Hermione was about to say something sharp, but Richie threw up a hand and whispered:
"Do you smell that?"
Hermione sniffed the air and wrinkled her nose.
"Ugh!" Granger clamped a hand over her nose and went on nasally, "It reeks like a mix of socks that haven't been washed in ages and a public loo that hasn't been cleaned in years."
"Shh!"
Richie pressed a finger to his lips, calling her to silence. Widening his eyes, he mimed zipping his mouth shut.
From the corridor came a dreadful scraping sound, as though something were being dragged across the stone floor—a log, perhaps. The noise was drawing closer.
Hermione fell quiet. This was no longer anything like a joke. Fear spread through her body like sticky cobwebs, leaving her frozen. Afraid even to breathe, she watched Richard's actions in bewilderment.
Grosvenor shoved his arm up to the shoulder into his satchel and pulled out what looked like a toy robot—or at least, that was what Hermione first thought. She hadn't even the strength to protest that they were in danger and Richie had decided to play with toys! But that thought lasted only until Richie pointed his wand at the "toy," and it suddenly expanded.
Before Hermione's wide, astonished eyes stood a robot straight out of some fantastical future. A two-metre-tall humanoid behemoth clad in steel armour, with four flexible metal tentacles rising from its back, each ending in three-pronged grips. Its forearms bore oval bulges, and for some reason, it was painted a lurid, poisonous orange. Across the robot's chest, in black paint, was written:
CRAB-3P
What followed left Hermione even more stunned. Plates along the robot's chest, arms, and legs slid apart, and Richard climbed into the opening.
To Hermione, it all felt like madness. Only a couple of months ago she had found herself in what she'd taken to be the Middle Ages—and now here stood a suit of robotic armour, as if from the future or another world entirely. Granger began to suspect that Richie was not who he claimed to be at all, but rather some sort of time traveller… or perhaps an alien—one of those so-called "progressors" from science-fiction stories.
"Sorry, Hermione," Richard whispered, "I don't usually carry a second suit of armour on me. Hide—I'll protect you."
Hide? As if she could! Hermione's gaze was glued to the doorway. The stench struck her so sharply that her head spun, and a cottony weakness seized her limbs as the monster pushed open the door to the girls' toilet.
It was something truly dreadful—around four metres tall, with dull, granite-like skin, a lumpy body like a boulder, and a tiny bald head that looked more like a coconut.
The troll had short legs as thick as tree trunks and flat, calloused feet. Its arms were much longer than its legs, like a gorilla's, so the enormous club it held dragged along the floor behind it. And the smell—Merlin, the smell! It could knock you out better than the club.
The troll paused in the doorway and bent down to peer inside. Its long ears twitched, as though it were trying to come to some sort of decision. The process promised to be a lengthy one—judging by the size of its head, the troll's brain was minuscule. But it never got the chance to finish thinking. Richard's voice rang out, amplified through speakers:
"Sir, how dare you burst into the ladies' lavatory? Pervert!!!"
Pressed flat against the wall opposite the door, Hermione seemed to shrink in on herself, as though trying to seep through the stone like a ghost. She looked on the verge of fainting. The girl squeezed her eyes shut at the troll's furious, deafening roar, just as four swift, powerful blows from the robot's steel tentacles, under Richie's control, struck it in rapid succession.
The troll was hurled back into the corridor. Before it could even recover, it was hit again—four coordinated strikes aimed squarely at its bells and tackle, barely covered by a well-worn leather loincloth.
The troll howled—this time in a high, almost squeaky voice. With a crash, it dropped its club, fell to its knees, and doubled over. Tears streamed from its tiny eyes.
"Uuuuuuu!" it whimpered pitifully.
For some reason, Hermione heard something entirely different in her head: My bells! It wasn't that Granger had suddenly learned to understand Troll—she simply had a vivid imagination.
Clanking and shaking the floor, Richard in his armour strode out into the corridor and tried once more to strike with the flexible manipulators. But the troll roared in fury and grabbed two of the steel tentacles with its massive hands. With a sudden heave, the giant sprang to its feet and hurled Richard into the wall. A terrible metallic screech rang out—and two torn-off manipulators remained in the troll's grip.
Hermione, her heart in her throat, braced herself to hear the crash of the robot smashing into the wall—but it never came. The steel suit froze mid-air. It hovered like a broomstick.
The armour shot up to a height of nearly five metres, its helmet striking the high ceiling—then came crashing down, feet-first, straight onto the troll's head.
"Filthy pervert!" Richard's voice blared from the speakers. "Enjoy spying on little girls in the loo, do you? We don't take kindly to that!"
The troll staggered and crashed to the floor with such force that the walls trembled. The robot's sheer mass was enough that, dropping from barely a metre above the troll's head, it delivered a crushing blow to the giant.
Richie, clad in his orange armour, continued to hover in the air. He aimed his arms at the troll, and from the bulges on his forearms there came a sharp hiss as two streams of thick white liquid burst forth—its consistency not unlike heavy cream. Within moments, the grey giant's body was drenched in the substance and glued fast to the floor.
"Now that's what I call a proper cumshot!" Richard quipped. "Hermione, run!"
But Granger couldn't feel her legs. Her muscles had turned to cotton, refusing to obey her even enough for a single step.
(End of Chapter)
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