Episode 1 - Pilot

Sophia takes stock of the gremlins' creation and the battlefield. The, for lack of a better term, mecha is massive. It would take something large and heavy to have a change of tripping it up. Ramming Matthew's SUV into one of its legs might do it. She also sees that some of the disabled construction vehicles seem to be holding up pretty precariously. If she was to collapse it in the thing's way at the right time, it could make it stumble. Even if her timing was off, it might be able to at least slow it down.

As she considers her options, the mecha nears the office trailer. It wheels its wrecking ball arm around and obliterates the trailer with a mighty swing. Wood and paneling rain down in a dozen meter-wide radius around the former field office of the Casper Heights development.

Eshe watches Sophia's sprint towards the hulking mechanical golem - Is it a golem? A construct? Ugh! Focus! What is your next move? - her mind flitting through scenarios until suddenly an insane, terrible, reckless idea seems to burn itself into her consciousness.  She bounces on her toes, ready to move.

Mangas, I'm with you. I have an idea. I'll fill you in on the way.  You", she pokes Matthew in the chest with her left index finger. "Don't die, k?" She says with a laugh before sprinting to catch up with Mangas.


~~~
"So that's it," she says, pausing to steady her breathing.  "It is not very elaborate, as far as plans go, but I think that it'll work: Fast recon together to try and identify the king and our best point of entry; then I draw the attention of as many enemies as possible while you apprehend the target."

Sophia moves, taking her lance out and hitting the construction vehicles, lightning coming out of the lance. Let's hope this works.

"I'll try to slow down the think, do what you need to do guys!"

Matthew nods at Eshe.

"You should know im tougher than I look."

At which point he has finished checking and loading the grenade launcher, and locked it with a click.

"Stay safe. I will give you 30 secs before it starts getting noisy."

With that he stares at the incoming trash mech.

Eshe peeks into the scrapyard, scanning the oil puddle for signs of a gremlin king.   Once either she or Mangas lay their eyes on it, they would be able to refine their angle of approach.
"See anything?" She whispered; not only was Mangas taller than she was, he often noticed things that she missed.

"No..." , he answers and grinds his teeth. The mischievous gremlin bunch are a strain on his already thin stretched patience and he is struggling to keep his concentration and cool.

The already perilously perched cranes and haulers collapse at the thunder spear's touch. With a cacophony of bending and breaking metal, they tumble towards the scrap mech crashing into its legs. It teeters and totters and then, slowly, falls to its knees.

It immediately starts to pick itself back up, but one of its legs appears to be stuck. It sounds its horns in frustration, then starts to clear the rubble with wide sweeps of its wrecking ball and its wingblade.

EXT. SCRAPMAZE - NIGHT

Mangas and Eshe see a number of gremlins perched atop the scrap walls and towers near the edge of the maze as they go in, but the creatures seem focused on their creation's march on the town, allowing the two hunters to sneak pass them unnoticed.

Finding their way through the maze in the dark, however, proves challenging. Especially while trying to avoid all the tripwires, pit traps, and other challenges the gremlins have built to discourage trespassers.

A few minutes into the maze, Eshe accidently kicks a loose piece of scrap. The noise it makes as it bounces off a car's frame echoes down the maze's corridors. Both hunters freeze. The silence that follows hangs heavy in the air. But gremlins do not appear to rain sharp metal scrap upon their heads. Instead, a small frightened voice asks: "Hello? Is anyone there?"

The hunters share a look, before inching forward. As they round the corner, they see a small child standing in the middle of one the scrap corridors branching out from the intersection they find themselves in. The child is a young girl with long curly hair brushed into a wide afro. She's wearing jeans, an oversized hoodie, and running shoes. She reminds Eshe of one of her little cousins. In her hands is a dim flashlight and a large reusable shopping bag.

She points her flashlight at the hunters and gasps when she sees Mangas. She goes to take a step back, but suddenly stops herself, looking down at her right foot with plain fear etched on her face. She looks back up at the hunters and gulps. "Can... Can you help me? I stepped on something and I don't think I should move..." she says in a small voice.

