Grunt Work

Boss Fight

'I have just one question,' Theo asked of us, 'do either of you know how to land?'

Katya and I looked at each other. I was kinda hoping she had a different answer than I did. She shook her head. That's a no, then.

'I know how to land,' Manish spoke up, grinning. 'Though you're not going to like it.'

'Crashing is different to landing,' Johnnie pointed out.

'Not that,' Manish hooked a thumb to the back of the transport jet. 'We jump.'

I looked to the back. By the exit there were emergency parachutes. I looked out the front window. Ahead of us, the Thunderbird was breathing bright blue plumes from their mouth onto the Kaptain's forces below. From this height they all looked like ants. Tiny little pops of light as the other grunts shot into the air. I could make out the Kaptain himself, not because he was bigger, but because he was the only source of water in the desert. Great plumes of water, like geysers, flew into the air to meet the Thunderbird's fire breath.

'I have just one other question,' Theo asked, hovering over my shoulder to look out the cockpit window. 'Do we have to land? I'm fine with heading back to base.'

'Of course we land,' Katya snarled at him, unharnessing herself to walk to the back of the jet. Johnnie joined her.

'Do you even know how to use that, hen?'

'Put it on. Jump. Pull the chord, preferably before you land.'

'More or less,' Johnnie said. 'Here, let me talk you through it.'

I made sure Theo listened, since he was pretty distracted, but I almost forgot to pay attention, myself. I only heard the number '2,000 AGL', which I figured was when I opened my chute, though I had no idea what AGL meant. I figured I'd just wing it and watch when the others did.

The drop itself was pretty fun, and since the other grunts kept the Thunderbird busy, we had an easy enough jump of it. My equipment came with an altimeter of sorts, and by the looks of it Theo opened his chute earlier than he should have. I guess he wanted to enjoy the view, which was fair. It was a nice, cinematic looking battle, the kind you see in the movies, and I opened my chute early to join him and enjoy the view on the way down. It did also help me pick out a better spot to land, and I touched the ground near a tank that someone had left unattended. I jumped in, then immediately had second thoughts. Why does everything have to have such complicated controls? It's basically a car. Why does it have so many pedals? I jumped out and went into the top to man the big gun and found this was much more to my liking.

'Hey Theo, put some ammo in the gun,' I called down to him, then tried to aim the gun at the Thunderbird. It was only a little bit difficult, and it wasn't a perfectly lined up shot, but when your target is that big, it doesn't need to be.

'Locked and loaded!' Theo yelled, 'I always wanted to say that!'

I fired. The shell hit the Thunderbird on their stomach, a little lower than I'd intended, and exploded in a puff of dirty smoke.

'Ah. forgot about gravity,' I muttered to myself. I figured that such a big gun wouldn't need to worry about that, like the way you would with a long range shot with an ordinary gun, but I guess even this had to answer to gravity, and adjusted my next shot to hit their chest and it was at this point I realised that the Thunderbird had turned to face us.

'Well done!' Katya yelled from the street, running towards us. She jumped in the front and readied the heavy machine gun. She aimed it at the Thunderbird and started firing.

Johnnie and Manish jogged up after her, then jumped in the back of the tank. 'No oven?' Johnnie complained from below me. 'But how do you make any tea in here?'

I felt Theo load another shell into the barrel, felt the back close shut and didn't wait for him to say I could fire before I fired, hitting the Thunderbird dead centre. The Qi forme shuddered as the shell exploded, fell from the air - but only briefly as they recovered before they hit the ground. They flapped their massive wings and I felt the rush of wind beat me down as they came to hover over us. The Thunderbird took up the entirety of the sky above me, around me. I could see nothing but bird. I could only see their glowing eyes, their glowing chest. Their glowing mouth as fire erupted from it.

And then I saw nothing but vapour as water met fire. Through the mist I saw the shadow of the bird, its loud screeches filling my ears, and the Kaptain's mad keening yell as he soared through the air to meet the Thunderbird. I felt more than heard a deep rumbling below me, then jets of water rushed up from the ground around me. I fired my cannon again but had no idea if I hit anything. From up the street I saw Winnie surfing on a stick, leading the other henchlings to join the fight, flying up to take the Thunderbird from behind, and soon they were also lost in the mist. The sun was lost to dust and smoke and haze. Everything was. I was only vaguely aware of movement around me as more and more grunts came to the fight, shooting blindly into the air, hoping to contribute. I didn't, not again. I just watched. I could just vaguely hear the Kaptain yelling in Maori, his voice matching the Thunderbird's for intensity and volume, but slowly the Kaptain's gained in strength and the Thunderbird's waned, becoming quieter, more strained, and then the fog and smoke was swept away as the Thunderbird gave two massive beats of their wings, driving them high into the sky. Away from the Kaptain. Away from us. Just...away. The Thunderbird, protector of the north, the personification of the element of Fire - fled.

We cheered. So much that our throats became hoarse. We had beaten the Thunderbird on their home territory.

And then we heard the sonic boom.

We stopped cheering.

Some of us, I saw, were looking in the direction where the Thunderbird had flown to, but I knew that was a mistake.

I looked around wildly in the air. I don't know what I was looking for, but it's one of those things that you'd know when you saw it. And I saw it.

It was a blur. A tear in the sky.

It landed in the middle of us, and the shockwave through the closest grunts high into the air, the ground beneath it breaking. I ducked low into the tank to protect myself from the rain of debris, but when I looked out again, I wish I hadn't.

It was Qi Force.

It was Paula.