Here it is then, chapter 9.
Chapter 9
Splat
I bounced away and cleared my head. The flying-slig I’d hit was just recovering so I did the one thing only a mudokon would: I brought my arm back and then swung it forward with as much force as I could, which, with both mudokon and paramite strength, was a lot of force! The slig went flying backwards and hit the far wall with a crunch and then was nice enough to drop to the ground and land at the feet of a rather fierce B. B. slig, who instinctively looked up. When the slig aimed his chain gun at me I decided to make a hasty exit. I looked around, once I was in the cover of the lorry, to look around because a 1 ton B. B. slig doesn’t fly very well!
I looked up and saw a winding shaft in the ceiling above the lorry, which I flew up. Below me I heard an alarm sounding but I stayed in the shaft. I decided to see where the shaft led so I continued up.
I flew up and up, twisting and turning in the narrow, vertical/diagonal passage. As I flew up I brushed past something with scaly green skin.
“Sorry,” it muttered.
“S’ok,” I replied and continued up the shaft. I suddenly stopped and slowly turned round. It also turned and I found myself face to face with a slig I recognised. A slig with a deep scar down to an empty eye socket and a metal arm replacing the one he was missing. The missing arm that I still remembered the taste of!
“So, we meet again!” He hissed, unwrapping an electric cable from a small metal machine and then plugging it into his pants.
I paused for a minute then said “sorry, I can’t stop, I have a… dental appointment.” Then I took off up the tunnel, moving faster than I ever have in the whole of my 15 year long life!
I flew upwards, he followed. It was a terrifying chase. Behind me I heard an explosion so loud that it felt like the whole factory was falling down. The noise suddenly stopped and I quickly turned my head back to see a smoking whole in the side of the tunnel! I forced myself to go faster!
As I flew, explosions blasting behind me, I managed to pull off my backpack and grab the first thing I found. The packet of fire flumps!
I put the backpack back on and opened the bag of fire flumps. The first one I took out I dropped, and the next. But the third, I managed to push in to my mouth and swallow.
I kept flying up, still as fast as I could, but now getting tired and slowing. If the tunnel didn’t end soon…
I suddenly pulled back and stopped. Above me was a solid metal wall! I was trapped! I backed away from the wall above and burped. The fireball hit the wall and engulfed it in smoke. When it cleared… THE WALL WAS STILL THERE!
“Well, well, it looks as though you’re trapped.” I spun round and faced the master slig, hovering below me. He turned a dial on his weapon. “The reward is always higher when the prisoner is alive. Shame, I really wanted to kill you myself. Oh well, I suppose sending you in to a coma will have to do.”
He aimed his zappy-thing at me. I could probably dodge the main energy ball but there was no point. The heat would be enough to knock me out. Heat! Thank Odd for the side effects of fire flumps!
“My name is Splat. My prisoner code is 0784556. Remember that. You’ll be hearing it a lot more than you think.”
“Wan a bet?”
“Yeah, 50 moolah?”
“Ok.” He flew up the passage and we shook hands on it. “Ok, better get back to shooting you now.” And he flew back down the passage and aimed his weapon at me.
He fired. I dodged. The heat had no effect on me, but it blew a hole through the 10-inch steel door above me. Before the smoke could clear I flew through the hole and into the room above. I shot towards a small hole in one of the rooms walls that was to small far a master slig with a jetpack to enter. I saw a sign above the hole:
Rubbish and sewage
disposal chute.
It took a few seconds for my brain to process this but by that time I was shooting down the tunnel and couldn’t stop. Above I heard the slig roar in anger. I kept sliding down the chute till I could see a light up ahead. I suddenly shot out into a beautiful starry night. I was falling towards the ground, which was covered with extremely spiky plants, but I shot out my arms, grabbed on to a tree branch and swung away.
I hoisted on to the branch and walked in to the centre of the tree where I collapsed and, despite the fact that I hadn’t been awake that long, fell asleep. I guess being chased by a mad, lunatic master slig, gaining an archenemy and sliding down a waste disposal chute really takes it out of you. That and the fact that –I didn’t find this out till later- sleepiness is another side effect of fire flumps.
Now get replyin, NOW! Please?