What?! Oh no! Nonononono... Eshe stares at Mangas as if willing the large man to change the reality of their situation - that their plan now had a wrinkle that they did not need, but could not ignore. "Follow my lead,"she says to him softly before plastering a smile on her face.

"Hi there! My name is Eshe," she whispers cheerfully while approaching the child and crouching at her feet.  "And this is my friend Mangas - he's going to help me to keep you safe." Eshe points cheerily at the big guy, signaling as well as she can that he should come a bit closer and try look friendly!, before leaning in conspiratorially, looking at the young girl with a knowing smile. "He might act grumpy sometimes, but he's super nice."

"Now, let's take a look at what you've stepped on.... sorry, I didn't even ask! What's your name?"

Matt, seeing the thing stumble and stuck for the moment lines up and starts firing the grenade launcher at the currently immobile mech.

"FIRE IN THE HOLE"

FWOMP

Mangas stops and stares at the child. She seems so out of place in this maze, she could have been a purple kangaroo with sunglasses, Mangas would not have been more startled by her.
When he sees her gasp and instinctively start to retreat an overwhelming sadness flushes through him. He takes a step back and hunches over, as if having received a blow to his chest.
Mangas loves children, always spent every free minute with the children of the clan, back on the Mongolian plains. But that was another lifetime. Since the night with the bear, children seemed to fear him. They see or at least sense his bestial aura much more than adults do and it has been centuries since a child trusted him.
Involuntarily he leans over and gets onto all fours to appear less large and threatening, only to realise that that pose would be much more animal like and thus reinforcing his appearance. He flinches and returns back and ends up sitting down in the dirt, all strength leaving him. For a moment he forgets the situation and simply is. Is sad, is aimless, is tired.

Eshe's heart tightens when she sees Mangas demeanor.  She does not know exactly what he is thinking, but seldom has she seen him so... not soft exactly. Subdued?  She makes a mental note of it, but doesn't know when or if she would ever be able to bring it up with him; either way, it could not matter in the here and now.  At this moment, her attention has to be on the child and on the king, and on the town, and on not going splat...

EXT. SCRAPMAZE - NIGHT

The child keeps her eyes on Mangas, looking at him kind of like someone who'd happened upon a bear while on a hike. "Um... Be-Becky..." she stammers.

Eshe asks Becky to shine her flashlight down and takes a look at the young girl's foot. She can see that the dirt appears disturbed in a roughly round shape, approximately a foot wide. She digs carefully around and reveals a flat, round metal disk a few inches thick. She has seen enough movies and TV to recognize it as a landmine.

EXT. SCRAPYARD - NIGHT

Hitting a target the size of the scrap mech proves rather easy for Matthew. The projectile of his grenade launcher arcs perfectly and explodes against the thing's chest. The mech sways from the impact, shrapnel flying off its form. For a moment it looks like it might tip over, but it stabilizes. It raises its wingblade arm in Matthew's direction and sounds its horns.

The bellow is followed by the popping sounds of gremlins teleporting. In the dark, Matthew can't see them, but he hears their angry chattering all around...

As Mangas realises what Eshe uncovered he slowly gets up puts his hands forward palms out. He waves them gently up and down in a calming fashion as he slowly walks towards Eshe and Becky. On the way he grabs a large stone, roughly the weight of Becky and easily carries it over to the two.
Once he reaches the duo he puts his hand on the mine and slides it under Becky's foot,pressing down on the trigger. "Go." he whispers and waits for the two to walk off.

Even though Mangas was moving slowly, Eshe felt like she was frozen in time. She knew what he intended to do when he picked up the rock and wanted to scream at him, hit him, do something anything to stop him.  Instead, she watches him walk towards them rock in hand, depress the mine, move Becky's foot.

"You", she gently touches one of Mangas' massive shoulders, forcing herself to meet his gaze.  "Don't die, k?" She says it so softly that he can barely make out the words; in a single fluid movement, Eshe sweeps Becky into her arms and turns her back on Mangas, striding towards cover while cooing softly at the child.

