‘I am surrounded by IDIOTS!’ Stealth swung around, stretched out his wings, then thrashed them hard, sending a mighty pulse through the water, knocking over piles of urchins, and sending his gruesome stonefish stooges, Rocky and Edge, tumbling through the room.
‘Have those teeny, tiny brains of yours been washed away? Have they been pickled in a little girl’s tears?’ he mocked.
Rocky and Edge looked at each other, not quite sure whether to laugh with him or not, but Stealth really didn’t sound like he was joking. Rocky grimaced. Edge tried an awkward smirk. Neither response calmed Stealth.
‘You are no better than PLANKTON, you blobs of spawn!!!’ he roared, whooshing round and round with such force he sent the others scattering into the corners of the room.
Stealth stopped suddenly, his back to them. Slowly, he stretched out his gigantic wings and began to rise above the kitchen units, now covered with black slime, rising higher and higher until he was hovering just below the ceiling.
He turned to address his minions. He was seething and his eyes burned as he scanned each and every one of them. He loathed them all, and hated that he needed them for this fight.
‘My desperate … friends.’ The last word was dragged from his mouth. ‘You know that our very existence depends on defeating this human girl.’
The urchins shifted, murmuring and muttering. Rocky and Edge grinned.
‘If you want to survive – and I assume you do?’ Stealth drawled.
Rocky and Edge nodded hard, their eyes looking as if they might pop out.
‘Then she must be ours!’ he boomed. ‘We will attack. The Urchin Army is undefeatable. We will break out when they least expect it. When they are at their happiest, we will strike. We will destroy them, crush them. And Coral,’ he spat out her name, ‘will be brought to ME! Her heart, her soul, her spirit will be mine and I will quash them. Then, and only then, will this house be ours, to rule in darkness forever!’
The room erupted. Rocky and Edge, easily worked into a frenzy, were quite beside themselves, and the sea urchins rolled and swelled in approval.
‘There will be no mercy. There will be no escape. There will be no more happiness!’
Stealth retreated into the far corner of the kitchen, near the back door, and turned his back on the savage crowd, signalling his speech was over.
He closed his eyes. Despite the rhetoric, deep inside him, Stealth knew this would be a fight to the death. He was confident, of course he was, he knew Coral was weak. She was desperately missing those parents of hers. It would be easy! And yet … and yet … there was something else. Something that made him uneasy. She must not be allowed to be comforted by those idiotic creatures any longer. Time was running out, he sensed it.
He spun around and rose high once again.
‘There is no time to lose! WE STRIKE TONIGHT!’