What A Week! ~~~~~~~~~~~~ Part 4 of n by Louis :) & ./\/'utsy (:3 /\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\ When I heard Kathalla's shout, I wrapped the sphere in a compression shell. It hurt - all I had available was hair from my own pelt, but I managed to keep it from expanding when Kathalla's control failed. Unfortunately, the contents had been compressed to critical mass and I was caught unprepared when it began to fission. I put everything I had into the final adjustment, straining my magic to its limits. I barely managed to adjust time inside the shell enought to keep the contents in stasis. To an outside observer, it appeared to be frozen on the edge of detonation. I fell back on the couch. I was utterly drained and could barely move - time isn't something Nature lets you play with lightly. My ears were ringing and my head was pounding. The room faded out. I woke up just in time to see Kathalla, who had recovered faster than I, head through the hole in the wall with the sphere in her hands. No one seemed to notice my lapse, and I was content to keep it that way. -=-=-=-=- -=-=-=-=- I watched Foxeris disappear from sight as he activated the popper spell. Why wasn't he going to help us get Brian back? 'You know, Louis, he might have a point,' I thought to myself. I sat back on the couch and reflected on the events that had happened so suddenly. I was soon oblivious to the room as I tried to figure out exactly what had happened and why. -=-=-=-=- The conversation fell silent when Foxeris left. I watched as Kathalla began pacing around the room again. I looked over at Louis, but he apeared to have gained a deep interest in the wood grain on the far side of the room. I returned my attention to Kathalla. From her comments, the beauty of her rear and Brian's family tree seemed to be inextricably tied together somehow. I think there was some kissing in there too. It sounded all rather strange to me. Suddenly I had an idea. Possibly I could help Kathalla. It wasn't much but it was something. "Um, Kathalla..." I chittered meekly. "WHAT!" she said, whipping around to face me. "Um, I could take you home if you wish. I could make a hole staight to your home, if you tell me where it is," I said and waited nervously. She thought about that. I jumped when she sudenly gave me an evil grin. "Yes. You do that. Get me home," she commanded. To herself she added, "I'll show that oogling chauvanist bastard..." "Er, I need an image of where to place the hole," I said and immediately she sent me a mental image of her room. It was very sharp - I had no trouble following it. I walked to a blank wall, opened up a small hole, and hopped into Kathalla's room. The bed towered above me. Ignoring the strange collection of rocks, gemstones, and pieces of leather designed for purposes I didn't care to guess, I found a large empty spot on the wall. I reached around into my pack and pulled out a duplicate of my special hole. Placing it on the wall, I commanded it to expand to full size. I also adjusted it so that it would close automatically, since I didn't want to clutter Kathalla's room with useless junk of mine. Quickly, I hopped through the new hole. The whole process didn't take me more than fifteen seconds and I returned to see Kathalla staring open mouthed at the wall where I had left the room. She turned to look at me with narrowed eyes. "You said you were going to get me home." I swallowed. "Y-Yes. Right through there," and I pointed at the hole I used as a common exit point for the size adjusting holes. Kathalla gave me that evil grin again and jumped through. I sat down and wiped my brow. Large carnivores are so unnerving! I might have been as tall as she was, here, but that grin more than made up for it. I shuddered. I noticed a small silver disk that had been dropped on the ground. I picked it up. It turned out to be Foxeris' but its construction was fascinating and I studied it the best I could. -=-=-=-=- 'He must have changed his mind while hiding behind the door but before Kathalla got there,' I thought to myself. It made a perverse kind of sense. Maybe his Velans had gotten to him with their scents. Maybe he just had a change of libido. Either way, it was his actions after that made me mad. Despite what Foxeris felt, I decided that I had come to help a friend out of a dangerous situation. True, a lot of it was Nutsy's fault, but some of the situation was of Brian's own making. He panicked a lot of people, for no good reason. Nutsy had not done it intentionally, nor did he deserve the response he got. And the bomb! This made me the maddest. Why would you try to destroy the very people who were trying to save your ass? To me, that weapon was not merely dangerous, but rather insanely lethal. It turned out to be ineffectual, considering how quickly it was dealt with, but it was only the quantity of powerful mages surrounding me that saved my piddly butt. And what if they hadn't been able to deal with it? And yet, this whole thing had become blown out of proportion. What started with me giving an M&M to a squirrel who kept bugging me while I was trying to do my homework had turned into my emminent death from a portable thermonuclear device. I preferred to belive that no one had had this in mind from the start and that things wouldn't have worked out quite this way if anyone had stopped to think. So as the saying goes, don't get mad, get even. 'A nice quiet life of debauchery, eh? We'll see about that' -=-=-=-=- "Is that Foxeris' disk thingy?" Startled, I looked up. Louis was staring intently at the silver disk in my paws. "Um, yes," I replied. "Can you duplicate it?" I shook my head. "It still belongs to Foxeris." "Oh well. We'll make do with one. Can you activate it?" "Sure. All I have to do is spin it. Why?" Louis got up and began to whisper conspiratorially into my ear. "Ok. Here's the plan...." I listened as he laid out the details. Soon I was grinning from ear to ear. Louis sat back with a self satisfied smirk. I giggled. I couldn't help it. "Let the punishment fit the crime," I said, and we both laughed. "C'mon! Race ya to the lab!" I jumped up and ran for the door. "You cheater! I don't even know where the lab is!" -=-=-=-=- It had been difficult, but we finally created the device. It consisted of a motion/vibration detector, linked to a three minute timer. The timer then activated a motor. Attached to the motor was the silver disk. The hardest part was making the disk undetectable during the time it was gaining speed and therefore vulnerable. Louis came up with the idea of a magical disk spinning in the reverse direction as a counterbalance. Suprisingly, it worked well: the build-up of magic was practically undetectable until the disk released its spell. I encased the whole thing in a black box about the same size as a double CD case. The casing hid the flashes it produced and made it practically invisible if placed in a dim location. Placing the device had been suprisingly simple. My squirrel plushie remote showed that no one was home. I made a hole in the floor beneath the bed, dragged out the large box, and stuck it to the bottom of the bed. To sweeten the pot, I placed my last three green M&Ms in a neat pile on the top of the bed.