I pulled up myEmergency Gremlinscroll, and I read it. At the same time, Donut read the same scroll. I quickly repeated the process three more times, and in moments, we had eight bewildered gremlins in overalls standing in front of us.
All eight were different. All eight carried toolboxes with them. One had goggles on his head. One only had one eye. One had a hook for a hand.
“What’re we fixing, boss?” the eye-patch one asked me.
“Sorry, guys,” I said. We all took a few steps back.
“Whatchu mean?”
“Babies,” Prison Pocket repeated, reaching down with both hands and picking up the two closest gremlins, who started to squeal. “Small, stinky babies. Hush now. Papa’s got you. No, no. Quit your crying. Just a little dip in the ol’ pouch will set you right. So many babies. Just a little dip.”
He pulled the two screaming gremlins to his pouch and shoved them in. Even over the rain, I could hear the squelching noise. It sounded like someone shoving their fist into a deep, wet pot of runny oatmeal. A line of... goo... oozed out the top of the pouch and plopped onto the ground, where it sizzled in the rain.
“Okay, I’m gonna blow chunks,” Genesis said.
“Yo, what the fuck?” one of the remaining gremlins shouted as they scattered.
“No, little babies. Don’t run. Don’t run. Papa will keep you safe this time.”
One of the gremlins jumped off the road and started booking it toward the hills, only to get splattered by a wrecking-ball-sized chunk of hail. The red-soaked hunk of ice rolled away down the hill.
“No!” the kangaroo yelled. “No, come back! It’s not safe!”
“I really need a new job,” Pontiff grumbled.
I did my best not to feel bad about the gremlins. According to Imani, who’d already used the scroll once, they exploded when their summoning ended anyway.
“Go!” I shouted.
To my right, the two womantaurs loped forward, astonishingly fast. Their job was to get me a dead joey. They would use their arm chains to do it.
Thwump, thwump!Donut shot a pair of magic missiles into the eyes of the boss, who squealed in outrage. His health went down a good bit, but he immediately brought a gremlin to his mouth, and his health fully returned.
“Naughty, fuzzy baby,” the kangaroo said as he chewed.
“Carl! Did you see that? That barely worked!”
“He’s level 170! Hang on. Keep him distracted!”
I castRun, Little Günter, Run.
The chunky, pig-nosed kid in lederhosen appeared. His lollipop had changed color, but he otherwise looked the same as last time.
“Hi, I’m Günter!”
“Hey, kid, get that giant kangaroo!” I said, pointing.
I nodded to Pontiff, who was already in his backswing with his massive glowing mallet.
He walloped Little Günter with all of his strength.
Thud!
Pontiff let out a surprised grunt and flew back. It was as if his mallet had hit a solid wall.
“Nein! Nein!”Günter shrieked, and he turned and ran directly toward the kangaroo, who had two more gremlins in one fist and was reaching for a third with the other. The little kid ran right between the legs of Genesis, who had her arm aimed toward the kangaroo’s pouch. She fired...
... and pierced the screaming engineer guy right in the face, killing him instantly. She whooped and retracted, pulling his now-dead body toward us.