Something new - a Guzzi SF adventure (G17)

It seemed to all happened at once.

Sapphire shot her blaster into the roof. Tiny, sparkling fragments of rock and ice flew out across the roof, to dance in the eddies produced by the mingling air.

Fur Mountain shifted, opened one pair of eyes, then two.

Guzzi threw something which landed beyond Sapphire and rolled towards the FooBars. "Sapphire! Run! Run!!!!"

Then the great Fur Mountain that was the BigYar collapsed in on itself only to emerge as four smaller fur balls, each as tall as Schmeep but almost perfectly round and with six protruding limbs. Four FooBars, which with a shrieking howl loped after Sapphire.

Jazz threw herself on the ground, from where she kept up a barrage from both blasters into the nearest FooBar's forelegs.

And Schmeep Gar remained still, almost frozen, but slowly began to glow a fierce red.

Sapphire, stunned momentarily by the force of Guzzi's warning, recovered enough to look at what was happening and stagger towards the corridor in the wall to the left.

Then the lead FooBar closed on Guzzi's entombed grenade, there was a soft Wump and the dancing crystals in the air were joined by a swirling galaxy of tiny scarlet specs.

Below the crystals a small green vortex appeared where the grenade began the process of rejoining its atoms and reforming.

A Foobar charged through the emerald spirals and closed on Sapphire.

"Arrrrh!" Guzzi slowed to a walk, aimed his plasma pistol and offloaded streams of purple plasma at the Fooball's nearest eye. Fur puffed into smoke, and the blue eyeball, big as a skull, hissed and popped. The FooBar's howls of agony were joined by its friend as Jazz's blasters tore a hole in its body between its forelegs.

But the fourth FooBar closed on Sapphire, its huge jaws agape, and took her upper body whole into its mouth, ripping her in half.

Only then, fully charged, could Schmeep Gar appear beside Sapphire inside the FooBars mouth. Glowing red hot, as the sun, it clutched her limp torso to itself and disappeared.

The faceless FooBar collapsed with an oozy thud.

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"Nooooo!"

Guzzi collapsed on the floor. When the grenade reappeared on his belt he hurled it at the last howling FooBar without thinking.

Jazz sat down tentatively beside him, and not knowing what to say, gently rubbed his back.

Noooooo!

And then Schmeep reappeared.

"Sapphire is dead," it said.

Arrrrrrgh!

"And, Sapphire is... something new."

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