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Vera twisted the German's ear until he screamed in agony and then put her knee to good use. The thug turned purple and fell to the ground. Looking around, she noticed that those who had to fight the squirrels in black pajamas were not fairing so well. The Germans could be handled with basic fighting techniques if you weren't that keen on fighting fair. And a couple years fending for herself on the riverboats had shown her that fighting fair was for those who wished to lose honorably. However, the squirrels were just too fast. A poker player would take a swing at one of the little buggers and said bugger would merely jump off to another victim, leaving a nasty cut on the original target. The air was filled with darting black figures wielding razor sharp knives.
The only two in the room who were not affected by the squirrels (Vera had several cuts on the backs of her hands) were Dr Montsnmags and the squid who had been the dealer at their table. The squid was currently holding three squirrels by their necks and playing a tarantela by banging their skulls together in rhythm. He was also holding the cards down from the last hand on the collapsed table and trying to communicate to Biggles that, no, he did not wish to have a stick of dynamite tucked up his trouser legs, because he had no trousers and, more to the point, no legs. It was handy to have eight tentacles when one needed to multitask.
Montsnmags, on the other hand, did not seem to be attracting the attention of the squirrels in any fashion. She watched as one of the airborne rodents flew in the direction of the doctor and, nearly breaking its back, changed directions in mid flight, rather than come within a yard of its unintended target. Montsnmags stood in the center of the room and seemed to be carrying on a conversation with either himself or God, since he was looking up in the air as the talked.
"Well, I am sure that your feelings are hurt, but the contract did specifically state that you would have a brief foreshadowing appearance, a short scene showing your disgruntlement with the progress of the story, and then your final entry in the climactic fight scene. I might point out that you are, in fact late yourself. And no, don't give me that line about being available for a noir mystery film delaying you, you do have your own built in Temporal Displacement Unit for such problems."
Right before the universe exploded, Vera realized that Montsnmags was not showing his speech... impediment.
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