#18 The Final Stand

As Jon and I flew back to join the others, I thought about the prophecy. Neither shall live while the other survives? What did that mean? Would I have to die for The Praying Mantis Baby to die? Suddenly, I had a strange inkling.

“Do you feel like we’re forgetting something important?” I asked Jon.

Yeah…” He pondered for a moment before saying, “Oh yeah! We’re supposed to rescue Brandon!”

“Oh yeah!” I did a pace palm. “Don’t you hate when you forget something?”

“I’m just glad I’m not the one being forgotten about this time,” Jon replied.

We found Hannah sitting on an unconscious Anne, sobbing openly. Jon and I quickly jumped down from Appa to go comfort her.

“What’s wrong?” Jon asked.

“I – I’m s-so lo-ho-nely!” Hannah wailed. In the distance, Thunder Orca wailed in reply. “All of my friends are in the future. You guys aren’t immortal. Pretty soon everyone will be dead and I’ll be all a-a-alone!”

I shook my head. “Wait a minute. You’re sad you’re not going to die? Take it from a person who sis slowly dying from poison, you should be happy.”

Hannah perked up. “yeah! I’m not dead! Thanks, Alyssa!”

I slapped her on the back. “No problem buddy. Now let’s go get Mitch and kick some Praying Mantis Baby butt!”

“Yeah!”

Quickly, Jon, Hannah and I performed the secret handshake before climbing on Appa and launching off in search of Mitch. We found him still locked in an intense battle with Mrs. Stone. A wayward child went flying above Appa and we quickly pulled her in so she wouldn’t go plummeting to her death.

“Thanks,” she sniffled.

“No problem,” we replied.

“Mrs. Stone!” Mitch cried as they battled. “This must end!”

“No! You are either in my class or you are my enemy!” Mrs. Stone bellowed back with a whirl of her sack.

“I’m sorry! I have to take Government!” I shouted, safely out of range.

“No one escapes my class!” She reached into the sack to pull out yet another child, but her hand came up empty. A small moment of silence passed as everyone stared at her empty hand. “What the–” Mrs. Stone began. Mitch had cut it with his light saber. The children had escaped!

Mrs. Stone shot a fervent glance at us. All at once, she dropped her sack, held her hands up and cried, “I surrender!”

I quickly had my firebenders take her into custody.

Now that none of us were locked in a battle to the death, Jon and I hastily reminded our fellow squad members that Bradon was probably in grave danger and could die any moment.

“Oh yeah!” Mitch and Hannah said.

“Yip-yip!” I yelled and directed Appa to the heart of the praying mantis baby army.

All around, everyone was still battling. The earth shook as Toph, the Boulder, and Poseidon crushed hordes of babies before rocks. This is reminiscent of the Trojan War!” Apollo shouted to Athena as he shot his bow. “Except, you know, we’re on the same side this time.”

“Focus you blundering idiot!” Athena commanded peevishly.

“Ooh! Haiku time! To battle we go – The Praying Mantis Baby – Shall die in the end!”

“Just shoot your arrows!”

We flew on. I saw Link spinning around in numerous circles almost endlessly, shouting his battle cry, and hitting babies left and right.

“Make your stand there!” Ezio commanded his assassins. They took out babies in a barrage of gun fire, arrows, and air assassinations.

Similarly, Yoda and Windu commanded the Jedis to fight. Their end of the battlefield was alight with green and blue light sabers, along with that little splash of purple. Both Anakin and Luke had had an arm chewed off by the babies, but they were fine.

Close to the Jedis was the Fire Nation. My bandies were battling valiantly, but is seemed the more babies we took out, the more replaced them. The only way to end this would be to defeat The Praying Mantis Baby.

We flew on as Thunder Orca let out a tremendous cry, spewing great spout of electricity. “Bugs!” the babies cried as they went down seizing. But where was The Praying Mantis Baby?

Finally, we spotted it, hunkered down in the extreme back of the army, feasting on a plate of bugs beneath a tree. Tied to that tree with metals chains was Brandon. I lashed Appa’s reins and we soared downward. In a very impressive and cool way – similar to how the Avengers looked – we leapt from Appa and hit the ground, each brandishing our various weapons.

“Praying Mantis Baby!” I shouted. “It’s time to die! Your army is falling and you’ll never get the Triforce of Power. It’s over!”

The Praying Mantis Baby scuttled to its fatty, pincer-like feet. The months and months we had been battling had obviously taken a toll on it. Its diaper was soiled, its skin scarred, and the green of its exoskeleton was dull and brittle. It was obvious that making the army was the cause. Calmly, it regarded us with its luminescent yellow eyes. It opened it mouth, revealing rotted yellow teeth, sticky with saliva.

“Bbbbbbuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu-uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugggggggggggsssssssssssssssss!”

The sound of its voice made us all cringe and twisted up our insides with annoyance, similar to the sound of nails on a chalkboard. We belted out our battle cries, raising our weapons in preparation for attack. Suddenly, out weapons shot from our grip and hovered, mid-air, just out of reach. Jon tried to airbend-jump, but his trombone rose with him.

“Oh, and you almost got it,” said a voice with a slightly, unidentifiable accent. From behind the tree emerged a man in fancy robes and wearing a spiffy looking helmet with a large M on it.

“Magneto,” Hannah growled. “Anne told me you would come.”

“Don’t mention that failure to me!” Magneto snapped. “I was in the middle of a chess gamer with Charles Xavier when I got the news. I was winning!”

