Mikoto/HeatBlast grunted as the massive tentacle slammed her against the side of the hall, creating a huge dent like crater. She didn't know if Pyronites had bones, but she felt like she might have just broken a few ribs.
Mikoto got up coughing some fiery sparks from her mouth and clutching her molten side. Vilgax continued to drag himself forward, raising his tentacles in preparation to slam Mikoto against the floor. Mikoto held her hands up desperately and a stream of fire blasted at the tentacles causing Vilgax to retract them hissing with discomfort.
"You merely delay the inevitable little esper." Said Vilgax. "Not even Tennyson's Pyronite form can save you now. Yield, and I shall make sure your death is swift and painless."
"Over my dead body." Mikoto growled.
"That can certainly be arranged." Said Vilgax swiping his tentacles in a low blow to the side.
Mikoto blasted flames from her feet causing her to launch upwards and dodge the tentacles. As she came down, she threw a huge fire ball at Vilgax's face.
Vilgax backed off crying out in pain.
"You need water to survive in that form don't you Vilgax?" Said Mikoto. "Well let's see what happens when I take away all your moisture then!"
Mikoto threw more fire at the now vulnerable Vilgax who continued to cry out in agony and steam as the fire collided with his wet body.
"What are you waiting for!?" Vilgax yelled at Sky Scorcher and Impulser. "Restrain her!!"
"Thought you would never ask!!" Said Impulser grinning.
Impulser moved at supersonic speeds towards Mikoto, but was suddenly tackled from the side by JetRay/Touma who had flown at supersonic speeds himself to intercept Impulser. The two of them tumbled head over heels into the wall of the hallway. By a stroke of dumb luck (which was unusual for Touma), Touma managed to end up on top of Impulser, allowing him to fly backwards and fire some neuro shocks from his eyes at Impulser's torso.
Impulser, having been caught off gaurd, wasn't able to solidify the vibrations of the molecules on enough of his skin in time and was knocked out by the green energy blast. Sky Scorcher sent a powerful concentrated beam of fire and heat at Touma. Touma held up his right hand and the flames dissipated into nothing right on contact.
"Awesome!" Said Touma. "Looks like Imagine Breaker still works!"
"You freaking turd!!!" Scorcher shouted as the flames around her grew more intense. "I'll burn you to a crisp!!"
Vilgax roared and raised up his monstrous tentacles again.
"This is bad." Said Mikoto. "I think I can hear more drones on the way, plus I don't think Impulser will be down for long."
"But we can't retreat." Said Touma hovering over to where Mikoto was. "Not without some kind of distraction."
"I've got your distraction!" Said Mikoto dodging another tentacle from Vilgax. "Index, eat something!"
"Huh!?" Said Upchuck/Index. "What should I eat!?" (Take note that Gourmands have two varieties, Perk and Murk. Index is currently the Perk form of Upchuck.)
"Anything!!"
Index opened her mouth and four frog like tongues came out and latched onto the head of one of the drones Looma and Gluto were fighting. The tongues ripped the head off and quick as lighting retracted the head into Index's mouth who swallowed it. Index's stomach began to glow with a green light.
"Now spit!!" Mikoto shouted as two of Vilgax's tentacles began to slowly constrict her to death. "Spit over here!!"
Index took a deep breath and spat out a glowing green sphere at Vilgax's scarred and already slightly burned face.
Suddenly a humongous explosion blinded the entire hallway with light as Vilgax growled out with pain. (The explosiveness of whatever a Gourmand vomits varies with what it eats) When the smoke cleared, Mikoto, Touma, Index, Gluto, and Looma were gone. And not only that, but the door to the infirmary opened to reveal that the sleeping Ben was missing as well.
"RAAAARRRRGGGHH!!!" Vilgax exclaimed with pain and fury. "Find them!! Crush them!! And bring me that Gourmand so that I may devour it!!!"
Sky Scorcher sighed and turned to look at the drones. "Ya heard the boss, get a move on and search the ship, they can't have gone far yet."
The drones nodded their metal faceless heads in acknowledgment and proceeded to lumber down the hallway.