The second Eshe gets to cover, Mangas rolls the large stone next to his hand, then rolls it onto the mine and pulls his hand away. The large man dives away, waiting for the explosion, but it doesn't come. He looks up and sees the stone standing perfectly still on the landmine, keeping it from exploding.

Eshe gets behind cover, clutching Becky tightly. She closes her eyes and grits her teeth, but the explosion she expected never rocks the scrapmaze's walls and towers. She looks up from behind the cover, and sees Mangas looking equally surprised. She breathes a sigh of relief and leans against the pile of scrap she was using as a barricade, and sees a pair of eyes staring at her from farther down the scrap corridor. The gremlin looks at her, then at Becky, then back at Eshe. It bares its teeth and hisses. Becky starts to struggle against Eshe's embrace. "Let me go!" she says.

No sooner had Eshe released a ragged exhale - he did it! - than she found herself inhaling sharply as she clocked the gremlin before them.

moarhair wrote:

Becky starts to struggle against Eshe's embrace. "Let me go!"

"Sure thing kid," she says before unceremoniously depositing Becky by her side; it would have been hard enough to stave off a gremlin while holding a young girl, let alone an uncooperative one.

Eshe scans the scrapyard, hoping to not to find other pairs of eyes gleaming in the shadows.
"We've got company."

Sophia lunges forward getting in between Matt and the gremlins, she moves fluidly from one target to the next making sure to hit them with a shock of lightning just as much as with her blade.

"Get the mech!" She tells Matt.

Mangas breathes deeply. He isn't sure, whether he expected an explosion or not. But the lack of it feels weirdly anticlimactic, leaving Mangas slightly confused.
When he hears Eshe's call he snaps out of it, gets up and starts walking towards her.

Matt expertly pops the cannister and reloads in a fluid motion before taking aim again. He launches the explosive round at the already damaged mech, and turns meets eyes with one of the gremlins. He stares, unflinching, as the flash of light and sound rolls over them from the explosion.

EXT. SCRAPYARD - NIGHT

Matthew's cool and collected demeanor, and precise and economical movements contrast starkly with Sophia's frenetic defense. While the agent calmly loads his grenade launcher, the Dragon's divine servant whirls around him, her spear crackling with lightning as she intercepts the attacking gremlins. She seems to be everywhere at once, but there are just. so. many. She manages to keep them off Matthew, but some manage to strike back at her, clawing and biting at her flesh. Their attacks don't last long, however, as she expertly dispatches the ones who manage to get in close. Soon, their attempts stop. With a flurry a popping noises, the remaining gremlins retreat.

Matthew fires its second shot. The grenade arcs towards the gremlins' mech and explodes as it hits its outstretched wingblade arm. Something gives and, with a hair-raising metallic screech, the arm collapses, then tears from the thing's body. As it hits the rubble on the ground, it drags some of the debris down. The mech finally manages to free its stuck leg. It stands with some difficulty, its balance hampered by its missing arm, but manages to resume its march towards the town. It looms over the two hunters, getting dangerously close.

EXT. SCRAPMAZE - NIGHT

Becky takes a few steps to stand between the gremlin and Eshe. "Stop! They're not bad!" she says to the creature. She sticks an arm in her bag and pulls out a handful of candy. The gremlin's ears perk up at the sight of the colorful packaging. It inches closer and swipes it from the girl's hand, before retreating a few steps. It sits on the ground and begins to unwrap the treat.

"They really like candy, especially Tootsie Rolls," Becky tells Eshe, with the kind of certainty only children can seem to muster. "They're not bad either. They're just mad 'cause the grown-ups tried to destroy their home."

Mangas rounds the corner to see a gremlin sitting on the ground, eating candy, while Eshe and Becky stand nearby.

Then, an explosion rocks the scrap stacks, followed by a terrible, metallic screeching. The gremlin leaps to its feet, bares its teeth, then vanishes with a pop.

