ratcatchers | Pied Piper: "Of Gremlins and Ratcatchers" Part 3

On Monday (Febuary 20th) Rob, Max and the gremlin met up with Said for the trip back to Nowhere. Lee followed on his own. The trip in followed the same setup as last time and went as planned. Coon and the gremlins went back into the duct work to pick up the bugs he had set in Reed's lab and the secretary's office the previous week. All went as planned until Mr.Coon had removed the bugs from Reed's lab. His nervous little companion alerted him to the fact that the lab was rapidly filling up with dozens of adult gremlins. Mr. Coon was surrounded.

Pretty much as soon as Coon went into the ducts Said started recieving messages from D'Ange's secretary about a special meeting he was supposed to have with D'Ange. Said verbally dodged but she became more and more insistant. Eventually she explained that the meeting was about Said's brother who had been missing. Said was both concerned about his brother's well being and suspicious about how D'Ange knew about his brother's plight. Said invited the secretary in. Rob knocked her out cold with one punch. The gig was up. After repeated attempts to contact the coon they recieved a message that he was captured. Rob and Said decided to leave Nowhere immediately without Max.

The two make it as far as the car. Unfortunately someone had sabatoged Said's car so that it wouldn't start. That somebody quickly appeared in the form of Dr. Reed and two goons. Rob dove out of the car to confront the armed goon squad. Said hid behind the car and aided Rob using his magic. Rob got off to a rough start but Said's invisibility magic (and the fact that the goons couldn't hit a barn in broad daylight) turned the tide. Dr. Reed was a credible threat but quickly showed his true colours (coward) when the fight reached him. Dr. Reed escaped back into the building and made the door disappear behind him much to Rob's annoyance. Rob quickly knocked out but did not kill the two remaining goons. (Max would be proud.)

As Rob finished off the goons Said's attention was drawn away from the fight. He could see a naked man walking slowly towards the front gate, the snow melting under his feet. The gate was closing but more disturbing than that Said could see magic being drawn away in two streams; one twards the naked man and one towards the central tower. Suddenly Said was struck by a feeling of nausea and weakness. Meanwhile, Coon had been deposited by the gremlins in a locked generating room. The gremlins hadn't harmed him, just lead him there and left him and the baby gremlin trapped in the locked room. Trying to get a feel for the situation Coon looked with magic sight and noticed a familiar pattern. The magic in the room was crawling the walls, forming into little streams and being drawn away. Slightly paniced Mr. Coon picked the door lock and ran as fast as his short furry legs could carry him towards the front gate.

After the last goon was knocked out Rob looked up and saw the naked Lee approaching the front gate. Rob yelled to Said to run then ran towards the building in which Coon was being held. He met Coon running the other way, scooped him up and ran for the front gate. They all ran to the rendevous point where Kevin was waiting with the snowmobiles. They fled for their lives just as Lee, fully changed into dragon form, and D'Ange, in angel form, started to fight in the skies above Nowhere. They were in full flight when Max looked back over his shoulder to witness the dragon disappearing and a small human form falling towards the ground.