Heilley and Kootmufin squirmed uncomfortably in their
tight confines, trying to relax sore and cramped muscles.
"If he hadn't strapped us in, we would've been
out of here in a trice," Kootmufin hissed. "I could chew through this stupid
bag in no time."
"No you couldn't," Heilley murmured back. "I
tried, and it's some sort of plastic. It's like trying to chew through bubblegum."
"Oh." Silence for a little bit. Then, "Heilley?
Do you think we'll make it out... okay?"
Heilley sighed. "I don't know," she admitted.
She tried to turn and look at her friend, but couldn't. She settled for a comforting
squeeze somewhere on Kootmufin's arm. "But whatever happens, we're going down
fighting. Sloth is gonna rue the day he tangled with us."
"Right!"
The engines changed their constant whine and
both Kyrii tried to brace themselves as the shuttle craft they were in tilted
and began its descent. Before long, things settled and the engines were shut
off.
"Ahh, now then, let's see what we have here."
Sloth unbuckled and stood up from the control chair. "That was a nice little
trip. Nothing like a little entertainment to get the blood flowing afterwards.
Although it might not be my blood, hehehe..." He unstrapped the bag containing
his captives and held it out in front of him. Heilley and Kootmufin's screams
and insults served only to make him laugh even harder. "Ho-hoh! The wittle babies
want to play, hey?" He snickered as the squirming inside the bag grew even more
violent. "Well let's play shakes, shall we?" With that, he began to violently
shake the bag up and down. The screams this time were of pain as Heilley and
Kootmufin slammed into each other.
"Sorry!" Heilley gasped as a foot drove into
Kootmufin's belly.
"S'ok," Kootmufin mumbled through a mouthful
of Heilley's hair.
The shaking continued and Heilley shut her mouth
firmly to avoid biting her tongue. A particularly violent bump sent her tumbling
into Kootmufin's arms, and she immediately took the opportunity. She seized
Kootmufin in a tight hug, and Kootmufin instinctively responded with her own
hug. Heilley then locked her legs around Kootmufin's middle. Kootmufin realised
what she was doing and responded by bringing her own legs up behind Heilley
and locking them together as well.
Sloth continued to shake his bag, but his victims
had stopped screaming and the futile squirming had been replaced by the passive
bouncing of a single lump. He finally stopped and panted a bit. "Well now that
we've settled that, let's get you inside." He slung the bag over his shoulders,
picked some equipment up with the other hand, and walked outside.
Kootmufin loosened her grip and began turning
her head, trying to find some way to bite or scratch Sloth as they bounced on
his back. But Heilley only tightened her own hug and glared at her, so she took
the hint and stayed quiet. Both girls suddenly let out a pained gasp as the
bag thumped onto a floor. As they tried to recover their breath, a liquid was
sprayed onto the mesh of their prison and they choked on the fumes.
Sloth gave his sprayer several more squeezes
before laying it down and opening the bag. He rolled his woozy captives out
onto the floor and quickly tied them up again. By the time Heilley and Kootmufin
managed to hold their eyes steady, they found themselves sitting side by side
with their paws tied together and to their knees in one single massive twist
of rope. They struggled, only to quickly find that they had been locked into
an upright position from which they couldn't move.
"Admiring my work, girls?" Sloth sneered. "I'm
so glad you're an appreciative audience. Most pets would never understand the
subtlety of your rather uncommon bonds. You see, it effectively ties you down
so that you can't move, but at the same time, it leaves your back open for the
next part of the little operation. Oh, yes, you didn't think I'd forgotten that,
did you?"
"You aren't going to get away with this!" Kootmufin
snarled.
"My oh me, how many times have I heard that
line? I do believe, dear missie, that I have been getting away with it for more
years than you could possibly fathom. In this case, though, I shall proceed
to entertain myself in my own vehicle while you wait your doom. Until I receive
word of what your owners have done, I will amuse myself with refreshing drinks
and a hot bath in my private spa on board."
"No wonder," Heilley spat. "You stink!"
"I?" Sloth drawled. "Actually, I maintain a
rather high level of personal cleanliness. You, on the other hand, are beginning
to stink like the wild animal that you are. And now, enjoy your last few hours
before you begin your life of baldness by staring into the horrified and disgusted
eyes of your owners." With one last evil chortle, Sloth closed the door to the
warehouse behind him.
Kootmufin was sobbing with frustration, anger,
and fear. "He can't do that! I'll... I'll..."
Heilley was struggling with her bonds, but only
found herself wiggling around on the floor a bit. "You'll what?" she gasped.
"I... don't know." Kootmufin glared at her own
ropes. "Those I know I could bite through if I could reach them."
"Mmhmm." Heilley gauged distances and deliberately
toppled herself over on her side.
Kootmufin yelped in pain as Heilley's head landed
across her arms and slid down. "Hey! What's the idea?"
"Quiet," Heilley mumbled, her mouth full of
rope. "Sloth's about to find out never to leave two Kyrii together." With that,
she proceeded to chew through the rest of Kootmufin's bonds.
A minute later, Kootmufin was helping Heilley
to her feet and they both looked around the warehouse. "What now?"
"Now we hide."
"But... oh! Hey, over there!"
Heilley trotted after Kootmufin, who scrambled
up into an empty pipe. Heilley crawled inside after her and they both pressed
forward into the darkness. Soon, a look back over her shoulder showed only a
small circle of light in the distance. Heilley looked back towards Kootmufin
to say something, but found her gone!
"Hey...."
Heilley's call was shut off as a green paw came
out of the darkness and pulled her into a side pipe. "Hush up," Kootmufin whispered.
