And guess who knocked it down?
The army of bad robots.
Jack held his sister close, with a serious look on his face.
"You're not getting Angel."
I leapt to my feet. Dianne followed me, grabbing the machine gun she'd hidden on her back.
"You leave the girl alone, or you mess with us," I said in a menacing growl.
Dianne's father revealed his photon machine gun and I felt Jack flinch from behind me.
"No..."
This was the weapon that killed - nearly killed - Jack before. The one that blasted him off the cliff and to his near doom.
Dianne had, by now, pointed her gun at her father; and her father's gun was pointed at her - as if it was some sort of showdown between father and daughter.
Angel was probably being squeezed to death by her big brother, who actually seemed more scared than she was.
I heard her whisper something to him. So faintly I could hardly pick it up, but I think it was something like, "Why are you scared, brother?"
He whispered something back: "He did something to me with that..."
The he seemed to all of a sudden scrunch his face in pain as if he'd been shot, and Angel looked up in horror.
Somehow she managed to wriggle out of Jack's arms.
And then she launched an icy cold stare at the opposition.
My sensors felt cold. Really cold.
I heard Dianne shiver and all of a sudden I realised that the room was completely frozen over.
Snow drifted down from seemingly nowhere, materialising from invisible clouds from the ceiling.
I heard Angel giggle, waving her hands.
And then I heard the strangest thing - a strangled quack.
Or honk. Or something like...
Penguins?
A black-and-white, knee-sized bird looked up at me and called out again.
I tried to bend down to it... but I couldn't. My limbs were... frozen.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw Dianne look around with wide eyes like a child in a room full of Christmas presents. I suppose she was looking at the penguins.
Angel came up to me.
"Sorry, Reese," she said in a cute little voice. "I was just trying to get rid of the bad robots! I guess I froze you instead."
Suddenly I was freed from the ice.
I looked around as if I were the child in a room full of Christmas presents, in this indoor winter wonderland.
Full of penguins.
All the 'bad robots' were gone - probably frozen by Angel's spell of snow and then smashed by Dianne's machine gun, I noted, staring at the slightly smashed robot limbs.
The one corpse I couldn't find, however, was the one of Dianne's father. He must have somehow managed to escape, again. But that didn't matter. We'd find him and transform him back into Dianne's real father before this was all done.
Jack was huddled in the corner still, with what seemed to be a look of regret on his face.
Then he cringed again. And I rushed over, slipping over the ice and tripping over the penguins.
Jack tried to stand up.
And then he fell to the floor - and didn't get up.
ns 172.69.58.172da2
and then Add to home screen.