#2 The Trojan Horse

“Okay, just get into the carcass. I’ll call the praying mantis babies,” I told Jon.

I had gotten the idea of luring the praying mantis babies to us with a giant praying mantis carcass from Mitch’s fun factoid. I figured they would naturally be attracted to the smell of decaying praying mantis daddy and come from all over. Hannah added her idea of making the carcass like a Trojan horse to make it an ambush. I was all for using a freshman from Dub P to be in the carcass, but Jon Wagner volunteered. He was eager to prove that water-bending was just as cool as fire-bending was.

Jon nodded and stepped into the large, green, and rather smelly carcass.

“All right, when you hear the babies start to feed, bust out Achilles style,” Hannah instructed. “We’ll be close by to help.”

“I got this,” Jon said.

I hoped so. He was the only water-bending trombone in existence. It would be a shame to lose him to the war.

We closed the carcass and locked Jon in. Mitch, Hannah and I crept away to a group of bushes nearby to wait. It was daylight now and we knew the babies would only come to feed at night. However, thanks to Global-Cooling, night wasn’t very far away.

Darkness descended and the three of us crouched together, shivering. I couldn’t heat my armor fast enough to keep the frost off it. Mitch had disappeared in his cloak. I had to help Hannah keep warm in her Greek armor. My hands felt as though they had been chopped off they were so cold and it was becoming difficult to fire-bend.

It was time to call the praying mantis babies. Warming my hands up with some fire, I began clapping my fingers together to make sharp clicking noises. Hopefully, the sound of praying mantis babies would lure more of them to the carcass than just the smell alone would.

“I sense a disturbance in the force,” Mitch muttered ominously.

Hannah and I glanced at each other nervously. I gripped my saxophone tightly and Hannah readjusted her shield. From the darkness, hundreds of luminescent, yellow eyes emerged. The sounds of tiny, pincer-like feet scuffling across the snow covered land surrounded us.

Then, an eerie, “Moo” sang from somewhere in the blackness.

Hannah went rigid, dropping her Celestial bronze javelin. “No!” she muttered. “Not now!”

“What is it?” I asked, preparing my saxophone to fire.

“Nothing,” she said. “I’ll take care of it.”

Before Mitch or I could stop her, she pitch up her javelin and bolted out of the bushes toward that ghostly moo. I stood, about to shout after her, but I saw that the praying mantis babies were nearly upon the carcass.

“We should start moving,” I suggested.

Mitch shook his head. “The time is not yet right. We should–” He faltered and cried, “Holy pineapple salad!”

I heard a loud crashing coming from behind us. I shot to my feet, arming my saxophone with fire just in time to see Jon burst out of the carcass. He water-bent the twenty nearest babies into blocks of ice.

“Take that!” he yelled, water-whipping several more babies.

More swarmed him as a raging ocean he could not bend. Mitch and I darted from the bushes.

I played a D on my saxophone, incinerating the nearest babies into ashes. “D is for death!” I shouted, blasting some more with fire-punches. This was going a lot better than the last time I fought a praying mantis baby. I put my saxophone to my lips and started playing Danza Finale in cut-time. The babies had no chance.

Mitch brought out his light-saber with its patented buzzing sound and began whirling it around in a swirl of green light. Babies fell all around him, though I never clearly saw Mitch strike them once.

Jon wailed. Praying mantis babies crawled up his arms and legs, preventing him from bending. Soon, they enveloped him completely. No matter how many babies Mitch or I defeated, twice as many were replacing them. The babies carried Jon away on a wave of writhing green limbs.

I fought with renewed vigor, trying my best to catch up to Jon, but there were so many praying mantis babies surrounding us. The world was alight in the yellow reflection of their eyes.

“We must retreat and regroup back at base. We’ll get another chance to fight them!” Mitch bellowed over the cackling of the babies.

“What about Jon?” I shouted back. “No marching band member left behind!”

“Jon is lost!”

Unwillingly, I changed my tactic and started fighting my way out of the mass. Hannah reappeared. She sprang into the center of the trouble, using her demi-godly powers over the wind to avoid the praying mantis babies. Lightly, she landed next to me and batted the nearest baby away. It sailed over the other babies, squealing.

“Why do you smell like electrocuted beef?” I shouted.

“Tell you later!” she called back. “Right now I need you to duck!”

Mitch and I hit the ground right as a large bolt of lightning shot down from the sky and incinerated a line of praying mantis babies. Immediately afterwards, we were up and sprinting down the gap between the startled babies. Mitch and I were half carrying Hannah – the drain from the lightning had her on the verge of passing out. We didn’t slow down until we were back to base.