"This must be a whole system of piping. He'll never find us here."
"Right!" Heilley settled down beside her friend
and they curled up to wait. Time passed. Their eyes grew accustomed to the low
light, but the insides of the piping weren't exactly an interesting sight.
Their silent vigil was eventually ended by the
sounds of the door opening and Sloth's roar of rage as he found them gone. Both
girls shook with silent giggles as they heard him banging and crashing through
stuff, hunting for them. Eventually, though, he stopped and began yelling at
them.
"That's it! I've had enough! You've made your
last stupid move, you bumbling wretches! Either come out in five seconds, or
I fire this ray gun and sweep the area! It'll turn any living thing within half
a mile into slime, and it reaches through any material! Now get out here!!"
Kootmufin stiffened in dismay. "He's gotta be
bluffing!" she gasped.
"I'm not waiting around to find out," Heilley
replied as she leaped across Koot's lap and scrambled further into the pipe.
Both of them practically flew through the tunnels, taking branches at random.
Kootmufin nearly lost Heilley once, but a quick grab for her hair connected
and she followed her on through.
Eventually they both stopped to catch their
breath. "Is this far enough?" Kootmufin panted.
"It better be," Heilley replied. "I don't know
which way we're going anymore."
Kootmufin's hard breathing came to a sudden
halt. "Do you mean..." she squeaked.
Heilley caught her breath before answering.
"Yeah. I think we're lost."
"Oh," came the whimpered reply.
"Here," Heilley said softly as she reached back.
She pulled Kootmufin to her and they clung to each other for comfort, shivering
in the dark.
***
The streetlight outside was once again shining through the window into Spectre's
office. The dim lighting revealed a scene of total stillness until the door
opened to reveal a rather bulky figure in coat and hat.
Stepping inside, MonoKeras closed the door behind
him. A muttered chant sent a ball of greenish fire drifting upwards, and he
peered around the room in the fitful illumination it provided. Finally satisfied
that no one was in the office, he pulled the shade and turned on the regular
lights before letting his spell go. He started to look through the papers on
the desk, but stopped and pulled out a metal tube instead. Opening it up, he
let out a baby fireball.
"Okay, Sun Pegasus," he whispered. "Keep an
eye out."
Sun Pegasus bobbed his assent and drifted upwards,
where he slowly spun in silence.
MonoKeras resumed his methodical search of the
desktop. The desk drawers were next, the locked ones being opened with his special
tools in a matter of a couple of seconds. By the end of several minutes' worth
of hurried scanning through documents, he'd confirmed that his suspicions were
plausible, but had turned up no definite leads on the whereabouts of his quarry.
He did find a name that caused him to hiss in surprise and dismay, along with
some very interesting blueprints.
"Now we know what they were trying to hide,"
he muttered to himself. Tapping a hoof against his lips thoughtfully, he eyed
the closed cabinets of a modern entertainment centre. Quickly unlocking the
door, he slid it open to reveal video equipment and rows of tapes. He read through
the labels, finding names and dates. He finally pulled one out with Heilley's
name on it and fed it into the system. He watched as she played a game of Cheat!
and realised this was part of the security setup, though why they would keep
tapes like this he didn't know. Pulling out another with her name, he tried
it, only to stare in momentary bafflement at the gray fog that it revealed onscreen.
Looking closer, he made out skeletal shapes and objects and whistled softly
as he realised that he was looking at a neutron scan of the same scenes.
"No one cheats in..." MonoKeras broke off as
Sun Pegasus suddenly flared. He slapped the video system off and shut it, then
grabbed the light switch. Hissing at Sun Pegasus to hide, he waited in the darkness
as the sound of soft footsteps became audible to him as well.
A section of the wall creaked open and a tall
figure strode into the room, closing the hidden passage behind him. MonoKeras
pulled out a Moon Staff and his Grand Lightning Beam before using them to blast
the intruder back into the wall. Flipping on the light, he surveyed his stunned
victim.
"Well, well, well. Dr. Frank Sloth, I presume?"
Sloth groaned and began to struggle to his feet.
MonoKeras whistled sharply and Sloth choked as he found his neck encircled in
a ring of fire.
"Don't move, Sloth," MonoKeras ordered. "Sun
has left many a scorched neck behind him, and one more will just be even more
entertaining."
Sloth coughed and winced as Sun Pegasus instinctively
tightened his grip. "All right," he growled. "Who are you and what do you want?"
"Who I am is of no concern. What I want are
two Kyrii." MonoKeras grinned as his shot struck home. "I see you know who I'm
talking about."
Sloth began to laugh wildly. "Oh yes, I know
them, I know them! And I don't have them anymore, either, Mr. High and Mighty!"
MonoKeras snorted. "Right. And you don't have
a knapsack containing two million Neopoints, either, do you?"
Sloth blinked and then smirked. "As a matter
of fact, I don't. That was my partner's department."
MonoKeras frowned and began some fast thinking.
"So, Spectre has the money and you've already dropped Heilley and Kootmufin
off."
Sloth started to nod and then thought better
of it. "Precisely. Now if you'll just let me go..."
"Oh, I don't think so," MonoKeras drawled. He
tossed a glass bottle towards Sloth, letting it bounce off the soft carpet and
roll to a stop between his hands. "There you are. Drink up."
"But I..."
"I said drink up!"
Sun Pegasus tightened his grip and Sloth let
out a yelp of pain before following instructions. "Uhhh...."
MonoKeras whistled Sun Pegasus off as Sloth
slumped to the floor. Then he began a rapid tapping of the wall that Sloth had
come through. This next step had to be completed quickly if he was going to
do any good.
To be continued... | 
