The Wheels on the Bus part VI point V

(Part VI point 0, is as always over yonder at Ms. Hayson's awesome blog. When last we left our heroes, Thor had just promised he would do no harm to the zombies, to save Amalia and Mia a trip to jail for breaking the Zombie Treaty. Except, something ELSE has caught his eye in the mob of glittered and feathered undead!)

"Oh no," I said, my voice small. 

Thor charged. The static field collapsed and glitter rained down on my head, but I didn't care. It was all I could do to pull Mia out of the warpath. Lightning cracked so bright it seemed to split the sky in two, and thunder roared in echo to the god's battle cry.

The zombies fell like bowling pins, spinning off and scattering before him. They wove and slid, arms wheeling and bodies overbalancing into heaps. I blinked, not sure how they could be moving so strangely.

"What on earth?" I asked Mia.

"Oh," she said, her eyes wide and her face pale. "I heard rumors that Heelys wanted to contract zombies for endorsements and commercials. I guess they must have given them out today."

"SOMEONE PUT THEM ON ROLLER SKATES?" Thor shouted.

I flinched. There was no point in answering, and Thor was already swinging Mjolnir toward the one creature still standing upright. I caught a glimpse of a thick black mustache on the face of a snarling frost giant before it hit, and the giant went flying backwards into the stage. 

A mushroom cloud of feathers and glitter launched skyward, but the frost giant picked himself back up and came at the thunder god, aiming for his throat. He was... skating. With far more coordination than the zombies, though I was pretty sure the body mass of a frost giant was beyond the safe limit for the wheels on his Heelys. The sound of his body colliding with Thor's was louder than thunder. 

Thor took the fall, turning it into a roll which sent the giant into the air again, straight toward us.

"Oh no, oh no, oh no!" I leapt sideways, meaning to knock Mia out of the way, but she was already moving. I landed in the grass and stared as she skated back to me, helping me up, and we ran for cover. "What, did everyone get the Heelys memo but me?!"

The frost giant was up again, his face blue and white where Thor had struck the human disguise right off his body. To a casual observer, it would have just looked like mottled bruises, but I knew better. Lightning forked across the sky, and thunder shook the ground.

Mia grinned brilliantly. "Sorry! If I had known you were coming, I TOTES would have told you to wear a pair! They're so handy to have in zombie crowds--and of course, in case of godly throw-downs!"

"I'll be sure to pick some up at the mall while I'm there," I said. "But at this rate, I'm not sure we're going to make it today."

"Oh yea!" Mia clapped her hands, and her zombies fell in around us, somehow skating in formation. I NEVER would have pegged Tyler for a Heelys fan. "Friend-Zombies! We must get our friend Amalia to the other side of the quad! The bus will be here shortly!"

"But what about Thor?" I asked, running in the middle of their flying-V through the heart of the zombie panic. "I can't just leave him!"

A mass of Frost Giant soared through the air over our heads to land in a heap of rainbow feathers. It didn't so much as twitch, and I breathed a sigh of relief. Then a bolt of lightning struck the giant, and it melted into black ice and ash. Thunder gods are very, very good at winning brawls.

But there were a hundred zombies between us, a mob all skating and lurching around Thor, and when I tried to break from Mia's formation, Adam and Tyler caught me by the waist and pulled me back.

"You can't," Adam warned. "You'll be trampled!"

Sparks were flying, and I could see Thor trying to wade through the mass of undead, but there were so many, and he didn't dare harm them. Thunder gods might talk a good talk, but they always kept their word, and he'd made me a promise. His eyes blazed white and I could hear the thunder echoing his growl of frustration as the zombies broke against him like tidal waves, pulling him down.

"Thor!" I cried, losing sight of him in the crowd.

"Go!" He shouted, though I don't know how he heard me over the noise. "Get to the bus!" 

And then he was gone.