Covered in scratches and even sporting a nasty cut that has some blood rolling down her left eye, Sophia huff in annoyance. "This is gonna take longer than I thought, keep shooting at it, try to aim at a leg and I'll make sure you have a clear shot from the little pests."

At first, Eshe is amused by the young girl's moxie, but when the creature swipes at the child's hand, Eshe's stomach flips.  It was so easy to trust Becky's absolute confidence and now that gremlin is going to... sit and eat candy? Well, I'll be!

"They're not bad either. They're just mad 'cause the grown-ups tried to destroy their home."

"That makes sense Becky. I would be mad if someone tried to destroy my home," she says pensively, a bit surprised at how true the statement - meant to placate a child - had been.

As the explosion rocks the scrap stacks and the metal screeching fills the air, Eshe feels the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach returning in earnest.  This was a Shakespearian-level misunderstanding that was hurtling towards one of the Bard's typical conclusions: far too many bodies over what could have been settled by a conversation.

"So because the grown-ups tried to destroy their home, they are trying to destroy the town.  And because they are trying to destroy the town, our friends are trying to stop them any way they can...  A lot more people, grown-ups and gremlins alike, will get hurt if we can't find a way to stop all of this." The last sentence is as much for Mangas as it is for Becky. Could they put a stop to this?  First things first: they had to let Matt and Sophia know.  Eshe pulls out her phone and sends *Gremlins aren't evil, just annoyed. CALL ME* to their group chat. No guarantee that they would see the message, but it was a start.

"Becky, Mangas, we've got to put our heads together on this. How can we get everyone to calm down?"

Matt stands his ground and expertly reloads. When his phone goes off, he takes a moment to look at the phone, the grenade launcher still pointing at the incoming mech.

Why now....

He dials Eshe, holding the phone to his ear with his shoulder, lining up the grenade launcher, but holding his fire.

"You know, this isnt the best time..."

"What the hell are you doing!? This thing is gonna kill a lot of people if we don't stop it!" Sophia says completely ignoring her phone. "If you are having a weakness moment at least shoot one leg!"

Seeing Matt pick his phone and call she scoff and starts running in the direction of the mech as she hits gremlins out of her way. If Matt isn't going to do it I will. If she manages to make it she will try to hit one of the mech's knee whit the full force of lightning, hoping to bust it fully.

As Mangas faces the gremlins ugly visage, the memory of the pain Mangas had earlier received by the crowd of Pohuaimo returns. Anger rises in him and grinding his teeth he says "Rats also like candy, they are still no pets." and pumps his shotgun. Then he starts down the corridor of debris towards where they suspected the oil spill to be located.

"Rats also like candy, they are still no pets."
Mangas' words hit like a slap in the face. It is not so much the words themselves as the anger, the determination, the promise of lethal harm.  
When he walks aways from Eshe, primed shotgun ready to mete violence and she calls after him futilely.
"People do have pet rats you know!

Eshe gives Becky a determination look. "He's still a good guy. But even good guys can be wrong," she pauses, surprised to be receiving a call, despite having asked for it - it had been a long shot.

"Matt! OhmyGod! You'rethebest", she rattles off quickly while trotting after Mangas, Becky in tow, overjoyed to hear a friendly voice.   "The gremlins're only tryin' to protect themselves n' their home. I'm gonna try to make peace with'em.  So stop the mech from messin' up the town, but y'all need to try not to hurt too many gremlins if you can help it."

EXT. SCRAPYARD - NIGHT

Sophia dashes in close to the mech, her spear crackling with lightning. As she draws closer, it begins to swing its wrecking ball arm. Sophia sees it coming and ducks, then plunges her spear into its knee. The mech's leg jerks as she hits something critical. It begins to fall.

Sophia pulls her spear loose and grins as she looks up at the falling giant, but her triumph is short-lived. She had stopped tracking the wrecking ball after dodging it, and it hits her fully on the backswing. The impact knocks the wind from her and sends her sprawling on the ground.

