MISC: The Girl Who Saved The World Part 9

[George Phillies]

With profound thanks to Drew Perron for his helpful comments, we 
continue the last paragraph.

She could readily have drawn out this conversation for some time yet, 
say until I felt comfortable about teleporting out. No such luck. 
Valkyria threw her explosive throwing katana.    The katana explosion 
packs the power density of a starcore weapon. Her team launched a 
totally bizarre mixture of high power attacks.  Not one of them seemed 
to have noticed that if I died I would drop the Namestone, which would 
roll back down the Stairs into the Lesser Maze, there to be returned to 
the Martyr. Perhaps Valkyria counted on the explosion from her throwing 
sword to blast the Namestone free.

I’d forgotten the Screaming Skull, not that he’d said anything to me 
yet.  Over-focus is very dangerous in combat, but at this point I was 
outnumbered close to twenty to one. The Skull used the same moment to 
launch his personal attack, the Shower of Total Death.  Being attacked 
by the League of Nations Elite Team was bad news, but the Skull is a 
Lord of Eternity.  His attack? It works on people, it works on a tree, 
and now I’d see, if it works on me.  I’ve actually never been positive 
my second level shields do anything.  It’s not there are a lot of second 
level attacks wandering around to test them against.  Shields did fine. 
  Then Valkyria’s katana hit me. Of course, I’ve seen starcore energy 
densities before, the real ones, and my shields worked just fine that 
time, too. It’s just I was very tired, the gifts being used against me 
were incredibly powerful, and I had to go truly deep to hold my defenses 
against all of them at the same time.

For half an instant, the Skull looked surprised.  He could tell: I was 
not drawing on the Namestone.  He’d tried to kill me, and my personal 
defenses were good enough to stop his several other words that would not 
meet with Mum’s approval attack in its tracks.

I did not give them a second chance. I’d gotten down through enough 
levels to hold all my shields, keep slack, smash the teleport blocks, 
and teleport out. I flicked my wrist back. Namestone vanished.  I 
teleported out, far far away, all the way to the Dark Side of the Moon, 
then a half dozen fast jumps, one triple cycle loop, and finally a pause 
in case someone was following me.  I'd ended someplace that looks like 
it could be my base.  It isn’t, but it looks really basey.  Base-like? 
Basious?  GR, it looks like a high-power persona base.  Pursuers who 
could track me, a truly rare gift, would see I had stopped moving and 
charge after me.  I hadn't hurt anyone yet, but if someone followed my 
jumps they'd learn how good I am at wrecking things.

That’s very good at wrecking things.  Wrecking pursuers, in particular. 
   I waited until the teleport traces vanished. . I had no pursuers. 
Fortunately, traces do not fade by becoming ever fainter.  Traces chug 
on and then stop dead, gone forever.  A few more jumps brought me here, 
my own bedroom in my very own house.  I must have dropped the Namestone 
into its hiding place, stripped out of my garb, and fallen into bed. I 
really only remember closing my balcony door.

That brought me to the here and now.  I was incredibly thirsty.  Stomach 
said a solid meal was in order.  I rolled out of bed, every muscle 
complaining, and padded to my bathroom for a glass of water.  I was more 
than a bit cold, but water was definitely the first priority.  Then I 
dropped into my down bathrobe, shoulder and ribs protesting at the 
motion, and headed to the kitchen, the night light throwing a feeble 
shadow along the stairs in front of me.  Down bathrobe?  I’d left the 
heat pump at low, keeping the house temperature in the mid-50s, enough 
to keep pipes from freezing.  Yes, I have some neat photographs of the 
Pluto ruins, taken with me and camera inside my body field, but right 
now my gifts were very definitely turned off.  Doing the stairs was 
painful.  Besides the hand-to-hand combat, the Maze set other physical 
and mental challenges, enough to push me to all my limits.  Mum had 
taught me to be thoughtful and physically vigorous, but endurance and 
weight training only take you so far.