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  Chapter the Fourth – Minions Are Mean

  “Kaboom?” Ally said, momentarily distracting everyone from the strangely dressed man.

  “What?” Heather said, joining Ally by the computer again.

  “It says kaboom here,” Ally replied.

  “Uh… guys?” Ayesha said, pointing out the window.

  A loud boom sounded from the street, Ally and Heather turned to the screen.

  “The evil overlord fired his bazooka at the maiden’s lair, cackling with glee as the rocket sped towards them,” Ally read, her eyes wide.

  “Forcefield!” Ayesha shouted, putting her hands out.

  “Ayesha!” Heather shouted, running to pull Ayesha in from the window and out of the rocket’s way.

  Ally typed furiously on the keyboard and paused briefly to see if what she had written had any effect. The rocket raced towards their windows and they closed their eyes, turning away from the window and expecting the large blast any moment. Heather opened an eye after a few moments of nothing. The rocket was hovering a little away from their window, whizzing back and forth, trying to break through the shimmering blue material that had appeared from nowhere.

  “Forcefield,” Ayesha said, smugly.

  Ally breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed in the chair slightly.

  “We need to get out of here,” Dan said, turning back to the room.

  “I agree,” Crast said.

  “But we can’t leave the computer,” Heather said, looking at Ally and the giant computer in front of her.

  “True,” Dan said, stroking his chin thoughtfully. “Just write that it’s a small laptop and we’ll take it with us.”

  “Good idea,” Ally said, typing the words onto the screen.

  There was a little popping noise and the large computer was replaced by a smaller laptop. Ally picked it up and carried it to the door. The rest of the group followed and they made their way down the stairs and out onto the street.

  The ‘evil overlord’s’ vehicle was larger than it had seemed from their window, towering over them as they left the building. He was standing before them, his cape still blowing in a breeze that wasn’t there. As they neared him, they noticed a man crouched nearby with a fan in his hands, aiming it in the man’s direction.

  “I am Wax,” he said, placing his hands on his hips and standing in a pose similar to superheroes from comics and movies.

  “Wait, you’re made of wax?” Heather asked.

  “Tut, no that’s my name,” Wax said, his face falling and his shoulders slumping. “Why does everyone always ask me that?”

  “Because the way you said it made it sound like you were telling us you were made of wax,” Ayesha said.

  “Well I’m not!” Wax cried, stomping a foot on the ground and folding his arms. “Jerome, enough! I’m not in the mood anymore.”

  The man with the fan turned it off and returned to the vehicle. Wax whistled and thirteen men left the vehicle and stood in a line before them.

  “Not so smart now are you?” Wax said, leaning over the shoulder of one of the men to taunt them. “Now, defeat them.”

  “You smell!” one of the men said to Dan.

  The group looked at each other in shock.

  “How dare y—” Heather began.

  “You have a big nose!” another of the men shouted to her.

  Heather gasped and put her hands over her face. Ally and Ayesha’s mouths had dropped at the comments.

  “Now see he—” Ally began.

  The man closest to her reached over to her and flicked her forehead. Ally blinked a few times and let her mouth fall open again.

  “Did he just flick me?!” she said, turning to the rest of the group.

  “I think he did,” Ayesha said, equally as shocked.

  More of the men reached out and each of the group was flicked on the forehead.

  “That’s it!” Heather shouted.

  She stomped on the foot of the closest man to her and then punched him in the face. He went reeling backwards and it was the turn of the men to look shocked. The rest of the group took it as their cue to start fighting too. Heather was quickly surrounded by two more men as was everyone else, Ally and Dan each ended up with three men. Heather kept to her tactic of hitting them low and then hitting them high, all the while watching Ally with her ninja like moves.

  “What are you doing Ally?” she called.

  “Karate!” she called back.

  Heather watched almost mesmerized as Ally jumped and kicked one of the men into another one. She turned to see one of the men she had previously knocked out running towards her. She smiled and jumped and tried to do the same kick as Ally had just done but the man stopped running and Heather fell to the ground instead. The man picked her up and held her in a headlock.

  “Let go of me!”

  “No!”

  “Come on, why not?”

  “You tried to kick me!”

  “You started it!”

  “Did not!”

  “Did too!”

  Heather stomped on the man’s foot and he let her go, holding onto his foot, hopping about and screaming in pain. Heather looked around and noticed that all the other men were now sitting about, nursing their wounds, while her group was standing tall, albeit slightly out of breath.

  “Now, you were saying?” Ayesha said, turning on Wax.

  “Uh… oh… is that the time? I really must be going,” Wax said, rubbing the back of his neck and retreating into his vehicle. “I’ve got… uh… laundry to do. Later lovelies!”

  The group watched as the door slid shut behind him and the weird noise started filling the air once more as the vehicle lifted off the ground and bumpily made its way back to the open sky.

  “Well that was weird,” Heather said, turning to the others.

  They nodded and kept looking at the sky where Wax was still trying to disappear.

  “Hey, guys?” Heather twiddled her fingers slightly. “My nose isn’t big, right?”

  “No, of course not!” Ally said.

  “Tiny, it’s absolutely tiny,” Ayesha chimed in.

  “Yeah, sure, it’s a little big,” Dan said, shrugging.

  The three turned to glare at him.

  “What? You asked!” he said, pointing at Heather.

  “He knows nothing about women,” Heather said, shaking her head.

  “What?” Dan asked. “What?!”

  The girls ignored him and crowded around the laptop instead.

  “Wow, it’s been busy,” Ally said, reading over what it had written while they were fighting. “Alright, time to get this back on track.”

  She sat cross-legged on the ground and started typing again.