Matthew watches in horror as his ally gets knocked to the ground, right in front of the falling mech. If he doesn't act fast, it looks like Sophia will be crushed under its bulk...

EXT. SCRAPMAZE - NIGHT

Eshe and Becky follow Mangas deeper into the maze. The young girl sticks close to the female hunter, eyeing the large man warily. "He's angry too..." Becky says in a little voice. She looks up at Eshe. "My mom says that when we're angry, we need to take deep breaths and then talk about it. But it's hard to talk to them, here. They don't talk like we do. You gotta know the words and the steps." She tenses up and looks away guiltily.

"But it's hard to talk to them, here."
Here?  Now thatwas an interesting bit of information. And Becky's guilty look was a dead giveaway. She was from a family that had secrets that likely went back generations, and were held with pride.  
She tilts the phone away from her mouth to speak with Becky.
"Your mom sounds very wise Becky, and I think that you are too. You don't have to tell me anything that you aren't allowed to share, but I am here to help.  I was literally born to help... and was recently reminded that I choose to help.  If you have a way of getting the gremlins to understand you, can we try to calm things down together?"

Matt is moving before he is aware of it.

Looking at the angle of the falling mech, he fires the grenade round at its upper arm, hoping to spin it around and away from the 2 of them.

As soon as the round has fired, he drops it, letting the strap take the weight he moves and uses a maneuver he picked up from some others, a ranger roll, looking to combat roll over Sophia, picking her up in the process into a firemans carry.

EXT. SCRAPMAZE - NIGHT

Becky hesitates. Her frightened eyes search Eshe's face. Whatever she finds there seems to reassure her. She nods. "I'm not supposed to tell grown-ups. They don't believe in magic and stuff. But..." She glances at Mangas. "I s'pose you aren't normal grown-ups..."

She takes a steadying breath and looks back up at Eshe. "If you give 'em a gift, and sing 'em the song, and do the dance, then you can talk to them. If you don't, you can't understand them and they can't understand you."

Another explosion reverberates through the stacks of scrap. "We don't have much time..." Becky mutters.

She takes a few steps away from Eshe. She clears her throat, looking a bit embarrassed, then starts to sing and dance. At first the words sounds like gibberish, until the Hunters recognize them as German.

"Blaue Berge, grüne Täler,
mitten drin ein Häuschen klein.
Herrlich ist dies Stückchen Erde
und ich bin ja dort daheim.
Als ich einst ins Land gezogen,
hab´n die Berg mir nachgesehn,
mit der Kindheit, mit der Jugend,
wußt´ selbst nicht, wie mir geschehn:
O mein liebes Riesengebirge,
wo die Elbe so heimlich rinnt,
wo der Rübezahl mit seinen Zwergen
heute noch Sagen und Märchen spinnt.
Riesengebirge, deutsches Gebirge,
meine liebe Heimat du!"

The steps to the accompanying dance are simple, and it doesn't take long for Eshe, who has taken dance classes most of her life, to pick them up. The words are a bit more complicated, but she practices them as they resume their march towards the gremlin village.

As they do, they hear a series of pops in the stacks. The gremlins are returning to their fortress. Things are about to get a lot more crowded...

EXT. SCRAPYARD - NIGHT

Matthew's grenade strikes the falling mech's shoulder, blowing off its other arm and making its torso pivot away slightly. He keeps running, rolling over Sophia and coming out of it with her draped on his shoulders. He keeps running, metal scrap raining all around him as the mech nears the ground. He clears it just in time, feeling the gust of displaced air as it crashes to the ground where he was standing just a moment before.

Secondary explosions rock the mech's body, throwing shrapnel into the air. Matthew feels hot, metal shards bite into his back and legs and nearly topples, but he grits his teeth and carries Sophia back to the SUV. He puts her down and turns around to assess the tactical situation.

