“You can’t destroy anything. You’re nothing but a parasite. And an ugly one at that.”
That did it. Taunts that wouldn’t affect anyone over the age of sixteen were working on her like a charm. Chose not to complain—I was all about the universe actually doing me a solid.
The Anti-Mother moved toward me. Despite being very much like jellyfish blobs, parasites moved fast when they wanted to, and she did. She also moved enough of herself away from Yoko Ono that I now had a very wide strike zone to aim for.
But I was one with the star, the galaxy, the universe, and that meant I was faster. Went into a windup and tossed the sphere of Cradus and Spehidon at Yoko Ono. Direct hit. Wruck’s trajectory of power had been quite the assist. Go team.
Grabbed SuperBun off of my shoulder, kissed the top of his head through what was left of our armor, went into another windup, and tossed him as well. Another direct hit. I was “on fire” so to speak. Maybe I should talk to the Diamondbacks whenever we got home. That was me, focused on the potential for survival.
“Prepare to be utterly destroyed,” the Anti-Mother snarled.
Moved into a fighting stance, Metallica’s “Fight Fire with Fire” on my airwaves, then said what I’d said often in these circumstances.
“Yeah? Bring it.”
CHAPTER 84
THE ANTI-MOTHER LUNGED TOWARD ME. Part of her was still around Yoko Ono but the rest was stretched out, reaching for me.
But I’d been hoping for this and therefore prepared. “John,” I said quietly, “let go of me . . . now!”
He did as ordered and I leaped forward and grabbed her.
If we’d been on Earth, this would have meant I had icky parasite all over me and was likely to become a superbeing. But here, with my ability to see as Lilith saw, could spot what to grab, how to move, to actually hold onto the parasite and keep it contained. And I had enough body armor left that I couldn’t really feel her. Drax Industrial totally for the win.
As we started wrestling, realized for the first time that we weren’t standing on anything. This might have thrown me, but when Lilith and I had met, I’d been fighting against her vessel, Uma, aka Bitch Leader, in what had been a weird, invisible sphere where up and down had no real meaning. Meaning I’d had a fight to the death like this before, nothing to get freaked out about.
And we were wrestling. It was a good thing that I’d been a jock in school, because while track and field was my sport, I’d had an interest in all the others, too. I’d had friends on the wrestling team, and Mom and Chuckie both had pushed for me to learn how to escape from wrestling holds well before I started taking kung fu, so wrestling with a slippery parasite wasn’t all that weird. At least on the Kitty Weird Scale, at any rate.
Since I wasn’t the goal, the Anti-Mother also wasn’t trying to join with me, which was a huge positive. Maybe she couldn’t because of the body armor or just had no interest. She was trying to smother me, to cover me up and engulf me. Could see her atoms rearranging to disintegrate me in some way, and saw that they’d be able to do it, if I couldn’t figure out how to win, or at least how to keep her off balance.
The Anti-Mother was a much larger parasite than I was used to, so she had a real shot at this. She was the size of a beach towel, and I was used to parasites being no bigger than a medium-sized watermelon, if that big. And a beach towel could wrap up a smaller human, and I was a smaller human.
But the beach towel comparison gave me an idea. Grabbed her top two corners, so to speak, and started rolling them like you did with a towel when you were going to make a rat’s tail and snap someone with it. Did this at hyperspeed, made even faster by the fact that with Lilith inside me I was at warp speed already.
The Anti-Mother hadn’t been expecting this tactic, and she struggled to keep her equilibrium. Saw her start to lose her grip on Yoko Ono, as Wruck, now not having to hold onto me, went closer to the core, doing something that I couldn’t risk focusing on.
Didn’t see SuperBun, but I felt him in my mind. With Lilith and Wruck’s help, he was doing what the Anti-Mother wanted to do—he was joining with Yoko Ono while keeping this knowledge from Anti-Mother. Took a moment to be impressed. Then had to immediately kick Anti-Mother in what I hoped was a tender spot, since her bottom half got around my legs.
This went on for what might have been ages, might have been seconds, but music indicated was less than five minutes. Chose not to care about how time was or wasn’t passing here. Had to keep on fighting, distracting, making the Anti-Mother focus on only me.
“Now!” Wruck shouted, as my music changed to “Throw It Away” by Joe Jackson. Wrenched at the Anti-Mother with all my strength and she pulled away from the core.
Let go of her, reached into my purse, grabbed the cage, triggered it, and did what I was being told—threw it away, at the parasite.
Results were, happily, immediate.
The cage expanded, went around the parasite, snapped shut, and went small. As I’d done with Lilith, dove to make sure I caught it before it fell into the star or into space or whatever. As my hand closed around it, Wruck wrapped around me.
Time to go, Lilith said. We only have moments.
Dropped the cage into my purse and grabbed the Z’porrah power cube. Had to have a destination and needed to think of it in less than a split second, as I felt our body armor burn away much faster now. Had to be careful, though, and pick the right place, or else we’d end up dead or far away from the others.
Closed my eyes and thought of the one place that always meant I was safe.
CHAPTER 85
“OOOF!” JEFF SAID, as we landed in his arms. “What the hell?”
Opened my eyes. We were back, in the Distant Voyager, in the mess hall. Well, three of us were back. “Check the sun!”
“Why do you weigh so much more than normal?” Jeff asked as he put me down carefully. The song ended and another one didn’t start up. Clearly we were back and, hopefully, back to normal. Well, as normal as we ever got.
“Because John is with me.” Noted that Denise and the younger kids weren’t in evidence, but all the older kids were here.
Wruck unwrapped and went back to his standard form for hanging around with all of us. Jeff wasn’t the only one staring.
“Why are you both in Moon Suits?” Christopher asked.
“Long story. Look, someone, anyone, check the sun. Right now.”
Jeff’s eyes narrowed. “What did you two just do?” He jerked. “And what the hell is inside of you, Kitty?”
“Lilith.”
At this name, everyone who’d been involved with Operation Invasion gasped and most of them went for weapons.
Put up the paw. They all stopped. Even in this situation the One True FLOTUS Power still worked. “Lilith is on our side.”
“She’d force you to say that,” Reader said.
Looked at Wruck. “Your turn.”