Live and Let Drood

quickly forward into the bus’s interior, grabbed hold of the massive cannon, and ripped it right off its floor mounting. I then crumpled the heavy gun in my hands like it was made of paper, wadded it into a ball and let the metal mass drop to the floor with a loud and disquieting thud.
    The man who’d been firing the cannon retreated quickly towards the rear of the bus, making choked noises of distress. All the bus seats were full, with row after row of hard-faced men in flak jackets, carryingall kinds of guns. They started to aim them at me…and then had a rush of common sense to their heads and changed their minds. Seeing Drood armour up close will do that to you. Which is, of course, the point.
    The hard-faced fighting men lowered their guns to the floor and then put their hands as high in the air as they could get them. Which was only sensible, if a bit disappointing. It isn’t nearly as much fun to beat the crap out of people who aren’t fighting back. It wouldn’t necessarily stop me, though. I was still pretty annoyed about the whole driveby thing. And then a voice at the very rear of the bus spoke up, saying:
    “Take him down or you don’t get paid!”
    Just when everything was going so well…There’s always one. There was just the briefest of pauses while the gunmen looked at one another, and then they all reached inside their flak jackets and produced any number of magic amulets, glowing handguns, pointing bones and enchanted brass knuckles. The gunmen all surged forward at once, clearly hoping to achieve close up what they hadn’t managed at a distance: bringing me down through sheer weight of numbers. I could have told them that was never going to work.
    They punched and kicked at me, hitting me with every weapon they had, shouting fierce war cries to encourage themselves and one another, falling on me from every side at once…and none of them could touch me. Their various toys just broke and shattered against my armour, and in the limited space of the bus’s aisle they were more a threat to each other than they were to me.
    I finally lost my patience and waded into them, slapping weapons out of their hands and striking the gunmen down with swift, efficient punches. I knocked them down and trampled them, bounced them off walls, picked them up and slammed them against the low ceiling. I was careful to control my armour’s strength. I wanted living prisoners capable of answering questions. So while they did their very best to kill me, I didn’t kill a single one of them.
    Because I, not my armour, was in control.
    Molly was quickly there with me, darting back and forth, smiling happily as she threw shaped curses that made guns blow up in theirowners’ faces and punching in the odd head here and there, for the good of her soul. She whooped loudly as she ducked wild punches, kicked the legs out from under people and trampled them viciously underfoot. She dispensed much-deserved beatings to the ungodly, and loved every moment of it.
    I laughed and fought alongside her, and that seemed to upset the gunmen even more. Especially when Diana joined the fight, darting in and out of the many shadows inside the bus, appearing and disappearing with bewildering speed as she dispensed elegant karate blows and fierce savate kicks and the odd elbow to the back of the neck to a victim who didn’t have the sense to hit the floor fast enough. Diana was a graceful, efficient fighter, her tweed skirt swirling about her as she moved with surprising speed for someone her age. And not one of the gunmen was able to point a weapon at her fast enough to save himself.
    Eventually, the three of us just ran out of people to hit. We stood together, none of us breathing particularly hard, and looked around us. The inside of the bus was littered with battered and bloodied would-be assassins lying in piles, draped over the seats, gasping for air and staunching bloody mouths and noses and occasionally crying bitter tears. As professional assassins went, this bunch hadn’t travelled far. They never stood a chance, and they knew it. Molly and Diana and I looked hopefully around for someone else we could teach the error of their ways, but everyone kept their heads well down and avoided our eyes, hoping not to be noticed.
    “Well, that was fun,” said Diana, adjusting the silk scarf at her throat and brushing herself down. “I was hoping I’d get the chance to see the two of you in action, and I have to say, you’re