Amy rose into the air and spun around in place as fast as she could. She kept her knees and feet together and her arms crossed against her chest. She could feel the Milfoil miniatures break away from her body, unlike the sticky drugs she had been shot with in Boston.
She stopped spinning and saw that none of the mini-Milfoils were still attached to her. They had spread all over the ground or attached to the sides of the school buildings that surround the campus. Even after touching the walls for a few seconds, Amy could see that the mini-Milfoils were growing larger as the wall around them turned into green vegetative growth.
"Eat!" the large Milfoil in the center of the campus shouted, now having reformed into the same shape as before. Where the grass around him was once brown where it had been devoured, it was now green again, having turned into more milfoil. The mossy puke-green milfoil spread outward from the main blob's body.
"We need a plan," Future Girl said. "Let's fly in a circle around him so fast that it creates a cyclone wind that lifts him up and into space."
"I don't think that would work," Amy said. "There's too much of a risk to spread more of his gunk around."
"All right," Future Girl said. "He's eating off the surface of the ground, but he's not seeping into the ground. We dig down and come up to him from below."
Amy shook her head. "Too unpredictable. The ground could come crashing down around us before we're halfway there, not to mention how there'd be no way to see where we're going."
With his single arm, Milfoil pulled a piece of its body off itself and threw it at the two girls, which they easily dodged.
Future Girl shrugged. "Since you're the smart one all of a sudden, what ideas do you have?"
"Fire extinguishers. He hates the cold, so we fly around the school, gather up as many fire extinguishers as we can, and we blast him."
"On a warm night like this? Ordinary fire extinguishers aren't powerful enough to freeze him to his core. When I froze him before, it was with a highly advanced freezing tech."
"Where's that tech now?"
Future Girl thought about it. "I'm not sure."
"So how do we stop this thing?"
"Hungry!" Milfoil shouted.
"Shut up!" Amy and Future Girl shouted in unison.
"If we can't freeze him, let's burn him," Amy said.
"You sure?"
"Make it hot enough, and everything burns."
Future Girl nodded. "I can see that."
"Hunger!" Milfoil said. "More! More!"
"We need to make some fire, and fast," Amy said.
"Follow me," Future Girl said, "if you can."
Future Girl shot into the air, with Amy following. They passed by the dorms, where window after window of students stared in the direction of the common, no doubt wondering what crisis had struck this time.
Future Girl sped toward a large grey block-shaped building. She smashed through a window, with Amy right behind her. Future Girl stopped in a large room with various devices spread out in a number of tables.
"Are these weapons?"
"Among other things," Future Girl said. "This is the theory building. They make all kinds of crazy things in here."
Future Girl handed Amy a device that was designed to wrap around her wrist, like an oversized watch.
"It's a flame thrower," Future Girl said. "Instead of using gasoline for fuel, it draws its heat from the atmosphere around the wearer."
"It's terrifying that this exists," Amy said, strapping it to her wrist.
"Yeah, I..."
Woot-woot-woot.
The lights came on and campus security guards, in their hazmat suits, ran into the room from every doorway.
"This is a restricted area," the guard in the lead said.
Future Girl and Amy looked at each other.
"They're just doing their jobs," Future Girl said.
"That's precisely why they need some sense beaten into them," Amy said.
Future Girl flew to the left, and Amy instinctively flew to the right.
The guards pulled out some bright silver guns. Amy didn't know what kind of enhanced guns they were, but she knew guns when she saw them.
Moving faster than any security guard ever could, Amy snatched the guns away from the men in one move. She knocked two of them off their feet with her next punch. A backhand punch with her left arm sent the third guard flying. Amy had done this enough times to know how to rough up thugs without permanently hurting them.
Amy saw Future Girl take out the guards in her own way. The blonde had somehow removed a long length of wire from one of the larger student inventions and flew in a circle around the guards until they were tied up with their arms and weapons at their sides.
Future Girl flew up to Amy and glanced at the unconscious guards. "You're way more violent than I am," she said. "I prefer a more humane approach."
"Can we please deal with the killer plant that turns everything it touches into more killer plant?" Amy said.
"I guess."
Again a blur, Future Girl flew back the way they came, with Amy silentlycursing about how a high school girl could fly faster.
# # # #
Next: Getting schooled.