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It was way past dark when the Pipes met in the clearing in the forest north of the dormitory towers for some late night practice.
“I want to hammer somebody!” Neil Groep bellowed in frustration. Black lightning shot from his makeshift gun at a shadow that was only a tree. Neil tensed, whirled, and saw a shadow racing from that tree to another. “Protons,” Neil mumbled. It had been somebody.
“Neil! Lookout!”
Neil jumped behind a rock just as hot energy discharged over his shoulder. “You muon!” he yelled. Crouching to remain hidden, he fired over his one shoulder at something moving in front of a tree. It connected.
“Score one for Neil,” yelled the voice of Chris Venatio from one side of the energy ring.
“He’s still on his feet,” squeaked the voice of Dustin Rajongo.
“Protons,” Neil mumbled again, scrambling to follow Dustin’s shadow as it disappeared into some brush. Two more shadows crossed in front of him so that Neil tried firing at both of them and thereby missed them both. He squinted hard, trying to see anything with only a half moon of light and plenty of shadowy cover to hide. He thought he saw two shadows square off across the ring, and black lightning firing between them, but Chris didn’t indicate any points scored. “Protons,” he muttered louder.
Pushing through the brush in front of him, he thought he saw a moving shadow between two boulders a distance ahead, and scrambled to follow. It had to be Dustin. Stumbling over a root, he recovered and sprinted hard after where he had last seen it, but could make out nothing in the darkness. Where had he gone?
Suddenly, clear as day, Dustin was standing on a rock above him. What happened? He wasn’t a shadow.
“You’re finished,” Dustin laughed and fired.
Neil dived and rolled behind the cover of another nearby boulder just as hot lightning singed his bare skin. Behind the rock, Neil looked at his exposed arms; what had happened to his shield? He checked the switch on his belt, but it was still switched on. Something had happened to the power source.
“Hold the fight,” Neil bellowed, standing and waving his arms. “There’s something-”
Dustin, Bill Manias, and Jeff Gruppe simultaneously fired their weapons at Neil, who got singed in several different places as he dropped behind the rock.
“Come on out, Neil,” Dustin squealed. “We know where you are.”
Neil saw a thick bush next to the rock behind which he was hiding, and pushed his way through, tearing his clothes and scraping is skin. “Massless gluons,” he muttered. “No protonic shields.” Coming out the other side of the bush, scratched and bloodied, he fired on Dustin from the side.
“Aaaaaarrrrrrrggggggghhhhhhh,” Dustin screamed.
“Neil! Behind you!”
Hot energy flashed all around him as he dropped to the ground. Jumping up, he saw Jeff running in the other direction and fired.
“Hold your fire,” Tim Buzi yelled back as Neil aim at him. “I’m on your side.”
“Same here,” said Mario Rassembler, appearing from behind a boulder on the other side of the ring. “What happened?” he asked. “I completely lost my shield, and then Dustin, Bill, and Jeff just starting firing on us.”
Neil didn’t answer, however, because he was watching three girls slip away into the darkness of the forest.
Narration provided by Howard Douglas, based on discussions with Mario Rassembler.
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