“Bugs!” The Praying Mantis Baby said in annoyance. It stomped its foot, but because of the pincer-like-ness, its leg got stuck in the permafrost.

“Oh dear. Now that’s a shame. Let’s see if we can’t–” Magneto gave the baby a tug and it went toppling off to the side.

“Bugs!”

“Now that’s no language for a baby!”

“Wait, you can understand it?” Mitch asked.

“Well,” Magneto began, “its dialect is a little different from Thunder Orca, but it’s basically the same. So yes – being much smarter than all of you – I can understand The Praying Mantis Baby.”

“Bugs.”

“It says that it is glad you found it. It certainly took you long enough! Now, it can continue its plan.”

“You got that from ‘bugs’?” I asked skeptically.

Magneto nodded. “I might have paraphrased a bit. English isn’t an exact translation. Do any of you speak Russian?”

“No,” we said.

Hannah stepped forward. “All right, you tell it to end this war now or we’ll destroy everything. No mercy! We’ll destroy its sister, its army and make it watch the entire time. Then and only then will we kill it! She declared.

Mitch, Jon and I looked at her in surprise, but it sounded like a good idea, so we piped in with, “Yeah!”

Magneto cleared his throat and turned to the baby. “Bugs.”

It smirked at us. “Bugs!”

“He says with what weapons?”

“My bare hands!” I shouted. “I don’t need a sax to firebend!”

The Praying Mantis Baby replied, “Bugs!” which we didn’t need Magneto to translate to, “Bring it on!”

Just as we were about to take that challenge, The Praying Mantis Baby began growing. It shed its exoskeleton, revealing an iron hard new exoskeleton underneath. Its limbs expanded, its head swelled, until it was the of a twenty story building. Its diaper had grown with it.

Our mouths hund open as we stared upward. During our distraction, Magneto had untied Brandon from the trees and was taking off down the plain, dragging Brandon behind him. Jon noticed first. He tapped our shoulders to gain our attention.

“Guys – he’s getting away with Brandon.”

“Great Mullet of Thor!” we cried.

The Giant Praying Mantis Baby roared, “Buuuuggss!!” and lifted its bus-sized leg to smash us. We leapt out of the way, though I was the only one to leap to the right. I was separated from the group. The idea struck me that perhaps it was best this way.

“Quick, you guys go,” I said. “I will hold off the baby while you go and connect the Triforce.”

“What?” Hannah shrieked. “What are you thinking?”

I was thinking about the prophecy but they didn’t need to know that. “I’ll be fine,” I assured them. “Getting the Triforce connected is the most important thing! I’ll keep the baby distacted.”

“Here,” Mitched shouted. “Take the stone!”

He tossed the Theoretical Physicist’s Stone to me and I caught it as they left to board Appa to chase after Magneto. I pocketed the Stone and re-clipped my saxophone to my neck strap.

“All right, it’s just you and me Tubby. Just like old time.”

“Bugs,” it roared in reply.

I frowned. “I’m going to take that as a bring it on,”

Just as I was about to charge, Thunder Orca waddled up next to me.

“-----(>_<)-----!” Thunder Orca said.

I smiled. “I wouldn’t have it any other way buddy.”

I stood on Thunder Orca’s tail and, with a might heave, Thunder Orca launched me into the sky. I put my saxophone to my lips and played Danza finale like there was no tomorrow, which was fitting, as this was indeed the last dance.

My fire blast hit the baby in the face but barely made a blemish, though I did manage to blind its eyes. I arched in the air and landed on the baby’s shoulder.

“For Narnia!” I cried. I made those fancy fire blades that Zuko taught me and dug them into the chink between the exoskeleton and baby skin. The baby wailed and flung me off. I hit the ground hard but Thunder Orca covered me with a burst of lightning.

“Thank Thunder Orca,” I said as I got to my feet. I hopped onto Thunder Orca’s tail. “Let’s do it again.”

Before Thunder Orca could launch me back into the air, I felt a terrible pain. I doubled over. As much as I liked fire, it felt as though I was burning from the inside out. Seeing that I was incapacitated, Thunder Orca quickly took us to cover to buy some time.

“------(/._.\)------?” Thunder Orca asked, concern obvious in his ton.

“The poison,” I said. “It’s finally taking affect.”

Thunder Orca made to go find help, but I grabbed his dorsal fin and forced him to stay.

“No! This is how it has to be! Look, the Triforce won’t work. Nothing can kill the baby as long as I’m alive.” I coughed and groaned as the pain worsened. “Listen, I need you to keep The Praying Mantis Baby busy until the others get back. Don’t let them know until the baby is dead.”

Thunder Orca looked at me sadly, but nodded his great head.

“One last thing,” I continued. “Take this for me. Maybe they can use it to repair the world once this is all over.”

I gave Thunder Orca the Theoretical Physicist’s Stone, who swallowed it for safe keeping. I took a moment to make sure there was nothing else to say before patting Thunder Orca and walking stiffly back toward The Praying Mantis Baby.

It was time. I could feel it. And I accepted it. Gizmo had won this battle, but I was about to win the war.

The Praying Mantis Baby was busy searching blindly for me, groping around with its giant claws.

“Hey stupid!” I called. “Over here!”

“Bugs!” it bellowed.

I put my sax to my lips to play, but a cough stopped me short. The Praying Mantis Baby swung its arm toward the sound. I was too dizzy and disoriented to react as the green swirled toward me. The claw connected and I went flying. When I hit the ground, everything burst into a pure white light.

And there I lay.

Dead.

- The End -