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Gloria only took a moment to consider arguing with him. That plan sounded to her like nothing more than a really good way to be turned into hamburger, but they didn t have the time for any typical banter or arguing. With a tug on Wylma s arm she made a beeline for the bathroom hall. She didn t take the time see if Wylma followed, but she thought she could hear the woman moving behind her.

As she started down the back hall, which was just as dimly lit as the rest of the bar, Gloria could already see the service entrance Wylma had mentioned. It was beyond both the bathrooms and a door marked Employees Only, and it was closing again after someone had already gone through. That was a bad sign. A normal human, even moving on adrenaline, wouldn t have been able to go that distance that quickly. She wasn t sure which parts of them exactly were augmented with robotic parts and machinery, but apparently their enhancements allowed them to move faster than normal. She didn t have the slightest clue how she was going to stop them. She still had her duffel bag with her, which she had unzipped for easy access as she had rushed to Caleb s side after he d been hit, but she didn t think anything inside was going to be particularly useful. It was a good thing she had such a powerful sorceress with her. Wylma was going to be the only way they could stop this.

Right as Gloria grabbed the door handle to shove it open she felt Wylma s hand on her shoulder. You go on after them, Wylma said. I have to stay here.

He knows what he s doing, Gloria said. At any other time those words might have been accompanied by a sarcastic snort, but for now she had to trust that he really did have the experience for this. She d seen him beat strange odds enough in the past. But Wylma didn t appear to believe it.

This is all my fault. I ve got to help him make it right.
Right, sure, that s exactly why I need you to come with me! They re too fast for me to stop alone!
Then take this, Wylma said. She had already been fishing around in her pocket. She pulled out a baggie with five white pills in it, and she grabbed one and dropped it into Gloria s hand. It s kind of a version of speed, I guess, except literally. Hopefully it will be enough to catch them, and it barely has any side effects.
This is a very bad wait, what kind of side effects?
Oh nothing really, Wylma said. She was already turning and going back towards the fight. Just sometimes the user turns into a My Little Pony. But if that happens don t worry! It s only for about fifteen minutes.
Are you fricking kidding me? Gloria yelled after her, but Wylma didn t appear to hear her as she ran back.
Gloria looked down at the pill in her hand. She never did any drugs (well, she did pot, but she didn t do any real drugs), so she wouldn t have been crazy about this even under the best of circumstances. The fact that the pill in her hand was probably the result of some wild magic or mad science made her even more hesitant. But this was not the time to hesitate. It was possible that Tuffy and Muffy were already too far gone for her to catch. If she was going to maintain any chance of catching up, then she had no choice but to take that damned woman s mystery pill.
Screw it, Gloria said. I always did love My Little Ponies. She popped the pill in her mouth and swallowed it as she opened the door.

Caleb was still struggling to concentrate through the pain of the first punch. Every tiny movement of his body made him wince, both from the damage of the hit and all the tiny shards of broken bottles that peppered his back, and this was before the real fight had even begun. He had to blink several times as his vision threatened to go black. Damn. He was really screwed this time.

The rest of the crowd had formed a loose circle around him and Fluffy, and a few people grabbed any tables that might be in the way and pulled them aside. A chant was just beginning, the people all around saying Fight! Fight! Fight! and thrusting their fists in the air. Mad scientists they may have been, preferring the powers of the mind to the physical, but they had as much bloodlust as any other group of hardcore bikers would after too much to drink. Fluffy smiled at all the sudden attention, and when her lips pulled back Caleb saw that her teeth were nothing but gleaming metal. Perfect. Not only did he have to watch out for her killer uppercut, but he had to make sure she didn t bite him either. One bite could probably sever a hand. He realized how long it had been since he d used the bathroom as he fought to keep from pissing his pants.

This was ridiculous. There had to be some other way to take this woman out without actually trying to fight. As much as he would have liked to prove to himself that he was manly enough to take out a cyborg in a fist fight, he was pretty sure that he couldn t even take out a drunk dwarf with no feet and only one hand even on some of his better days. This was why he always kept the duffel bag around and tried to keep his head about him. But he had nothing for this occasion. The duffel bag was at his feet to his left, but he was pretty sure it would be useless right about now.

Caleb! He could only barely hear the shout over the growing chant. At first he thought it was Gloria, and he almost screamed at her to ask what the hell she thought she was doing, then he saw Wylma s head as she jumped up to try to see him over the wall of drunken mad scientists. That was even worse. Even with as much respect as he had for Gloria, respect that he only wished he could articulate, he still didn t think she had what it would take to get the bag back by herself.

Wylma, what the fuck are you doing? Caleb yelled. Go with He stopped as he saw Fluffy gearing up for a punch. He tried to figure out where the punch would go, but he didn t have much experience with this sort of thing. The only fistfight he had ever been in had been when he was twelve, and it had ended with him nursing two black eyes. Rather than try to dodge the punch or throw something to counter it, he instead pushed off with his feet backwards as Fluffy hit him. It looked to Caleb like she had been aiming for his gut, but his move had the desired effect of throwing her off and it got him in the arm instead. He still felt pain blossom in the muscle just above his elbow, but with his backward movement it didn t have the power behind it that it was supposed to. He stumbled backwards, and several of the drunks around him rushed to get out the way.

