Baryte fit snugly in the vehicle’s open crater, pecking at his wings and making a polite yawning sound. It was a very cute display, something Momo would have normally sat and awww’d at, but unfortunately it represented a lack of something else – a lack of anything happening at all.

“Viktor,” she said lowly, with a petrified tone. “The bird is just sitting there.”

The Jarva loyalists had begun to slither their way through the crowd, traveling briskly and strategically from the back to the very front.

Oh god, what are those? Momo thought, noticing something she hadn’t before. Slung over their shoulders were large, cylindrical, gun-like weapons that looked a bit like they might fire projectiles at entirely undodgeable speeds.

The closer they got, the more she could make out the finer details of the weapons’ silhouettes. They looked like mini bazookas, inscribed with etchings that Momo recognized from before, at the Holy Resistance camp. Eight purple tentacles painted over a gold weapon body.

What the hell? They weren’t carrying those before. Someone must have armed them, Momo deduced, her stomach turning at the realization. I need to get rid of the [Brainwash] effect before they try to bazooka my head off.

“Baryte, we’re going to need to hurry this up…” she murmured, giving the chicken a very serious look, but then realized her anger was misdirected, and targeted it straight at Viktor Mole. The wizard was sweating profusely, maniacally running his hands through his beard.

“It – it must be the lack of feathers,” Viktor mumbled insanely. “The feathers served as conduits for the magical currents. Now he doesn’t have them, and all that energy has nowhere to go. The godforsaken bird has been grounded.”

“What?” Momo squinted. “Like he’s in time-out?”

“No, not like time out. Like science –”

Grimli, who had previously been standing at the edge of the raised platform, his chest puffed out like a securityman, decided, finally, that this was the time for him to butt into the conversation.

“That’s my vehicle, it is,” he said, pointing an accusatory finger at Viktor. “And I don’t consent to a chicken being stuffed into it. The valves and the levers and the doo dads have very specific ways of operating, none of which require a chicken, of that I’m sure.”

Viktor pointed a finger back, pressing it hard and firm to Grimli’s chest. “You clearly don’t know a single thing about your own people’s engineering. Valves and levers and doo dads – gah! Dwarven engineering is based on one principle and one alone – gnomic currents.”

“Of course I know about gnomic currents, you blasphemous poser,” Grimli said, flicking Viktor’s hand away. “I was best in my class in second grade Gnomenomics.”

Viktor huffed. “I find that hard to believe. Tell me then, what is a gnomic current, exactly?”

“Guys, I really don’t think this is the time,” Momo said, her mind peeling towards insanity as she tried to steer the dire situation back on the road. “Viktor, the people with their gun-things are getting closer.. I’m going to need that chicken to do something –”

“Now then, I’ll tell you about currents and then some,” Grimli interjected, puffing his chest out again with renewed purpose. He pressed his finger to an exposed wire jutting out of the vehicle’s hood. “Dwarven engineering is powered by little gnomes that live inside these things. And when you plug these gnomish wires into a magical cube, or something of that energizing sort, and then plug the other end into a vehicle like this one that you so boldly thieved, the gnomes go run, run, running up the wire, hand in hand.”

Momo’s mouth fell open. Is he describing electricity?

“Yes, but,” Viktor interrupted, growing red in the face. He did not like being shown up. He much preferred showing off. “My chicken is like a superconducting magical cube. A beast of boundless energy, you see. An organic gnomic nuclear force –”

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“No way that’s possible,” Grimli crossed his arms. “Not a damn way. Dwarves would’a figured it out already. We’ve tried making a power source of out of damn near everything. Rocks, apples, cakes, aunts and uncles and little brothers.”

“But not baryte-infused chickens, have you?”

That quieted Grimli, his face falling into a considering frown.

“Well, that’s just animal abuse, ain’t it?”

“The chicken ate the baryte himself! I didn’t force anything about it –”

“Choke and die, you stupid chicken!”

Momo’s face went pale just as a thunderous crackle erupted from the barrel of a bazooka.

“Baryte!” Viktor squealed. “[Energy Absorption]!”

Just as Momo feared, the projectile soared at air-splitting speeds, barely visible as it zipped through the air. She threw herself to the ground, expecting impact, but found that the rocket flew to the right of her and pierced straight through the vehicle, headed straight for the chicken within.

