Mary Score! – Part 2 – Delta Seven
Every Saturday, WoWPetBattles.com brings you Mary Score!; a serial fiction by Travis Marcum. Follow goblin adventurer Mary Travelmunch as she and her trusty mechanical chicken Freddie compete against the best pet trainers in Azeroth and beyond for the coveted Critter Cage Battle Network’s Illustrious Grand Master trophy!
“Mila’wa! Destroy that toy!” The tauren’s vicious command came unexpectedly, ending the scoffing laughter without pause. The green reptile leapt forward with almost blinding speed and force; a high-pitched roar echoing out from between dozens of short, sharp fangs.
It might have caught a lesser combatant off-guard, but Mary reacted quickly. She’d come to expect such subterfuge from the Grimtotem tribe. “Defense pattern: zeta three, Freddie!”
The clockwork fowl answered his mistress with a loud squawk and briskly extended a wing forward to defend himself. Shimmering, truesilver feathers whirled outward from the outstretched appendage on dozens of little hinges and rotors, stopping abruptly and with a loud grinding noise so that they stood both straight up and straight down to form a tower-like shield. The mechanical creature had just enough time to hide behind the wall of metal feathers and brace himself before the young ravasaur made contact. A loud screech and a modest shower of sparks erupted from the resulting clash of razor sharp talons against unforgiving metal. The impact left a small cloud of dust and sand in its wake.
Partially blinded by the stinging sand, the ravasaur spent a moment dazed and shaking his massive head with a mewled whimper that under any other circumstance would have made Mary’s heart ache. Freddie’s ability to deflect such a sudden and savage attack had clearly surprised both the ravasaur hatchling and his owner. Mary didn’t have to guess that the pair had won many duels using the same ferocious, albeit simple, technique. The thorium widgets that mounted the wing servos had snapped loudly under the weight of the raptor’s massive attack, though it didn’t seem her Grimtotem opponent had noticed that Freddie could no longer move his shield wing.
She only had a heartbeat or two before the shaman and her pet recovered. Fortunately, engineers weren’t particularly inhibited by sandstorms and that created an opportunity to press her advantage. Mary flipped a switch near her right temple and her goggles simply cut through the obscuring sand as if it weren’t there. It took the goblin less than a heartbeat to size up the situation and issue a command. “Attack pattern: delta seven!”
Freddie obediently leapt backward as compartments on either flank opened buzzed open, immediately revealing two goblin-designed rockets mounted on spring-loaded extender arms. The tauren shaman, having collected herself, commanded a burst of wind to blast away the sand, but not quickly enough. She could only react with widened eyes as the mechanical chicken literally rocketed forward. The impact of the resulting tackle hung in the air longer than ravasaur itself, who was knocked clear from the center of the Cage and collided soundly against the furthest wall.
“Mila’wa, no!” The tauren screamed and ran full hoof to her unconscious companion. She’d begun a healing song several steps before she ever reached her beaten pet. At least in her concern for the savage, green-scaled hatchling, Mary could respect her opponent. A little bit.
A very tiny, very little bit. But it was something, anyway.
The crowd had gone absolutely silent. The local champion had just been upset by a relative newcomer, after all. And a Travelmunch, no less! Sure, she was an adventurer, but…
And then the mass of spectators as one simply erupted with noise. Some excited and some startled. Some downright furious; having no doubt just lost a sizable bet or two. As if remembering his duty, the promoter of the event staggered in to the cage with a double-step and quickly moved to Mary’s side. He was an old, gaudily-dressed Steamwheedle goblin with grey-white hair and a surprisingly loud, gravelly voice that managed rise above the roar of the showgoers.
“Our new Cage preliminary champion, adventurer and Finder, Marcum Travelmunch!” The promoter shouted, grabbing Mary’s hand and lifting it in to the air. “And her mechanical chicken, Freddie!” The crowd burst in to sound once more, a mixture of cheers and jeers and catcalls. It all blended together in to a pounding, white thunder that danced around Mary’s green, pointed ears. Yet even at the center of all that noise, Mary clearly heard the promoter speak in a low tone, just loud enough to be shared between the two of them, lost to the crown in all the excitement.
“You can’t imagine how much gold you just cost me, little girl,” the promoter of the Critter Cage Battle Network, Glezbek Woodwazzle hissed. “First the father, now the daughter — don’t you dare think for a moment I don’t know exactly what’s going on here, missy.” Woodwazzle squeezed Mary’s hand painfully as he waved it up in the air for the crowd, presenting their now champion. Though his words practically dripped with malice, the bright smile that was his public façade never faded. “That fool Noggenfogger may think he’s in charge here, but Gadgetzan is my town and the C.C.B.N. is my pool; stop pissing in it before I bury you in my desert. Capiche?”
Mary’s eyes widened, but before she could speak, the elderly goblin addressed the crowd again. “Three cheers for our new champion, Marcum Travelmunch! Here, here!” The crowd reacted in kind and the elderly goblin released Mary’s hand and with only a single bow to the crowd, left the cage. It only occurred to Mary after the fact that most of spectators were in fact chanting his name.
<…to be continued!>
“Mary Score!” is © Travis A. Marcum 2011 and published on WoWPetBattles.com with permission; World of Warcraft and all related materials are © Blizzard Entertainment. Travis Marcum can be reached via email, Google+, Facebook or Twitter. His main is a goblin beast mastery Hunter on Earthern Ring-US and spends his time in-game raiding, collecting pets and trying to work the auction house. He’s owned every handheld PokĂ©mon game. He slept way too late after a night of partying with friends. Partying meaning playing D&D, not drinking. We’re a wild bunch!
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I wanted to apologize for this being a day late. There were some technical issues that prevented me working on it Friday and some social obligations that kept me from my computer on Saturday. Hope everyone enjoys it!
No worries I still enjoyed it