Okay
, he thought to himself,
that was good but you can t keep doing that. She ll pound you eventually and something tells me that a good hit from her in the right spot and I won t be getting up from it. So come on. Think!

He could hear Wylma screaming, much louder than she had been before, but no one appeared to be listening. Stop fighting in my bar! If you don t I ll make everyone in here sorry! Fluffy either didn t hear her or ignored the woman. Caleb supposed it was hard to take seriously a woman covered in tattoos of Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh, but he had seen her displays of power in the past. When she got angry enough, everyone here would learn not to ignore. But Caleb still had to survive until then.

Fluffy swung again, but this one appeared to be more of a taunt than an actual attempt to deck him. He glanced around him, looking for anything he might be able to use against her, but he wasn t really sure what would be effective. All he saw was a bunch of mad scientist guzzling beers

He grabbed a beer bottle from the nearest scientist who was too far gone to try to take it back and backed up further from Fluffy. The crowd around them continued shifting, always keeping the circle around them both, and Caleb eventually backed right up to the bar. He wasn t sure how useful this would be, but it might at least keep him alive until Wylma got her wits about her and kicked Fluffy s ass. Keeping his eyes on Fluffy as she approached, not in any hurry, he grabbed the beer bottle by its neck and smashed it against the bar. He d seen this enough in the movies, where someone would smash the bottle and be able to use the broken bits as a weapon. Too bad he d never had a chance to practice. Maybe he was holding it wrong, or maybe he had smashed it too hard. Either way, instead of forming a sharp weapon with an easy-grip handle the entire thing shattered, including the neck, instantly cutting up his hand.

God damn it! he screamed, just before Fluffy landed a punch to his chest. He flew back against the bar, not getting enough air this time to actually go over it, and collapsed next to one of the bar stools. This was going beyond merely painful now to completely embarrassing. He had a reputation at the OneStop of being able to stop the most ghastly creatures that had ever roamed the earth. The possibility of buying it in a mere bar fight was enough to make his cheeks burn in embarrassment.

Fluffy took a moment to turn to the crowd and raise her arms in triumph, and the crowd roared its drunken approval. It was almost enough to drown out Wylma s scream for them to stop or else, and maybe there was something in her tone that a few of the people didn t like because one or two glanced nervously in her direction. But for the most part no one was paying her any attention, and they were only barely giving Caleb any either. All their eyes were on Fluffy. Caleb glanced around himself, his sight unfocused from the repeated blows, but he could at least scan his environment for anything that might help.

About six feet away, down the nearest side of the circle of onlookers, he found it, but his punchdrunk brain didn t recognize it for what it was at first. His first thought was that he was looking at a hair dryer, and it was entirely possible that was exactly what it had started out its life as. All these mad scientist types prided themselves on their do-ityourself attitude, so of course they would build their crazy inventions from common household items. But most people didn t carry their hair dryer with them to the bar, let alone in a holster at their hip. The woman who wore it hanging from her belt was watching Fluffy, but her gaze was blurry and she didn t look like she was rooting Fluffy on. All the better for Caleb.

He stumbled towards the woman, doing his best to make it look he was just tripping blindly over himself in an attempt to stand back up. He didn t really have to pretend that much. Fluffy glanced down at him but didn t seem to think he was any threat yet. Instead she grabbed a beer from someone standing on the other side of the circle and took a deep swig.

Caleb did the closest he could come to a whisper among all the racket and still make himself heard by the woman. Excuse me, ma am, but that wouldn t by any chance be a death ray at your hip, would it?

The woman blinked down at him with her mouth hanging open. How dya know bout that? Iss supposed to be a secret.