Only, there was no dramatic explosion; no kapow that sent every gear and valve and limb flying to the streets. With a modest squawk, Baryte glowed yellow, his mouth open, and swallowed the thing hole. It didn’t travel through his system. It simply evaporated, gold specks of magic sprinkling the air around him.

“What on Alois?” the gunman mumbled, staring blankly at the chicken. His compatriots were similarly befuddled, stilling with their bazookas in hand. “It just ate it.”

“Bu-cuawk!” Baryte hiccuped, a yellow zip of what looked like electricity firing from his mouth. It caught onto one of the gnomic wires, and a hum began emanating from the vehicle. Gears began to churn, metal flaps on the car’s hood began to open and close like the snapping mouth of a shark.

“It’s working!” Viktor cried, raising his hands victoriously. “All of you disbelievers, witness the greatness of your god!”

The forklift-like vehicle whirred to life. It was all in all a ridiculous sight – a giant machine operated by an unknowing bird, flightless and dumb and still chewing on the remains of the bazooka ammo. The runes on the vehicle glowed bright white, and it began to slowly churn across the stage, moving at the speed of a heavily armored turtle.

“You idiots! I told you to fire at the girl, not the chicken!”

Momo’s eyes snapped to a voice calling from deeper within the crowd. It originated from a woman wearing a white, full-face covering mask, with only two holes for the eyes. A headdress sat over her cloaked face: eight purple tentacles, falling over her shoulders. The insignia of the Holy Resistance come alive.

The voice sounded eerily familiar to her somehow – like she could nearly place it, but not quite.

“But Ms. Slythorn, the chicken is a far greater affront to Kyros. He is a false god,” the gunman said, but then faltered, looking back at the glowing, rumbling machinery. “Or perhaps a real one…”

Slythorn. Momo nearly choked on her spit. That was one of the names Grimli mentioned – one of the three Knights of the Sun that were orchestrating the Holy Resistance. She was here, in the flesh.

“The chicken is a distraction. Destroy the girl!”

“This is bad,” Momo said, frantically turning to Viktor and Grimli. Viktor was notably absent – busy chasing his chicken around the stage. “I don’t know how to avoid bazookas without hurting the civilians.”

“I don’t think you’re going to have that problem, your highness,” Grimli said, a smidgen of disgust in his voice as he stared at the chicken-run vehicle. “It seems they’ve been convinced.”

Momo looked again towards the front of the audience, noting that the bazookas had been completely abandoned. The dissenters had joined the rest of the spellbound audience, bowing, screaming and cheering as the chicken performed a U-turn at the edge of the stage, piloting the dwarven vehicle like a Formula 1 Driver.

At that moment, it appeared she and Slythorn had the same thought.

“Give me my backpack,” Momo ordered Grimli, who was wearing it on his back. He shimmied it off with urgency, tossing it to her.

Momo slung it over her shoulders and jumped off the stage, [Death Monkey Leap]ing into the crowd where the bazookas lay. Disappearing in and out of sight with a supernatural quickness, Slythorn met her there at the same time; they both urgently reached for a gun, rearing up and pointing them at each other simultaneously like two cowboys at a standoff.

Momo grunted miserably, the weight of the gun way heavier than she was used to carrying. She was a magic user, not a heavy weapon maestro. Neither was Slythorn, it appeared, who was swaying slightly as she tried to steady the weapon.

“I really don’t want to fire this thing,” Momo pleaded. And I have no idea how to, she didn’t add. “You don’t have to do this.”

Slythorn stared at her, silent. She had seemed so in control before, so easily authoritative, but something about Momo gave her pause. Through the small cuts in the mask, Momo could see her eyes squinting with indecision, almost painfully so.

“But I do,” Slythorn said. Her voice was darker and deeper now, kind of like she was doing a bad Batman impression. “You just had to go and mess things up again, Momo.”

Momo froze. “What? Again? Do I know you?”

Slythorn shook her head. “Doesn’t matter now. Tell Valerica I say hi once you hit the Nether, won’t you?”

“Wait, how do you know Valeri –”

Slythorn squeezed the trigger.