The mech is a smoking, burning mess of scrap. It is clear to his trained eyes that it won't be threatening Bar Nunn again tonight. The air is filled with the raucous protestations of the gremlins, who observed the scene from atop the closest stacks. The noise fades as a series of popping sounds herald the gremlins retreat back into their maze. Soon, the two hunters are left alone with their injuries, and the sound of approaching sirens.

At the sound of the sirens, Matt stashes the grenade launcher back in the compartment in the trunk.

With that done and the gremlins no longer an immediate threat, he quickly moves to Sophia and checks her over, making sure she isn’t in any serious danger, while picking up his phone again.

“Eshe what’s happening?? The Mech is down, the gremlins have gone, and Sophia is pretty hurt. Sirens incoming too .”

She almost drops her phone when Matt asks what is happening.  After the sound of an explosion came over the line, all she could hear was the din of whatever was going on near town.  Thank you, she mouths to the sky (a little gratitude never seldom hurt).

"Focus on Sophia. Mangas and I are going to try a parley. Should work. I promise that I will call in a panic if it doesn't," she laughs airily, reassured by the fact that her friends were alive and that they were likely to stay that way.

"The mech is down and Sophia is injured, but Matt is looking after her, so that's good..." She scratches at the back of her head, as if trying to buy time. "Uh, Mangas? You know how a grilled cheese is more than just bread and cheese?" It is an odd question, and she sounds particularly sheepish when she asks it.

"Well, when it comes to wielding otherworldly powers, I've got the moves," she illustrates with a delicate pas de chat while continuing to speak, "and I can say the words; but it doesn't always become golden on the outside and melty on the inside... Which is exactly the kind of thing that THEY would find freakin hilarious! Wouldn't you?!" She looks up, essentially glaring at the sky (they never seldom paid her griping much mind) and then sighs. "So, I guess what I am asking is, would you be pal and make us a sandwich?  I can try, but I'm likely to burn the bread."

Mangas, still determined to find the king and blast him out of his oily puddle, stomps randomly through the maze, obviously lost, but not willing to admit as much. He hears Eshe talk to Becky, but pays no attention. At least he can hear they're following.
As Becky teaches Eshe the spell, Mangas' subconscious instincts, the one he developed since he was bitten and tried to suppress since, flare up and he listens.
Only when Eshe talks about a sandwich his conscious mind registers the completely out of context topic and makes him stop stomping.
He turns around, a confused look on his face and sees Eshe, holding Becky's hand, looking at him with an inquiring look, her left arm still doing the moves of the spell.
"What sandwhich? Are you hungry?"
He is very confused how Eshe can think about food now, but it has been a very long time since he was fully human and his needs changed drastically since. Often he goes without food for a day or even a few and then he eats massive amounts at once. He tries to spread his meals "normally" to avoid suspicion, but he does not feel hunger the same way anymore. But maybe fully humans have this spontaneous need. He heard about stress eating more and more in the last decades. Maybe this was it. He lowers his gun, reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pack of peanuts. "Sorry, all I have. Maybe we have a sandwhich in the car." He tosses the peanuts to Eshe and happy that he could help his friend, starts stomping again, but this time less furiously.

Eshe deftly snatches the pack out of the air and opens them.  There is something so positively perfect to this entire exchange and she cannot help but grin around a mouthful of peanuts.
"Gimme a sec," she says to Becky, sprinting the steps necessary to catch Mangas before he can get too far from them. "Thanks for the snack my dude! I didn't even realize that I was hungry. That must be why I came up with that terrible sandwich metaphor. Cuz you see, the sandwich is supposed to be like making supernatural stuff work. So, there's a spell that we can use to communicate with the gremlins, right?  But I really suck at magicky stuff - I'm like extra mundane or something. What I am saying is I think that you can make a better sandwich... I mean... ugh!  Can you please try to perform this spell?  Understanding what they say would be real helpful tactically."

Diplomacy is a tactic, right?

Sophia groans when Mathew gets her over his shoulder and then when they reach his SUV sh tries to laugh, though her beaten ribs make it painful. "Not bad for a spook. Is — is the robot down? What about the gremlins?"

