WARNING: eXtremely cool and shocking stuff in this chapter!
CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE
Before the bullet could even roar out of the barrel, something moved with blinding speed, a blur of darkness. Before Abe could react, that blur had smashed into his DonnerPacker and sent it flying from his grip. Before Fragg could finish gasping with shock, a brown blur, large enough to be a person, came bounding after it.
Something slammed into Abe’s side, throwing him to the ground. BigBros roared in shock, and bullets roared from DonnerPacker barrels, but a huge explosion of black shadow energy sent Sligs sailing through the air. King Fragg tumbled down the hole in the floor Abe and Stranger had blown to get inside the throne room.
He heard Stranger swearing from somewhere beside him, but Abe was too busy rolling back and flipping to his feet. That brown blur was coming toward him again, almost so fast that he could see it –
But not fast enough that he couldn’t leap aside, letting it speed past him.
The blur paused behind him, turning –
Abe gasped. The thing that was standing before him – the thing that had just scattered them with bursts of dark energy – was none other than a being he had once known and trusted with his life.
He said, “Munch…”
The Gabbit smiled, a smile that would have been friendly had it not been for the blood dripping from his teeth and the demonic tattoos stretched on his face. “Call me…the Bringer of Pain.”
* * *
Alf yanked back on the Spoocebow’s trigger, and the kickback jarred his arm. His weapon only fired three bolts at the Sligs – not enough to really do any damage, but just enough to alert them to his position. The Sligs raised their guns to their shoulders and opened fire, spraying storms of lasers at him.
Alf screamed, turned, and ran. He only made it three steps before he tripped and fell flat on his face in the grass, but that also allowed him not to be struck by the flurries of deadly energy that passed inches above his head.
“I don’t want to die,” he whined into the grass. “I don’t want to die.”
He turned, sat up, and pulled back on the trigger. This time, he didn’t let go. Not even when he fell back with three holes through his brain. Even in death, he didn’t let go of the trigger. Spoocebow bolts sprayed far and wide; he wasn’t there to see them, but Abe would have been proud.
* * *
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