Egoneg shrank.

     And, as he shrank, he solidified.

     He now stood on four rhino-sized legs.  

     His body was one huge torso with a variety of heads on top.

     He had eight arms.

     And Niki had no way to defend herself.

     Her body, for the moment, was of absolutely no use to her. Every movement she made triggered a universe of agony in her skull.

     Egoneg could do whatever he wanted with her, and there was nothing she could do about it.

     Apparently, he wasn't as enraged with her as he'd been with Trevor and Fathom.

     Egoneg picked Niki up, shook her like a rag doll, then discarded her by pitching her over his shoulder.

     A  half second elapsed before Niki stopped flying through the air and hit the sidewalk.  

     So much happened in that half second.  

     Niki spotted Trevor on the ground, for one thing, unconscious.

     And she further noticed that she was, more or less, headed right towards him.

     In fact, if she twisted her body just...

     She did it. She made the micro-second decision to twist her body in just such a way that caused her to land very close to Trevor's. 

     If they were going to die, they were going to die together.

     And the pain of that, the pain of twisting her body was such that, for the rest of that half second, her vision went bright-white with pain.

     When she landed, it felt like she landed on a detonating grenade, the pain was so intense.

     But the worst pain of all?

     It came from the small of her back.

     She smacked down on the sidewalk on something tiny and round and that made the small of her back shriek.  

     She managed to pull that tiny, round thing out from underneath herself.                     It wasn't a rock or a stone. 

     It was a device. 

     Niki had landed right on top of the device Pomimi was to attach to Egoneg. 

     Pain slammed into Niki so hard now that, really, she was all but paralyzed.

     She felt she had maybe one single move left before she passed out.  

     She looked at the device she had in her hand. 

     She knew immediately what it was, and, therefore, immediately knew what her last move had to be. 

     On his huge, hippo legs, Egoneg rumbled away down a street packed with people. Niki couldn't figure that out. You'd think they'd be running in terror from the guy, yet here they all were tramping on each other just to get close to him. 

     Weird. 

     Agony pushed like the Arm of God on Niki's body so that it seemed her only escape was through unconsciousness. 

     "Hey, Asshole!" she screamed at Egoneg. "I'm not done with you yet! Get back here so I can kick your ass!"

     Egoneg turned. Three of his more human-looking faces peered at Niki like, what? You're talking to me? You couldn't be possibly be talking to me.

     Here we go, Niki thought. 

     One way or another, within seconds, this was all going to be decided.  

                                                    CONTINUE

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