Covid probably will keep me from 60K, but I should still hit 50K. Which is technically the goal anyway. Welp, the point is to get the book down in some form.
Ever fight a bunch of mooks in an orchestra pit? No? Well, it’s all a matter of timing.
The big thing is, you can’t let them swarm you. There were eight of them for the two of us, only Lucas wasn’t even a little interested in doing any more than the bare minimum. Alan was hanging back to watch his minions do all the work, all the while sporting a nasty little smile at the anticipated smackdowns.
That smile slipped by a lot as Lucas started the festivities by grabbing a bassoon and clearing a space for himself, to mixed cries of appreciation and horror from the crowd above. The two he laid out with his impromptu club just groaned — but sensibly, on the ground. After all, they had been put down by a bassoon. That’s embarrassing, so why not quit while they were behind?
Me, I was trying to remember Sofie’s expense budget probably had an upper credit limit, so I was sticking to music stands. There’s a trick to using one where you kick it over, use a foot to start it spinning, and roll it around your leg to smack your other leg really painfully. And just after that, the second bounce knocks two people down in a satisfying clamor of scattered chairs and the occasional snapped string.
No, wait, that was Lucas. “The bastard’s getting away!” he yelled as he kabonged a third mook with a guitar. “I did half! You can get the others, right?”
“This is not what I do for a living!” I shouted as I dodged a thrown cowbell. Fortunately, the guy didn’t seem to have any more,. “And there’s eight! Half is four!”
“Right! Sorry!” Lucas picked up a trombone, used it as an impromptu hook to pull in No-more-Cowbell, and uppercut him something fierce. “Now it’s half!”
“Hey, that one was mine!” But he was already running off. Oh, well, there were only two left. One of them was easy enough to get rid of: he was just the right size to shove a tuba over his head, and once he was wearing it I decided he’d be out of the fight for a while.
So. One guy left. He hadn’t moved at all during the fight, and as I focused on him I realized, to my dismay, that he was the only guy wearing white in the entire orchestra. In New California, that means only one thing: this guy was the xylophone player.
“Dammit, Lucas, he should have been one of yours,” I muttered.