Phoenix Talon slapped the plastique charge onto his nemesis and set the timer. "Everybody get away!"
    "Talon!" I snapped, shocked that he had actually done it.
    "I'm pretty sure this isn't him," he told me over his shoulder.
    Scott lashed out at the Parkers with a couple of pseudopods. The one nearer to me flew across the room and slammed into the wall. The gun he'd been going for landed in his lap. The other one smashed into a tank full of colored liquid—with fish swimming in it, so we could hope that he wasn't going to mutate into anything horrible, at least not right away. Water sluiced across the floor; I lifted off to stay dry. Electronics were shorting out spectacularly all over the place.
    Parker One grabbed the gun and fired it at me. A half dozen pieces of metal flew out, and a metal bola wrapped itself around me. The wire was very sharp, held at bay by my shield, and the weighted ends were ticking....
    Parker Two got the fish off him with a grimace.
    "Sorry about that," Scott said.
    "Oh, no problem, I understand. I'm going to have to try and shoot you now."
    "Of course." The energy beam passed harmlessly through his gaseous body and shattered a screen on the wall, sending sparks everywhere.
    Toy Man rose from the water as if on a lever and lunged at Phoenix Talon, grappling him close before the timer could go off. The explosion of the plastique sent them flying away from one another, neither fatally wounded, although I've seen Talon looking better.
    In fact, the Toy Man got up, shook himself off, and tapped a finger on his armor. "Ha! Expert construction."
    I wriggled my way free of the bola, which fell to the ground and let out what I can only assume was a rather nasty electrical charge—into the water on the floor and hence into the henchmen, who both fell unconscious.
    "Parker? Parker? I guess I'll have to summon more help...." the Toy Man realized.
    Thunderbolt leveled another blast at him; the molten spot was getting bigger.
    "I'm definitely going to need more help. But you are proving yourselves to be worthy adversaries."
    Phoenix Talon tried a flash, but his timing was off, perhaps due to the fact that his chest was smoking. Scott smashed into the Toy Man, staggering him but doing no real damage. Equipment smoked, hissed, and was clearly about to explode, while the five of us bounced around the room like a pinball game on multiball.
    The Toy Man reached behind him and pulled something from his cloak, held it up for a moment before he tossed it at us. In a moment there was a giant robot in the room, the size of a large car and growing.
    "Now, Voltron! Crush them!" he ordered it.
    Phoenix Talon tried another flash; this one got through.
    "Agh! Voltron, destroy them, quickly!"
    "You forgot the 'curse you' part," Talon reminded him snidely.
    I focused myself on that strange bio-signature and realized that his biological systems consisted of a brain, a few connected tissues, and a spinal column. As if that wasn't enough, bits of his neural matter appeared to have been damaged, and either repaired or... removed.
    "Hot damn, it is Paul," I said aloud, both startled and somewhat revolted. "What the hell possessed you to come back?!"
    "Show you all!" he shouted from behind the growing robot.
    I shook my head. "You could have stayed in Argentina and kept the money, but no.... Hate to tell you this, Paul, but you're not going to be welcome at poker night."
    Phoenix Talon launched a spinning kick, knocking the blinded Toy Man backwards into a bank of computer equipment. Thunderbolt zapped said computer bank, but it only hissed and crackled a bit, still building up to what would eventually be an impressive set of fireworks. The giant robot was getting its bearings and did not yet pose a threat.
    I had planned to rip into any flesh I could get hold of, but as it turned out the only tissues our enemy had available to damage were kind of vital ones. I couldn't bring myself to do it, and restricted myself to trying to tire him out, hoping that it would affect him despite the robotic body. I succeeded to at least some extent and hoped I hadn't damaged anything.
    Toy Man began flailing around madly, hitting more of the sparking equipment. Scott went for a full-body grapple to immobilize him and discovered that the Toy Man's body was remarkably strong. Not as strong as him, though.
    "Let go! I'll show you all!" Voltron doubled in size. Then doubled again, growing through the ceiling. The walls were giving way; the entire space was being filled with Voltron.
    "Um, Needle, could you knock him unconscious please?" Scott asked.
    "I'm working on it." I was forced away from them by the sheer mass of the robot growing between us before I could follow through, though.
    "Scott, show me his face!" Phoenix Talon slipped ninja-like through a crevice and pounced as Scott cleared a spot for him to punch through.
    Which is when the time-delayed explosions began going off, and Voltron's weapons systems as well. What the hell, it's been months since someone dropped a building on me. This one was a doozy.
    Phoenix Talon was screaming, "Don't let him get away! Don't let him get away!"
    There wasn't much we could do to stop it, having higher priorities; I grabbed up Thunderbolt and the two henchmen and got us all out of the way, dodging falling chunks of building as Phoenix Talon swarmed up Voltron's leg and Scott went to gaseous form. People were fleeing like ants. Once Talon had been carried free of the wreckage by the robot's continued growth, he leaped to safety.

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