Inane Verbiage

XIX

It's as though the entire rock detour never happened. Once again, troops upon troops of furry felines surround us while MeoWR smirks triumphantly from his perch in front of us.

Only this time said Army Head is definitely, definitely pissed.

"Do you think you could teleport us out of this one as well?" I whisper  to Eros as I eye the black creature that is glaring daggers at our forms as he circles us menacingly.

"I'm not sure. Let me try."

"Is it working yet?" I hiss, edging nearer to the god when MeoWR comes a little too close for comfort. "I think you'd better hurry - I don't think those cats are going to be passive for long."

I chance another look at the restlessly-shifting felines. Yep. Definitely not.

"I'm trying!" Eros grits out, a fierce look of concentration on his face. "It doesn't seem to be working."

As if smelling victory, MeoWR comes so close his prickly, greasy pelt brushes my thigh, the cats surrounding us following suit. Crap.

Time for plan B.

"Do we still have those ridiculous chewing gum?"

"Oh yeah!" Eros lights up at that, immediately digging into the oilskin pouch at his waist and fishing out the silver sticks amidst the confused looks Tacky Ribbon Cat shoots us at this unexpected action. "Oh bloody Zeus" he swears suddenly, looking up from the sticks he had been rifling through. "we ran out of fish."

Oh "bleep." I can't help the long string to expletives that escape my mouth at that. "what else do we have?"

"Hang on." He scans the sticks again. "We still have peppermint and bubblegum. And watermelon because we apparently didn't use them, but I don't think that's going to work in this scenario. Eating it all at one time should be better, but I don't think ice bolts and giant bubbles will go well together, so..." he looks up, holding a wad of sticks in each hand (while MeoWR tries to get a glimpse of it and growls in annoyance when he fails to do so). "Do you want the P-mint or bubblegum?"

I grimace at the latter. "Peppermint, definitely."

"'k." Eros hands over the bundle in his right hand, swiftly unwrapping his share and popping that into his mouth.

"Whaaat is thaaaat?" MeoWR pipes up then, squinting at the gum sticks in my hand.

I don't know whether to be thankful that his curiosity prevents him from signaling his cats to attack before this, or laughing at how he unwittingly gives us time to prepare a counter-attack. I go with the former - mostly because laughing would probably prompt them to attack, and I'm not ready yet.

I stuff the contents in my mouth and flash MeoWR a gum-laced grin. "Chewing gum."

MeoWR blinks at that, shooting us what can only be termed as a cat version of the clueless look that I'm certain is always on my face "Cheeeewing gum? For whaaaat?"

I blow a bubble in response, the ice shard that shoots past his twitching ear answer enough.

He growls in response, thankfully quick to catch on. "You are going dooooown, human. MeoWR will kiiiiiill you!"

I shoot out another ice bolt at that, this one catapulting barely an inch above his forehead and striking one of the cats in the background in the chest.

The feline next to it lets out a howl of grief at that, and breaks the circle, charging at me with a murderous glint in its rheumy eyes.

Oops.

I promptly spear it with a bolt of ice.

The falling body of said cat strikes a couple of its counterparts in the chest, causing  those to all but drop dead.