Deathstalker 03 - Deathstalker War

now to him as breathing, and couldn't help wondering what other abilities he might manifest in times of need. He looked down at the swarming toys and smiled unpleasantly as he began to plan what to do next with his new power.
    On the bridge, the Captain staggered back and forth on his peg legs, swinging his cutlass with more strength than skill. Only a few toys had reached him so far, but he could hear more on their way. The parrot fluttered in their faces, screaming abuse, distracting them. With no one's hands on the wheel, the ship drifted aimlessly, heading for the bank.
    Down below, Anything had turned into his most martial shape, and was cutting through the massed toys with razor-sharp hands. Their weapons rebounded harmlessly from his metal body, so they clung to his arms and legs, trying to drag him down by sheer weight of numbers. But the toy who wished he was a Fury
    stood firm and would not fall.
    Poogie had become a snarling fury of hate and destruction, no longer cartoonlike at all. Enraged at the toys who would keep him from his atonement, and would dare attack humans under his protection, he fought tirelessly in the center of the deck and defied one and all to bring him down.
    But there were so many patchwork toys. So very many.
    In the stateroom, Halloweenie hovered helplessly over Julian, and wondered desperately what to do for the best. Toys were hammering on the barricaded door and smashing the windows. The young esper was still bleeding heavily from the mouth and nose, despite everything the Li'l Skeleton Boy could do to stop it.
    The ship did have a med bay, but Halloweenie knew he wasn't strong enough to drag the esper such a long way, even if they could avoid being noticed by the patchwork toys. Halloweenie might have escaped on his own, but he didn't want to leave the injured human unprotected. The toys hammering against the door were slowly forcing it open, and pushing the piled-up furniture back inch by inch.
    Toys were trying to get through the windows. Halloweenie ran back and forth, pushing them back out.
    And then the barricade of furniture suddenly collapsed and fell backwards, and the door swung open, and the toys came howling in. Halloweenie ran forward to stand between them and the human, but they were so many, and he was just a little skeleton boy. He went down under their stamping feet, his bones cracking and breaking, crying out for Julian to run. The young esper tried to get his feet under him and lurched forward to help his small defender. Swords and axes rose above him.
    There was a clap like thunder and a rush of displaced air, and Giles
    Deathstalker appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the stateroom. The patchwork toys fell back, unnerved by the sudden appearance, and Giles moved forward and hauled Julian to his feet. And in that moment, while the toys hesitated, Giles reached out with his Maze-altered mind and slammed into Julian's. There was a moment of opposition, as the young esper realized what the Deathstalker meant to do, and then Giles swept it aside, seized control of Julian's esp, and summoned up a psistorm.
    Julian screamed horribly, the sound rising above the roar of battle, and everyone hesitated a moment. And then it was as though a great wind swept the length of the boat, picking up the patchwork toys and pitching them overboard.
    Others were torn apart, reduced to their component parts, and scattered by the wind. Some simply exploded, touched by the stormfire crackling across the deck, spitting and seething. The humans stood and watched in awe, untouched by the power of the storm.
    Bruin Bear was lifted off his feet by the strength of the wind, but the Sea Goat grabbed him with one hand and clung grimly to the guardrail with the other. The strain almost pulled him in two, but he wouldn't let go. He was the Sea Goat, and he didn't let his friends down. Poogie and Anything clung together in terror, wedged under a pile of deck chairs. In the stateroom, at the heart of the storm, toys fell dead at its touch. The wind howled like a human voice, in agony and exultation, and swept the deck clean of patchwork toys.
    The storm shut off as suddenly as it began, and all was still on the ship again.
    Apart from the agonized screaming from the stateroom, and Halloweenie calling desperately for help. The humans and the toys forgot about their sudden victory and their various wounds and ran to the stateroom, pushing their way in past the half-open door and the scattered