The destruction the Wulfenbach forces were dealing was horrific, but to Klaus’ eye the story of the battle was inescapable. He glanced at General Zog with a look of inquiry. The general bared his teeth in a fierce grimace and growled. “Dis iz not goink vell.”
“FALL BACK!” Klaus roared.
Gil touched a switch and the metal door rolled back into the ceiling. “I suppose my father will be sorry that he missed all the excitement,” he sighed. A glint caught his eye, and he stepped behind Agatha. “Wait. You have something in your hair.” His fingers ran through her tresses and he briefly marveled at its delicate smoothness before he encountered the object he sought. He dropped it into Agatha’s hand.
It was a small circular piece of shiny silver metal. Agatha looked at it blankly, then her face cleared. “Ah. It’s some sort of connector from the gas system. It’s kind of pretty.”
Gil nodded as he plucked it from her hand. “Yes. It’s perfect.” With that he gently but firmly took Agatha’s left hand and slid the connector over her ring finger. “Here. A little souvenir.”
Agatha felt herself flushing as she took her hand back. Selfconsciously she re-examined her hand. The connector was stamped with a tiny little Wulfenbach House sigil. She felt a wave of joy beginning to fizzle upwards through her body. She was so happy that she almost missed that Gil was talking.
“Now come on. As pitiful as they are, the rest of the wasps should keep my father busy for a while.” He slipped her arm through his, and turned towards the exit. “We can grab one of the support gigs, sail down to the nearest town and be married before he even knows that we’re gone.”
Agatha stopped so suddenly that Gil, still hooked through her arm, found himself spun around to face her. Agatha’s face was blank. “Married?”
Gil patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry. He won’t be mad once he finds out that you’re a Spark! He’s talking about marrying me off anyway—it’ll serve him right when I run off and do it on my own.”
Agatha gazed upwards into Gil’s excited face. Her lips parted and she burst out laughing. This was not the reaction Gil had expected and he looked surprised. “What?”
Agatha took a moment to wipe the tears off the inside of her glasses as she continued to giggle. Finally she took a deep breath, and smiled. “That’s the worst marriage proposal I have ever heard.”
Gil swallowed. “You… get a lot of them?”
Agatha crossed her arms. “You want to marry me to annoy your father?” She sighed dramatically and theatrically raised her hand to her brow. “How romantic.”
These were unknown waters for Gil, but he was smart enough to realize that by flailing desperately enough, he might still come through.
“NO! No! No!” He waved his hands frantically. Agatha cocked an eyebrow. Still interested. Good.
“I… I know we haven’t known each other long. But I really think we’d be very well suited… for each other.”
Glance. Eyebrow down. Not good. Panic.
“Look—I’ve known a lot of girls and they were—” At this point Gil could feel hereto for unused parts of his brain screaming at him to shut up. He didn’t even bother to look at her now. “No. Wait! That’s unimportant!” What is important?
He looked at Agatha. She stood there, outlined in early morning light coming in through the window. Her hair was the most magnificent reddish gold he had ever seen. He took in the entirety of her and realized that he wanted to hold her in his arms and never ever let her go, and then he looked once again into those dazzling green eyes and knew that if he could spend the rest of his life watching them experience the things he could show them, then his life would be complete, and more importantly, that without her, his life would be forever empty and bereft of purpose. For the rest of Gilgamesh’s life, whenever he thought of Agatha, the first and most enduring image, the one that was burned into his heart, was this one, where she stood and looked at him and listened to him babble and tried to decide whether he would live or die.
With this realization, a great clarity washed through him and he realized that if he wanted her, all he had to do was tell her why. His mouth finally got the message and snapped shut in mid-burble.
He straightened up and looked Agatha full in the face. Agatha blinked and uncrossed her arms. Gil stepped closer.
“Agatha, I—”
“Ha-HA!” There was a swoosh, a blur of gold, and a “Gloof!” from Agatha. And she was gone.
Gil spun around and saw Agatha being carried off by Othar Tryggvassen, who was effortlessly swinging through the air on a long cable. “HEY!” he yelled.
Othar gracefully turned, and he and Agatha landed atop a ceiling girder. She twisted out of his grasp. “Do you mind?” She hissed, “I was busy here!”
From the floor Gil called up frantically. “Agatha! Get away from him!”
“What’s the matter, Wulfenbach?” Othar called back jovially. “Didn’t expect a hero to rescue the damsel from your unwelcome advances?”
Gil shook his fist. “They weren’t unwelcome, you idiot!”
Agatha shoved forward. “Just a minute! I’m not done yelling at you yet!”
Othar gently pulled her back from the edge. “Well, yes you are.” He reached into his side holster and pulled forth a bizarre little steam pistol. “We’ve got to go.” He aimed the gun at Giclass="underline" “And he’s got to die.”
Just as he fired, Agatha grabbed his arm and yanked with all her might. This threw Othar off balance and he swayed precipitously on the edge of the girder. Below, the bullet smacked into the wall centimeters from Gil’s head. With a grimace, Gilgamesh ducked down into the maze of machinery and was lost to sight.
Othar sighed. “Drat.” He turned to Agatha. “He got away… for the moment.”
Agatha stood braced for Othar’s fury. “I won’t let you—”
He wagged a gently admonishing finger in her face. “You should be more careful. You could have fallen. You’re lucky I caught you.”
The events of the last twenty seconds replayed in Agatha’s mind. “But you didn’t—”
“I hope you’re not going to be one of those clumsy girl sidekicks who always need rescuing during my final showdown with the
villain,” Othar remarked.
“I AM NOT YOUR SIDEKICK!”
Othar laughed. “Of course you are! You came to rescue me!”
“If I’d known you were going to run around trying to shoot people who were proposing to me—!”
“Oh that was just the once.” The sheer number of things that Agatha wanted to say to this, temporarily overwhelmed her ability to speak. Othar, unfortunately, did not have this problem. “Now, your innocence does you credit, but you’ll soon learn that Evil deserves no pity! And young Wulfenbach is certainly evil.”
Agatha rolled her eyes. “Clueless I’ll give you, but—”
Her words were left behind as Agatha herself was swept off the girder by Gilgamesh swinging through on his own cable. They lightly touched down on an adjoining girder. “If being like you is the alternative,” Gil remarked to Othar, as he relinquished his grip on the cable, “then I’ll gladly take being evil.”
The released cable vanished into the dimness of the ceiling, followed by several squeaks and a faint fwap. This caused Othar to pause and peer upwards into the darkness, which may have been why he missed seeing the beam which swung down from the side, caught him square in the ribs and smashed him through the plate glass wall and into open space. As he arced downwards, they heard him admonish them with a final declaration of “Foul!” before he vanished into the cloudscape below.