Andy staggered as pain lashed across his back. But he was still moving. As he reached the entrance to the alley, he heard someone call out, "Hey! You!"<br/><br/>A glance showed the crazy human carrying... katanas? the Hive Tyrant turned to face him, but Andy didn't realise immediately, as he flattened up against the wall of the alley, on the shadowed side. Brushing against it with his back sent a wave of white hot pain across his shoulder blades, that mixed with the duller pain already there.<br/><br/>He scented fresh blood, and realised it must be his own. A glove to the wall confirmed it, he'd left a definite line on the wall. The edge of the tail must have just broken the fur and skin, like a lashing. While it hurt like hell, it didn't seem to be impairing him. This took a fraction of a second, and he looked out to see what was gouing on, just in time to see the creature fire it's cannon with a flash of greenish plasma.<br/><br/>He felt a wave of shame, katana guy had probabaly saved his life by distracting it, and had almost certainly beeen destroyed by that blast. The thing's upper body was more humanoid, even female, than the pictures he'd seen, but it was still a _real_ monster. Just for that instant though, it was a distracted monster.<br/><br/>Before his common sense or fear could over-rule him, he dashed out of the alley, yelling, "Hey, over here! Fresh meat!"<br/><br/>Then he dived back into the alley, dodging and veering to throw off any plasma bolts she might send after him. The smashing and crashing sounds behind him told him the thing had taken the bait and was coming after him in person.<br/><br/>As he reached the other end of the alley, he ran out a bit and then turned to see the creature had almost made it through. He popped open the gourd and was holding it out in front of him like a rifle, pointing at the creature. This was cutting it a lot closer than he;d intended, it should break free just as he got to it.<br/><br/>Now he'd see if Oka had known what she was talking about. If she was wrong, he was most likely toast, or rather sashimi, but now he'd seen her move, if she came after him, alley or no alley, he was probably sashimi anyway. Come to think of it, she'd never told him just how close you had to be to the target to get it to work. 'C'mon!' he willed, as he ran right towards it. 'WORK!'