"Yea, sure." Mangas grunts in his usual eloquent way and continues stomping forward. Keeping the shotgun still clenched and ready to be used he does not look like he changed his intentions, despite of what he just agreed to. But Eshe knows him well enough, to know that he stands by what he says. If he does not agree, he will say so.

Matt looked back at Sophia.

"Dont move. Or laugh. And Betty did most of the work. But thanks. Gremlins gone. Eshe and Manga are up to something...although last i heard she was talking about sandwiches...."

"We should probably scram. Unless you have an official-looking badge in your spook kit to convince the authorities we are doing our job?"

She moves her thumb up and down on her spear as if caressing it. You ok, Liz? She thinks just making sure they are ok or at least not angry with her, nothing good ever came out of their temper tantrums.

EXT. SCRAPMAZE - NIGHT

Mangas, Eshe, and Becky make their way deeper into the maze, the latter sticking close to the Tricksters' Chosen. Soon, they approach the center. Down one of the scrap corridors, the hunters can see part of a wall has collapsed. Some of it is flattened, hinting that the gremlin's mech must have passed through there. Passed this heap of scrap, they can see into the maze's center.

The village described by Sophia is lit by a number of bulbs of different sizes, looted from different vehicle carcasses and crudely wired together. In the village square sits a large black pool of oil, its smell reaching all the way to the hunters and their charge. A number of gremlins are gathered around the pool, chattering to each other. They look like they're arguing with each other.

More gremlins stand atop the stacks near this makeshift entrance scanning the approach with their beady eyes.

Holding on to his loaded and pumped shotgun, Mangas slowly walks onto the clearing. Through clenched teeth he says to Eshe "I'm doing this only for you, normally that king would be splattered all over his precious trash."
He starts dancing the dance Becky had shown Eshe earlier. At the time it had seemed that Mangas did not pay attention, but here he is, performing the dance and singing the song in the foreign tongue.
"Blaue Berge, grüne Täler,
mitten drin ein Häuschen klein.
Herrlich ist dies Stückchen Erde
und ich bin ja dort daheim.
Als ich einst ins Land gezogen,
hab´n die Berg mir nachgesehn,
mit der Kindheit, mit der Jugend,
wußt´ selbst nicht, wie mir geschehn:
O mein liebes Riesengebirge,
wo die Elbe so heimlich rinnt,
wo der Rübezahl mit seinen Zwergen
heute noch Sagen und Märchen spinnt.
Riesengebirge, deutsches Gebirge,
meine liebe Heimat du!"

It becomes clear, that his previous remark was due to his dislike of the audience itself and that he is oblivious to the comedy of this enormous man dancing a childish dance and singing the cheerful tune. The performance of a spell is a skill he had honed over the ages and he had grown unaware of the outside impression of the act.

"I'm doing this only for you,normally that king would be splattered all over his precious trash." Eshe nods, trying to match his grave demeanor and failing miserably as a broad, grateful smile illuminates her face.
"I know... Thank you!"

Mangas begins the spell, his deep voice resonating in the scrapyard.  As the magic begins to coalesce, Eshe has a rare instance of arcane clarity, and adds her voice to Mangas', harmonising in a soft soprano.  She follows his lead. Their voices dance around one another and into the night until the spell is cast, leaving a soft echo, like footprints gently fading away under a blanket of new snow.

Matt looked at Sophia.

"Well you are in need of medical attention. Either way there will be attention. Plus its not like we hid our intentions when we arrived. Maybe we can just blame the mech on batboy..."

Sophia gives Matt a devilish grin liking the idea. "Yeah, we wouldn't be strictly lying if they blame batboy too."

She turns to look at the incoming lights from the police and an ambulance she was hoping. It hurts breathing, I have a few busted ribs at least. She tries to move her shoulders and groans. Right, left shoulder dislocated.

EXT. SCRAPYARD - NIGHT

NightingaleJ wrote:

She moves her thumb up and down on her spear as if caressing it. You ok, Liz? She thinks just making sure they are ok or at least not angry with her, nothing good ever came out of their temper tantrums.

