Sitting down at Team Kimba's usual Crystal Hall table, Ayla continued the lecture he had been giving Hank all the way from the checkouts. "Sure you can just overpower a PK shield. Eventually with the right amount of concentrated force any PK shield breaches, put enough tons of force over a vital organ, like the head, and anyone goes down, but there are more elegant options."
"What? My head over the countryside too messy for you?" Hank commented wryly.
"Well that and overpower breaching methods are inherently dangerous, not just the intended target, but anyone else around too. Even the instigator if the opponent knows what they are doing." Ayla shrugged. "There's not much use me having an anti-PK weapon if it's to dangerous to use. If my offence against a PK superman is, say, a Goodkind one-shot anti-tank RPG, even if I have the means of carrying it around, it's rather obvious when I pull it out and aim it. Any reasonably intelligent brick is going to either get so close to me the shock from the explosion will kill me as well, or grab someone else and hold them close enough I won't fire because I'll kill the hostage."
"So what weapons are you planning instead Ayla?" Chaka asked sitting down beside Hank, who had sat across the table from Ayla. Jade and Jinn arrived too, both casually sitting down opposite Toni across Hank, Jade taking her dinner plate and cutlery off her tray before sliding the now empty tray in front of Jinn.
"Well, instead of just overpowering the shield" Ayla continued, now including both Chaka and the two Sinclairs in the discussion "I was planning on using other weaknesses to get through PK shields." Turning to Toni he nodded. "Like you have been discovering with Diz, all useful PK shields have to let beneficial things through."
"What, like food? You going to throw candies at them and poison them?" Chaka asked smiling delightedly at Ayla's very brief pause of confusion on hearing her suggestion.
"Well no." Ayla continued fastidiously. "True in theory poisoned food should work, but I don't think anybody is going to eat something I throw at them during a fight." Ayla pointed out reasonably to Toni. "I was thinking more immediately necessary things, like air, water, light, sound, those sorts of things." He continued turning back to Hank.
"And food!" Jade yelled to interrupt Ayla, who manfully ignored her.
"So what, poison gases?" Hank asked also ignoring the suggestions of Toni and Jade.
"And possibly liquid aerosols, lasers, things like that." Ayla agreed.
"And food!" Jade happily yelled again, throwing her arms up in the air and ... Ayla blinked. Was that spaghetti? Dancing in the air above Jade? Looking down Ayla winced. Jade's plate was a wasteland of red sauce like substance, almost just a reddish water. Weak, wobbly, over boiled noodle imitations, and ... no, Ayla refused to even contemplate identifying the 'meat' portion of what was on Jade's plate.
Resolutely Ayla turned back to Hank. "So I was investigating tear gas, possibly an aerosol sleeping agent or knockout gas of some sort as well. I was also thinking of maybe some blinding / distracting weapons, such as flash bangs. The sonic and light portions should go through nearly any PK shield, unlike conclusion grenades, were the pressure waves are almost certainly going to be blocked by most shields."
"And poisoned pasties!" Interrupted Jade as soon as she saw Ayla pause to invite Hank's opinion.
Involuntarily Hank smiled, casing Toni to get into the act too. "Vomitus Vo-Vos" she called.
"Sleeping Snickers!" Jade replied excitedly.
"Noodle noose!" Exclaimed Toni, standing, arm raised in salute.
Turning to give Toni a look of amazement, Hank incredulously repeated "Noodle noose?"
"Yeah, like if I Ki charged a noodle and garrotted you!" Toni answered happily sitting back down.
Pickling up a limp, overcooked specimen of spaghetti from his plate, Hank waved it at Toni. "You're going to garrotte me? With this?" He replied with extreme scepticism, shaking the spaghetti in emphasis. "You couldn't garrotte a suicidal chicken with this!" Hank continued derisively. "Let alone take out a PK superman!" He chuckled.
Dropping his demonstration piece of spaghetti back to his plate, Hank stared in disbelief when instead of falling down, it stopped, wiggling in the air in front of him. Mouth open stunned, Hank's eyes bulged as wiggling joyfully the piece of spaghettini dove through the air and straight down his open mouth.
Pushing himself up and away from the table, Hank's hands darted to his mouth, as weaving, stumbling and red faced he tried to swallow, tried to cough, tried to breath!
Desperately Hank's searching hand clasped a glass of water. Forcing himself upright Hank frantically tried to drink, but the water just poured back out of his mouth. Just arriving at the table Billie and Nikki rushed up, quickly sliding their trays onto the table they turned to help Hank. As Billie started pounding on Hank's back, Nikki frantically started reciting spell after spell, all the time trying to look down Hank's mouth and see what the problem was.
Seeing that pounding Hank's wasn't working, Billie stepped behind Hank, wrapped her arms around him low down and quickly pulled up and back, hoping to force air out of Hank's lungs to expel the obstruction.
Turning redder, but otherwise unaffected by Billie's actions, Hank collapsed to his knees. Redder and redder, one hand desperately clawing at his throat, Hank fell forward, holding himself barely off the ground on one arm, Billie and Nikki also on their knees still trying to help, as now Ayla and Toni stood looking stricken towards their distressed friend. With eyes bulging out, eyelids starting to flutter, Hank desperately tried to breath, collapsing onto his side, hands still clawing his throat.
Suddenly!
A great gulping breath.
Rolling to his back, Hank breathed deep, panicked breaths, tears streaming from his eyes. Hank gasped up at the staring Nikki, mid spell cast, relief and amazement all through her expression.
"Wow, the insides of someone's lungs are just weird. And icky!" Jade innocently commented reaching for her milk and swallowing a mouthful.
“Jade!" practically the entire populous of that side of Crystal Hall yelled at her in fury and disbelief.
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