#causing a distraction

"Oh, you'll deal with it, all right," the squid person said. "You and all your Merapolian friends. You'll deal with all the destruction you've caused. We'll make sure of it." He took out his little device that turned into a asmall spider-like creature and ensnared me yet again.

"This really is not necessary," I said. "I've already surrendered."

"Uh-huh," the squid person grunted. "Look around us, Landbreather, and tell me how containing you isn't necessary."

I did as he said and I looked around at the destroyed city. Maybe he wasn't overreacting after all. "You're right. Maybe we went too far, but all we wanted to do was come and get our animal that you had,. But instead of welcoming us in or even cautiously coming out to meet us, you attacked us and took more of our friends prisoner. What were we supposed to do, let you keep them?"

"I'm not falling for your Merapolian traps," the squid person sneered, as he grabbed the device ensnaring me.

"Do I look Merapolian to you?" I asked.

"We know you work with them, Landbreather. You're not..."

"ATTENTION! ATTENTION!" something called from every squid person's hip. There seemed to be some kind of device there, a radio of sorts. "A portion of the habitat had begun to drift away. Wait...change that. The habitat appears to be under some kind of propulsion device. Attention! A part of the habitat is being STOLEN!"

"Repeat that, Center," came a second voice. "Did you say a part of the habitat is being...stolen?"

"That's what I said," came the first voice, Center, again. "We're tracking it, leaving the city at a quick pace. You need to hurry. I repeat hurry, before it gets away!"

I looked over as I saw the habitat moving away. It looked like Tam had gotten our plan off the ground. The squidpeople turned to follow my gaze. "No!" I called knowing I needed to buy Tam some time. "You need to stay here. You need to stay with me. You don't want me to get away."

to be continued next week

Four squidpeople with guns were swimming right at me. What could I do to stop them? I had no weapons. I had no abilities. I was alone with no one to help. I'm not complaining. I made this bed and I'm going to lie in it whether it gets me killed or not.

I swam right back at them, that seemed to surprise them enough to stop swimming. But as I got close, I began to dive as quickly as I could. I dove as hard as I could. When I started to tire, I glanced back and saw they were all hot on my heels. Any advantage I'd had was disappearing. My goal was to distract, to draw their attention, to keep them away from Tam, and it looked like I was doing. Now, I just had to keep doing that. So I did the only thing I could to keep them focused squarely on me. I spun around and I surrendered.

The quartet of guards jumped back, in the way that you can 'jump' in the middle of ocean. They stopped and pushed away from me as if I was going to do them great harm. But when I just stayed there unmoving, more or less, they began to move closer towards me. They pulled out their weapons and they pointed them at me. "Try anything and we'll blast you!" one of them yelled.

"I'm not doing anything," I said. "I'm unarmed. I surrender. All I want to do is talk."

"You'll talk to this!" One of them smacked me across the face with their gun. I went tumbling through the water from the impact until the squidman grabbed me with his tentacles. "Try something again..."

"I'm cooperating," I yelled at him. "I surrendered already."

"Yes, after you and your Merapolian friends have already destroyed our homes."

"I don't want to get into a blame game, worrying about who id what to who, or who was responsible for what. I'm surrendering. I'm ready to help you deal with what happened. Let's just work together and fix everything. All right?"

to be continued next week

"We have to do something!" I said.

"I will attack them and that will allow you a chance to grab your friend," the shadoweater replied.

"When she's like that?" I pointed at the Sharkwoman, nearly in her full massive shark form. "There's no way I could pick her up. You're going to have to grab her."

"And what will you do?"

"Distract them."

"Distract them?" he asked. "And then how will you get away?"

"I don't know. You just focus on getting her out of here."

Seeing little time for thought, I ran out to the gorillapede gathering and threw my body into the closest gorillapede. Then I ran past it, leapt over the Sharkwoman's body and screamed while I slammed into another gorillapede. It didn't seemed to be very ineffective. However, I did seem to have angered them because when I ran on they started chasing after me. Now I just had to figure out how to get away.

I ran as fast I could. My time in the cage had allowed me a chance to rest, but I was still no match for the gorillapedes. In less than a minute, they had caught up to me. A few gorillapedes had rushed past and curled around back at me. They were in front of me. They were behind me. They were all around me. They had me surrounded!

The gorillapedes began to circle around me. Every now and then one would lean in and growl. They were playing with their food now. I had no way out. There was nothing I could do. At least, that yeti thing had gotten away with the Sharkwoman, I thought.

The gorillapedes moved in for the kill when suddenly a shadow fell upon us. The gorillapedes pulled back with fright. The shadow seemed to come alive. Was it one of those shadowmonsters from the upper floors? How had it gotten down here? Had it come for me?

The shadow swiped at the gorillapedes and they moved back. It swiped again and once again they moved back. Then the shadow pounced and the gorillapedes ran away. For a second, I breathed a sigh of relief but then the shadow turned on me.I remembered what those things had done to the Sharkwoman. I remembered how hard they had been to get away from. I remembered that falling down that hole onto a shrinking island surrounded by a lake of acid with that cabbage looking monster trying to eat me had been a lucky break. And now I was all alone against one of those things with nowhere to go and nothing to protect myself, but then it began to start...shrinking?

Suddenly, a creature fell from the sky and landed on the shadowmonster! No...wait...the shadowmonster was just...this creature's shadow? And even stranger, the creature looked like Tug dressed in chainmail and a shiny helmet that covered his ears. He smiled at me, triumphantly. "How was my Guardian impression?" he asked. "Scared them off, huh? Worked like magic."

to be continued next week