the street muttering, “I’ll kill…” but George grabbed him by his fur. George stopped for a second and looked at Honey. He had no armor. Even as a healer, George had robes and bracers and boots and other items.

  “Hey, Honey. Why haven’t you put on any armor?” George asked.

  “Can’t wear it. It interferes with my natural defenses. All I get are teeth and claw upgrades.” The badger showed his teeth that were now covered in what looked like bright shining silver/white metal and diamonds. The badger held up his paw and flexed. Nearly a foot long black metal claws came out that gave an aura of sharpness that had the raccoon stepping back. “Can I go kill them now?”

  “Hold on. We need to get the humans following us to somewhere safe first.” George said as he turned to Pumpkin. The cat disappeared in a burst of black shadows. A few minutes later she returned.

  “The horse dogs and the human fighters have them in a place they think they can defend them.” Pumpkin said as she sent an update to everybody’s maps.

  “Finally. Let’s go kill them.” Honey said as he took off down the street at a steady walk. The others looked at each other and shrugged. They jogged to catch up with the impatient tank. As they fell into position, Honey began picking up the pace.

  When they charged towards the piles of debris the goblins had made, Yuki burned holes in everything that tried to stick their heads up. Honey burst through the gap between the piles slightly before anybody else and quickly looked around. “I’LL KILL THEM ALL. I DON’T GIVE A CRAP!” The badger grew larger than a grizzly bear and charged towards a group of heavily armored and armed muscular goblins surrounding one wearing a pink bathrobe and what appeared to be a Burger King crown with pieces of glass glued to it. He carried a golf putter with a golden blade.

  As George ran in behind Honey, he sensed something bounce off the wall of the nearest building and come flying towards them. He quickly cast a shield and something large and brown bounced off of it and flew towards a group of goblins manning some kind of weapon. Goblins went flying in pieces. The brown thing came flying back and George cast another shield and braced for impact.

  “Civilians should seek shelter until the task force operations are complete.” a very large black and tan dog said from where it had stopped a couple inches from the shield.

  “We’re not exactly civilians.” George said as he pointed at Honey bouncing from roided out goblin to fat Liberace looking goblin and then at the Landsharknado making its way around the Goblin’s perimeter and finally at Yuki cutting through the goblins with rays of flames.

  The dog nodded sharply. “Special Forces?”

  Not knowing what else to say, George agreed. “Yes. Very special”

  “I understand. I didn’t see you and know nothing about you. Sorry for interrupting your mission sir. Feel free to contact me if you need any assistance from the Danville Police department.” It lifted its paw over its head in a salute, but its head turned and the dog let out a low growl and dug its heels in. George quickly put a shield in front of it when he realized it was aiming at Pumpkin. “The cat is with us. Trust me. You don’t want anywhere near her when she’s doing that.” Pumpkin was doing her DANCE OF DEATH melee area of effect skill.

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  “Roger, sir.” the dog said, but what had to be at least twenty goblin weapons fired at once. A very canine yelp of pain sounded out. “Captain Titan!” the dog shouted as he launched himself. George hopped onto his back and hung on for dear life as the world suddenly blurred.

  George rolled off to the front of the dog when it came to a sudden stop and quickly cast a shield that blasted three goblins off their feet and bled off the raccoon’s momentum. Turning, he quickly looked back at the other dog who appeared to be using some sort of weak healing skill by licking an identical dog that was bleeding from several ragged holes in its body.

  George cast a dome shaped shield around them and used a much stronger healing spell. A few seconds later the injured dog rose to its feet and gave George a nod of thanks before looking around. “Corporal Duke. Why are you just standing there?”

  “You were bleeding, sir.” Duke replied.

  The dog appeared to try to spit to the side before it growled, “I ain’t got time to bleed. Go kill those green bastards.”

  Duke lifted its paw in a quick salute and blasted off. Titan turned towards George. “It isn’t safe out here for civilians. I must move you to safety.”

  George held up his paw and said, “Not a civilian, but I would appreciate a lift back to my team.” He pointed to where Honey and Ratskeller had paired up with the badger charging through groups of goblins while Ratskeller liberally applied multi chomps from where she rode on his back.

