Episode 4

*Talk Page*

Nice Timing

Storm sirens wail and everybody, including Pezci, rushes to escape the approaching maelstrom. Elsewhere, Madam Louv sneaks up on Scypho while he's distracted. When she demands he return the "artifact" to her, he refuses, and her bodyguards advance on him. Struggling briefly, he downs the pair of squid with his stinger tentacles, but the Madam is wearing protective garb. Luckily for Scypho, some debris hits the lady's head, convincing her bodyguards to drag her to putative safety. Freed from her grasp, Scypho offers a snide salute and evacuates. On the outskirts, he spies Pezci swimming madly, recognizing her as the girl with the Key.

## Cast of Characters

* Pezci
* Scypho
* Mirror
* Madam Louv
* Madam's bodyguards

## Synopsis

While the evacuation sirens squall, disaster bears down on the city. The rushing maelstrom moans eerily as the citizens, who had previously been chasing after Pezci's Golden key, scatter in fear, with the terrified young woman right behind them, attempting to evade the destructive power being unleashed on the city.

Looking down the city street toward the advancing storm with the now frightened citizenry passing in the other direction, Scypho hears the beginning of the destruction of the city as the winds tear at the buildings. The carnage being wrought terrifies the young man, startling a profanity from him. The Mirror displays a hazard warning sign. Fearful of the rapidly moving whirlpool, he makes to leave, turning away from the danger, but instead finds someone is in his way.

Looking up, he sees the sperm whale merwoman staring down at him disdainfully, her snout high in the air, while her two bodyguards look on stoically. From his angle, Scypho can see where the guards have taped their sunglasses to the sides of their earless heads. The lady is dressed in a fashion reminiscent of the Roaring Twenties with fringed skirts and feather trimming everywhere. All three of the lady's group are holding one of the oranges the Mirror had been spewing out as Scypho ran away. The Mirror shows anxiety in its glass.

Madam Louv bends down and starts berating the not very impressed jellyfish, gesturing with the hand holding the 'cigarette' holder to be sure he's listening. After calling him an "artifact nicking pillock", she reminds him she has eyes all over the city, that it was just a matter of time before she caught up with him. As she carries on, currents from the storm start pressing against them, making the bodyguards lean into the moving waters as they press forward to attack, their feeding tentacles whipping behind them. The surface of the Mirror has gone a sickly yellow. Scypho expresses disgusted amazement that she's decided to be doing this now, and he uses the cnidocytes on his stinging tentacles to subdue the squids. Seeing them defeated, he announces he's getting outta there as he makes his exit over Madam Louv's head.

Madam Louv has other ideas, though. She seizes a tentacle with her right hand and holds him in place, eliciting a demand that she let him go. With a predator's toothy grin, she tells him not a chance and saying he's a peasant. When he tries to sting her with the tentacle she's holding, she starts laughing hysterically, inspiring the Mirror to put **LOL** up in it's glass. Gloating, she tells him she's wearing anti-jellyfish sting gloves. Windmilling his arms madly, he tries to warn her they're about to get wrecked by a death storm. As more debris sails through the water about them, she snarls and tells him if he hands over the staff, they'll both escape. He angrily refuses, calling her a witch, and the Mirror flashes a headstone bearing RIP on its surface. Out of nowhere, a blue drum trailing an oily green substance comes flying in like a depth charge and rebounds off Madam's head with a thunk. The blow causes her to release his tentacle. Her bodyguards step in, telling her it's too dangerous now, and they haul her away, dragging her back to her watercar. She remonstrates that she almost had him, but they are implacable as they drag her away. Grinning devilishly, Scypho throws her an insolent salute and heads off away from her and the approaching danger. The Mirror shows crossed bones, likely referencing death.

As he swims out of the city and away from the maelstrom, Scypho looks over to see Pezci to his right as she frantically swims, also away from danger. It suddenly dawns on him that she's the woman with the Key.