Draiks and Angels: Vignettes

Sean Tagan - Part 4

It took them longer than anticipated to head out the following day. Mark said he had a new plan that required a custom weapon and had to find the parts first. According to the tracker, it was going to be a long boat ride, and Mark was confident he could finish his jury-rigging by the time they arrived. Sean noticed that Mark also brought a rather large, rainbow umbrella, but didn't dare ask what it was for.

After about an hour of tinkering, Mark declared that he was finished. He pulled out several of the sticker sheets, cut them into squares of one sticker a piece, and loaded them into what kind of looked like a gun. Sean could see a CO2 cartridge, like from a paintball gun, that must have been what was going to power it. Mark pointed at one of the men across the boat, told him to guard his face, and fired.

Several stickers shot across the space and stuck to the man's raised arms. Mark nodded, then set about tweaking the fire rate. By the end, it was quite fast, but also would drop about a third of the stickers that ended up hitting on the wrong side or the edge.

As they approached the island, they could see there were people standing on the dock. It had to be their targets!

Mark quickly gave instructions, "The goal is to get stickers on the Draik and Angel ASAP. I will use this gun, but they both have the ability to vanish it if they have any reason. So you," Mark pointed at Sean, "will use the umbrella to mask what we are doing. It should also block those arrows. Everyone else, disembark behind the umbrella. I will lean around to fire. Push quickly off the dock and surround the Draik and Angel until Chad is ready. If all goes well, their magic should be gone by then so there should be no danger. You two go after Kinter. Firearms allowed, but keep it clean. Chad wants rope this time. Thinks that'll make a difference."

The ship was almost at the dock, so everyone raced around to gather their supplies. Sean grabbed a coil of rope, hung it from his belt, and grabbed the umbrella. Their targets had backed off the dock and were waiting just down the stairs. Before Mark gave the signal, one of the men jumped the gun and leapt onto the dock. Mark quickly whistled and everyone else jumped out.

Mark and Sean were first, and Sean started to pull out the umbrella as the eager beaver collapsed in front of him. He saw an instant of the Angel Satiya, and Tadeas holding many arrows before he brought the rainbow blind up.

"An umbrella?! Of all the ridiculous-!!" Sean heard Satiya yell.

"It's working, though!" Kinter called.

Sean and Mark had continued forward, stepping over their unconscious group-mate, while their targets complained and had reached the end of the dock where the stairs were. Suddenly, the umbrella disappeared from Sean's hand. Sean stood there, stunned, wondering why he hadn't thought they would do that, but Mark immediately shot his gun at the pair.

The Angel and Draik raised their arms to shield themselves from the pepper of stickers, but that just meant they ended up with some on their arms as well as their heads and necks. Sean was surprised to see the stickers all turn green almost immediately. More meant faster, apparently.

Mark and Sean were still in the front, so they rushed off the dock and around behind Satiya and Tadeas. The Draik tore a couple stickers off his head, leaving the ones on his arms, and the Angel pulled off all the ones on her skin, but Sean was reasonably sure their batteries had been drained anyway. One of his group broke formation and started stalking toward the Angel. Sean wondered what she had done to make him mad. Before Mark could reprimand him, Tadeas jumped over and punched the guy in the side of the head, knocking him back.

"Why are you trying to protect me?! You can't even protect yourself!" Satiya hissed.

"I don't like seeing people scared," Tadeas replied, quietly.