  The dog’s eyes went wide at the carnage. “Get on the chomper.” He said and George hopped aboard. One leap and two bounces off piles of debris and George hopped off behind where Honey was tearing into another group of goblins. He glanced over and saw Yuki calmly approaching carrying her disco ball of death and Pumpkin popping in and out of shadows around her to send goblins flying in pieces.

  The captain started to say something, but an enormous explosion sounded. He was suddenly on top of a nearby pile. George climbed up behind him. To his left he saw a makeshift wall of vehicles had an enormous hole blown in it and armored humans had stepped forward to defend the hole. She then looked left and saw a large metal vehicle with some kind of weapon with smoke coming out of it.

  “Its hide is too tough for us. Do you have anything that can take those things out?” Titan asked as one of the other streaks of brown bounced off it and despite a large explosion from the dog’s paws, no damage seemed to be done to the goblin weapon.

  George turned and yelled, “Yuki! And motioned for her to come to him.” Pumpkin appeared behind Yuki before they disappeared into the shadows and stepped out beside George. He pointed and asked, “You think you can deal with those things?”

  Yuki looked and gave a small smile before nodding. FLAME LANCE! Her orb appeared and a foot thick bar of flame shot out and melted a hole in the goblin machine and several piles of debris behind it. Yuki moved the lance around to make sure the job was done.

  “Damn fine work soldier. Hop on. There are three more of those damn contraptions.” Titan said. Yuki and Pumpkin hopped on Titans vest as he launched himself. George looked around to see where Honey was, when he heard a roar from nearby. A large goblin with dual curving swords pointed both of them at him before twirling them in a very dazzling display.

  When the goblin was finished, he stalked towards the pile George was standing on, but stopped and took a defensive stance when he saw the raccoon point a finger at him. The finger then rose above the goblin’s head and he looked up just in time to see the enormous golden jaws descending towards him. CHOMP!

  Thirty minutes later, the goblins broke and went running. Titan appeared by George’s side as the other three teammates came walking up to him. George quickly healed Honey as Titan spoke, “I don’t know how to thank you. Things would not have gone nearly as well if you four had not shown up.”

  “The humans with the horse dogs.” Pumpkin said and George’s eyes went wide.

  “We have a large group of humans with just a few fighters and some dogs to protect them not far away. They may not be safe if a large group of goblins finds them.” George said

  Titan whistled and four identical looking police dogs appeared in front of him. “Do you have a location on your map?” Titan asked. Pumpkin quickly shared her map with the four and they blasted off. Pumpkin followed. “Let’s go talk to the chief.”

  The group approached the human’s defenses and an older man walked out to them. He wore a dark uniform and had a rather impressive moustache with the ends pointing up. For some reason the tips of his moustache had what looked like small metal blades attached.

  Titan raised his paw in salute and said, “Chief, We’ve got a large group of civilians coming in escorted by friendlies.” Titan reported.

  The human’s shoulders dropped as he looked around. “I don’t know if they are any better off here than wherever they came from.’ The human said. “They’ve pretty much blown apart our defenses.”

  Honey reached down and dug a trench in front of him and piled the dirt up behind it. “I think I can help you with that if you have someone to show me where you want walls.”

  The chief called out one of his officers who came running up wearing what looked like camouflaged body armor and a rifle. “Jones, you were a Ranger. Show this fine young badger where you’d like some walls built.”

  “If you can get some people to gather up scrap metal, I can help strengthen the walls.” Yuki said.

  *****

  As Pumpkin and the Malinois led the humans into the downtown square, she saw an oversized Honey compressing dirt he had obviously dug up into walls and Yuki melting piles of metal that flowed down to cover the walls. She spotted George talking to a human.

  As she approached she noticed the blades on the chief’s moustache. As the malinois reported the numbers of civilians they had with them, the chief couldn’t help but notice the cat proudly displaying her tail blade with what looked like a smirk on her face.

  His moustache tips lengthened and his blades grew to nearly three feet long as they swirled in front of him in a complex series of movements. “I’m a grower not a shower, kitty cat.”