All mad scientists have death rays, Caleb said.
I don t papreciate that term. I pafer to be called an eshentric scientist, thank you very mush.
Sorry. But would you mind if I borrow it?
Why the hell wouldya need a death ray?
Haven t you been paying attention here?
Not really.
Could I please just borrow it? It s kind of important.
She blinked a couple times at him, then pulled her hair dryer/death ray from its holster. Juss be careful wid it. Hazza helluva kick.
He took it from her, then used her arm to steady himself as he pulled himself the rest of the way into a standing position. On the other side of the circle Fluffy had her bottle tilted all the way to get the last drops of beer. Although it hadn t looked like she d been paying attention to him, she must have still realized exactly where he was and what he was doing. The instant he was fully to his feet her hand moved, faster than he could see, and she flung the bottle at him. It spun in the air like a throwing star, and Caleb did his best to duck from it. It clipped his forehead, and he yowled in pain and collapsed to the floor. He only barely managed to keep a hold of the death ray, but he was so dazed by now that he wasn t even sure he could aim it. Mad scientists who were drunkenly cheering on the person trying to kill him or not, most of these people were still more or less innocent, and he had to be careful that when he fired the ray it wouldn t hit anyone else. At the moment, however, he couldn t even be sure if he was pointing the stupid thing in the right general direction. Fluffy laughed as she stepped closer to him. Caleb had fallen forward onto his hands and knees, and the death ray was beneath him where she couldn t see. Maybe she hadn t seen him grab it from the woman, or maybe she didn t think it would be much of a threat, but either way she came at him with no hesitation. With a loud inhuman roar she raised both fists over her head and prepared to bring them down on Caleb s head. If she wasn t pulling her punches at all this time, he was sure this one would be enough to crush his skull.
In the quickest, least-wobbly way Caleb could manage, he pulled up the death ray and aimed it up at Fluffy s face. She didn t have the time to look surprised as he pulled the trigger and blew her entire face off.
The woman who had given it to him hadn t been kidding: the death ray did indeed have quite a kick. But it was about the kick he would have suspected considering what it did. The muzzle of the hair dryer flashed white, and there was a deafening high pitched echo as a beam of light exploded from it and rammed right into Fluffy s face. Her body stepped backwards from the shock, and the entire bar went silent as the place where her head had been was temporarily obscured by dark oily smoke. The entire room suddenly smelled of charred flesh, and Caleb allowed himself a relieved breath as he waited for the cybernetic body to drop.
But it didn t. Fluffy s hands and arms went down, but not dropping like she was dead. Instead they moved to feel where her face had been, and finally the smoke cleared enough for Caleb to see the damage he had done. It had been a solid shot hitting her squarely where her nose had been, but that didn t mean her head had been vaporized. Just all the skin and outer flesh. Blackened bits of flesh sloughed off and plopped to the floor, revealing the structure that had been underneath. Caleb almost expected to see a gleaming silver skull underneath it with glowing red eyes, but that was not the case. The glowing red cybernetic eyes were definitely there, but instead of silver the metal underneath was bright yellow. Instead of a skull shape, her head s endoskeleton was a simple sphere. With the shiny silver teeth now fixed in a permanent rictus, Fluffy s head now looked exactly like a giant smiley face.
Well, Caleb, he muttered to himself, have a nice day. He raised an arm up to shield his head as the cyborg once again raised her hands and prepared to smash down on him.
Damn it, when I say stop fighting I mean STOP! Wylma s words were in that same low and scary voice she had used earlier, and he didn t need to see her to know that her eyes were probably shining white again. He could hear a dull buzz in the air and smell ozone just a fraction of a second before her spell sent another white flash through the air, this time strong enough to blind both him and every other person in the bar for the space of several seconds.
When his sight finally came back to him he realized that, with the exception of Wylma, every single person in the bar was now naked. Including him.
Dude, Wylma, he said. What the hell? She didn t respond to him. After a few seconds silence for everyone to realize what had just happened, anarchy erupted in the bar as everyone started scrambling in every direction. Some of the people dashed around trying to find anything they might use to cover themselves up, but most of them were too drunk to think about such things. Instead there was a huge clatter as everyone dropped whatever they had been drinking, the glasses shattering at their feet, and they all ran for the nearest exit. Immediately after the exodus began the screams started, some from the people who fell and were almost trampled, but most from everyone stepping with their bare feet in the freshly smashed glass. As close as she had been only moments before, Fluffy suddenly found a huge mass of people running between her and Caleb, completely blocking any attempt she might still try making against him. Caleb again tried to shield himself, this time against the tide of bodies threatening to crush him where he sat on the floor. After a few seconds, however, he noticed that no one was even coming close to him. There was a slight hiss in the air every time anyone came more than a foot away, and as he noticed the static that seemed to surround him he realized there had to be a magical field of some sort, something Wylma must be casting. He resisted the panicked urge to get up and instead let the crowd surge around him. The exodus was over in half a minute, and as the magical field vanished he stood up. The floor was completely covered in broken glass, and most of the tables and chairs were overturned. Every single person was gone except for him and Wylma, who stood on the other side of the bar as her eyes returned to their normal color and crackling energy dissipated from her hands. Fluffy had disappeared right along with the rest of the crowd, but if Caleb felt any disappointment about not beating her it disappeared quickly as he realized how lucky he was just to have his skull intact.
But he was still buck naked.
Seriously, Wylma, that was all you could think of to do? he asked.
Sorry, she said. Her breathing was labored, and as she sunk down into one of the few upright chairs he could see her eyelids fluttering in exhaustion. I don t usually think straight under pressure, she murmured, then slouched back in the chair. It was only a few seconds later that the sleepy sorceress started snoring, and Caleb was forced to try finding his cell phone and duffel bag without any magical help.
It could have been worse, he realized. He might not have clothes anymore, but he did have a death ray. He figured it was a fair trade.