{"id":215,"date":"2017-04-08T09:44:38","date_gmt":"2017-04-08T13:44:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/grimaulkin.com\/800words\/?p=215"},"modified":"2017-04-08T09:44:38","modified_gmt":"2017-04-08T13:44:38","slug":"the-battle-of-the-garden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/grimaulkin.com\/800words\/?p=215","title":{"rendered":"The Battle of the Garden"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jack felt exposed. He knew the guys were ready or at least they would be. He hoped. <\/span><\/p>\n

The book was in a backpack slung over his shoulder. It wasn\u2019t magic on its own, but it held magic symbols. He didn\u2019t know if his new curse would take away the magic. He had gone into the garden, and flowers wilted at his touch. He never went in again.<\/span><\/p>\n

He had his earbuds with the phone on. \u201cThis doesn\u2019t feel good, Mike,\u201d he muttered, hoping Mike was listening.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re in place.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Jack looked up to see a man with a cane walking toward him. \u201cHere he comes.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The man was bald, with glowing green eyes. He wore a crimson shirt, black pants, and wingtip shoes. He was a lot smaller than Jack, maybe Scott\u2019s size, with a bit of a paunch, but broad-shouldered. He leaned on his cane, while two men in black walked behind him. As soon as he came to the top of the bridge where Jack stood, the men stayed at the bottom, looking warily from side to side.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cMr. Cincinnati,\u201d said the man, using the code name Jack had given out online.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cDoctor,\u201d said Jack, using Thornblood\u2019s code name.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou have the parcel?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou have the money?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The man flipped the cane around and pointed its handle at the wooden bridge at their feet. He made an X with some dark fluid that came out of the cane, and he tapped the middle of the X. A pair of briefcases appeared.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOpen them,\u201d said Jack.<\/span><\/p>\n

The man raised an eyebrow. \u201cYou don\u2019t believe that the money is in there?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t want to get bitten by some demon that you might have in there.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The man chuckled. \u201cThis is obviously not your first rodeo.\u201d As he bent to open the briefcase, they all heard a series of gunshots from an automatic weapon.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jack, knowing how to react, dove off the bridge, into the shallow lake. One of the two men at the bottom ledge of the bridge ran up to the old man, who had stood like a deer in headlights at the opening salvo. The man tackled the old man to the ground.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jack had gotten the book wet, but that was the least of his problems. He saw the robot at a distance, a green man with guns coming out of its shoulder.<\/span>\u00a0 <\/span>It was firing at them, not caring if anything or anyone else was firing back. It also didn\u2019t notice the team teleport and appear at the tree in the middle of the park. Teddy already had the weapon in hand, and as soon as the teleport cleared, he started running to the robot, Alex and Andy close behind.<\/span><\/p>\n

The robot, focused on Thornblood, advanced. Jack struggled to stand, but he had landed badly and twisted his knee. He half-crawled backwards to the shore of the lake, the side away from the advancing team.<\/span><\/p>\n

Another half of the team appeared at the bottom of the bridge, where the guards had been. Both were now at the top of the bridge, trying to lift the old man who was screaming that he wanted the book. \u201cLeave me here! Get the book!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Priorities, Jack thought, as he saw Diode in his blue costume come out of the teleport, looking confused. Ollie followed, and tagged Diode. \u201cThose guys, up there!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Jack heard the gunshots stop. He looked over to see that Alex and Andy stood behind the robot, while Teddy had done what he was required to do\u2014stab the robot. He chose to stab between the neck and shoulder, but the neutronium sword was still stuck in the robot\u2019s neck. <\/span><\/p>\n

The robot turned to Teddy, and guns appeared out of its wrists. It<\/span> <\/i>immediately started shooting with those guns, probably guns without magic depowering bullets, but real, armor-piercing, people-killing bullets. Alex went down. Andy dove at the robot, out of the way of the wrist-weapons firing, and began to saturate it with his ability.<\/span><\/p>\n

The sword fell out of the robot\u2019s neck, and Andy put his hands in the area. The robot swung around, trying to get at Andy, but he held on like a man on a bucking bronco, hands deep inside the neck of the robot, getting his hands covered with a sticky, black fluid not unlike blood.<\/span><\/p>\n

The robot reached behind and grabbed at Andy\u2019s hair. Andy still held on, howling. Then the earth rumbled and a huge spike of earth and water came out of the lake, going through the bridge, making one of the men tumble off it into the water near Jack. Jack reached over, grabbing the guy by the nape of his suit collar, and punched the guy out.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOh, my God, he\u2019s been shot.\u201d Jack saw Diode bend down to Thornblood, but then get pushed away by him. Thornblood stood up, one hand at his side and his other hand waving his cane around. He was yelling some gibberish that Jack assumed was some sort of spell.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSomebody stop him!\u201d Jack yelled. Diode touched Thornblood, who then immediately stopped his shouting. He shook, the other man who had jumped on top of him also shook, and then Thornblood collapsed to the bridge\u2019s floor.<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile the robot had been ridden out, with Andy and now Alex\u2014who seemed to be leaning heavily on one leg\u2014pouring their toxins into the robot. Jack couldn\u2019t see exactly what they were doing, covered with toxins now, and they didn\u2019t look like they were going to stop. Alex was pissed, Jack could see it in the white man\u2019s face.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cYou okay, Jack?\u201d asked Ollie, coming over to him.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cTwisted my knee. I\u2019ll be all right.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe can teleport you out.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI want to see that fucking bot die.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Ollie looked over. \u201cIt looks like there\u2019s nothing left there but a puddle of goo.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m gonna see for myse<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Jack felt exposed. He knew the guys were ready or at least they would be. He hoped. The book was in a backpack slung over his shoulder. It wasn\u2019t magic on its own, but it held magic symbols. He didn\u2019t know if his new curse would take away the magic…. Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/grimaulkin.com\/800words\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/grimaulkin.com\/800words\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/grimaulkin.com\/800words\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grimaulkin.com\/800words\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grimaulkin.com\/800words\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=215"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/grimaulkin.com\/800words\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":216,"href":"https:\/\/grimaulkin.com\/800words\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/215\/revisions\/216"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/grimaulkin.com\/800words\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=215"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grimaulkin.com\/800words\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=215"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/grimaulkin.com\/800words\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=215"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}