Only perceived by Sophia:

A pair of police cars appear at the scrapyard's gate, coming to a screeching stop. Two officers step out, including the patroller the hunters had seen earlier. They draw their pistols and flashlights and start carefully making their way down towards the SUV. They don't seem to have seen Sophia a Matthew yet.

EXT. GREMLIN VILLAGE - NIGHT

As Mangas, Eshe and Becky step into the gremlin camp, the creatures start to hiss and pick up sharpened pieces of metal crudely shaped into spears and swords. They teleport closer, menacingly waving their weapons around. Their attitudes change once the hunters begin to sing.

The gremlins exchange looks of genuine surprise and chatter with a tone of uncertainty.

As the song comes to an end, Becky reaches into her bag and throws handfuls of candy before the gremlins. The armed ones look at the colorful packages hungrily. Smaller gremlins teleport ahead of them and begin to pick up the treats. Behind them, in the oily black pool, a form emerges. It is a bigger gremlin. Where most of them stand at about 2 feet tall, this one towers over the others, standing at close to 4 feet. It's wearing a crude crown shaped from chromed pieces of scrap.

The gremlin king walks out of the pool, oil cascading off its body, and stops a bit behind the line of armed gremlins.

"You ask for talk," it says with a scratchy voice. "So talk."

Dont worry old lizard, my part here is done, the rest is up to Mangas and Eshe.

"Hey, guys! We could use some help here." She calls the emergency responders hoping to keep them out of the way of their teammates.

"You cause problems for the humans and you need to go." After this masterpiece of eloquence Mangas looks at the King and waits. Then, having a specially chatty day, he adds "You cause harm to them. Go fast, or it will end bad for everyone."

Eshe had opened her mouth to speak but Mangas beat her to it. She stares at him slack jawed as his words register. They were meeting the opp in the middle of their territory to lower the temperature and Mangas was stoking the white hot tension as if it was a dying campfire.

One of her cousins had been caned within an inch of his life for running his mouth while her great-aunt was trying to broker a ceasefire, but Eshe wasn't her great-aunt, and Mangas sure as hell was not going to accept a beating. Yeah... I don't have a death wish, she murmurs while stepping forward, hands raised placatingly towards the large gremlin.

"This is what we thought when we first arrived in this town and did not even know that you were here. But now, we would like to hear your side of things; see if there can be peace."

EXT. SCRAPYARD - NIGHT

The officers pause. The woman from earlier gives the other, a man, a few hand signals. She then resumes moving towards the SUV. The policeman circles around, keeping his distance while moving to get the two hunters in his field of view. Matthew and Sophia get bathed in his flashlight and lose sight of the cops.

"Let me see your hands!" the policeman orders.

The policewoman comes around the other side, her pistol pointed at the hunters. She closes the distance quickly and kicks Sophia's spear away. Her eyes quickly scan Sophia and Matthew, taking stock of their wounds. Her eyes light up with recognition. She lowers her pistol. "You're the folks from earlier. What are you doing out here?"

EXT. GREMLIN VILLAGE - NIGHT

The gremlin king lifts his arm and gestures at the scrap village. "This is our home. We built it. The humans came. Tried to break it. So, we fight. We built weapon to break their home. Then, you came." It says pointing accusingly at Mangas and Eshe. "Hurt us! Kill us!"

"You are strong. Maybe, you beat us." It puffs out it's tiny chest. "But we can hurt you too. You want peace? This is our home. We don't leave. Keep other humans from breaking our home."

Matthew had raised his hands at their words and advised that he was armed.

"Hands are up. I have a holstered weapon under my jacket in a shoulder holster. My friend here is injured and needs medical attention."

Matt recognizes the officer from earlier.

"Officer Sandra was it? As we said earlier, we deal with matters of a less standard nature. Like that."

His hands still up, he points his fingers towards the wreck of the scrap golem.

"Our other companions are currently attempting to resolve the matter peacefully. We just had to stop...that."