Vilgax felt his intensely scarred face with his tentacles. "Girl....call the medic......I need to return to my tank.....so that I may heal."
"What about Ol' Shaker over there?" Asked Scorcher nodding over to Impulser.
"I'm just fine," said Impulser getting up with a psychotic angry look in his eyes. "I'm just pissed."
Impulser smiled. "Now you weren't actually hoping that pathetic Aerophibian's attack killed me, were you?"
"Hmph.....just shut up and find those losers." Said Sky Scorcher turning away.
Meanwhile, Mikoto and the others were running through the halls of the ship in an attempt to find a place to regroup. Mikoto had let Looma carry Ben due to Mikoto's worry that with her current form she might accidentally fry him.
"So what do we do now?" Asked Touma as he flew alongside the running Mikoto.
"We try to delay Vilgax until Tetrax can get the tractor beam off us." Said Mikoto.
"But what do we do if Tetrax succeeds and Vilgax and his cronies are still on board?" Said Touma. "The drones they have with them still outnumber us about 50 to 1. And I don't think these alien forms are going last forever, Tetrax did say we would return to normal after Ben's Omnitrix activated a firewall or something."
"I don't know." Said Mikoto. "To be honest I usually just let Ben figure out that stuff since he knows Vilgax better then I do, but at the moment......" Mikoto looked at Ben's sleeping form.
"You still can't wake him?" Mikoto asked Looma.
"He will not respond to anything I do." Said Looma sadly. "It is as if he has entered some deeper realm of sleep then the usual. And he keeps fidgeting as if he is going through some horrible nightmare."
"Then we're on our own." Said Mikoto. "Somehow we need to find our own way to get Vilgax and Impulser at least, off this ship. I don't know about Sky Scorcher though, to be honest I don't think she wants any part in this, but Vilgax and Impulser at least, definitely need to go."
Gluto let out some bubbly syllables.
"What is it Gluto?" Said Index. "Did you think of something?"
Gluto bubbled out some more alien words and pointed down a hallway to the left they had just stopped next to.
"Gluto wants us to follow him." Said Index.
"You understand him?" Said Touma incredulously.
"Of course I do." Said Index pouting with her Gourmand face. "How could anyone not understand such a genius?"
Red patches appeared on either side of Gluto's pink jelly face as he moved down the left hallway. Touma just shrugged and flew after Gluto with the rest of the group in tow.
Finally they made it to a large room with what appeared to be a large generator in the middle.
"I get it!" Said Index. "This is the ship's engine room isn't it?"
Gluto confirmed it with a cheery bubbly whistle.
"Wait," said Mikoto. "How is this supposed to help?"
"He says the engine room is also like a secondary control room." Said Index. "That means Gluto could control everything from here, including the outside doors to the cargo hold, he wants someone to lure Vilgax down there so maybe we can eject them out into space!"
"That's brilliant!" Said Mikoto. "I guess I'll be the bait then."
"No!" Said Touma. "I'll go!"
"Huh? Why you?"
"I'm JetRay right now." Said Touma. "Which means I'm currently the fastest guy here. Plus if I accidentally get sucked out with Vilgax, since JetRay can survive in a vacuum, I'll just fly right back in."
Suddenly Touma glowed with a green light and he fell to the floor back in his original human form. Mikoto and Index also glowed and returned to their human forms.
"Yay!" Said Index happily feeling her face and nun's habit. "I'm me again!"
"I guess I'm still the bait then." Said Mikoto pointedly at Touma.
Touma sighed. "Guess I can't argue with that, you can magnetically stick to the floor anyways. Just be carefully okay? I don't want to be the one who explains to Ben that the girl who just became his girlfriend got sucked into space."
Mikoto nodded and ran out of the room, shouting as she ran. "You guys take care of Ben got it!?"
"You can rely on us!" Said Index puffing out her chest proudly.
"Sqqquueeeeelllch.......gooooddd......luuuccckk........." Gluto gurgled.
Touma stared at Gluto. "You can speak English!!!!???"
Index shrugged happily. "Who knew?"