LAL2: Return of the Missing - IC

Faez got up, and waddled over to Eti.
He sat down beside him, and gazed up into his face as best he could.

"Do I look evil to you?" he asked sweetly.

"Faez? Really?" Safyr3 barked. "You might think this whole ordeal is a joke, but the rest of us don't!"

Faez ignored her, and rolled over exposing his belly like a cat.

Faez may have been neglecting the fact that Opajik and Eti were related.

He stared at him, then glanced up with an unimpressed look.
"Who are you guys anyways?"

Faez was not discouraged.
"I'm FAEZ!" he squealed, jumping up and down, "...and I like you!"

"Ignore him," Safyr3 said dismissively. "He's...hyper....Anyway, I am Safyr3." She paused to give Eti a stare with baleful eyes. "Your kind came to my planet...and...did this to me..."

She angrily indicated her metal plating.

"Now I'm Safyr3 the cyborg; Safyr3 the freak-show; Safyr3 the experiment..." she continued bitterly. "Ever since, I have been so angry, ALL the time..."

One of her enhanced claws scratched the pavement, scraping deep gashes into it.

"...but it's not like you care."

Opajik looked at her, a little discouragingly. "Safyr3..."
Eti blinked. "We're not all the same, you know."

"Exactly!" Opajik said, turning back to face Eti. "Th-that's what I wanted to prove... Which is why we tried to help the syratopes on Karettoi..."
Eti's face was blanked. "You really don't see it do you?"
"Wh-"
Eti stood up. "You want to prove to everybody that not all Kyreniens are evil." It was a statement.
Opajik stood as well. "Yes...?"
"So you labeled the entire population as your enemy and killed thousands of citizens who were probably just like you. Not really bad, but caught up in what they were told to do."

Opajik's eyes slowly widened, eventually becoming as big as they could.
He exhaled slowly. Was Eti right?
He took a couple steps back, stumbling backwards into Vienna, who righted him by putting her hands on his shoulders for a moment. He stopped, stared at his brother, and then his own feet. Then back to him.

He had never thought of it that way, and struggled to counter it.
"E-Eti... I-I didn't want to..."

Not even Faez had a positive spin on that... He frowned, and his tail twitched from side to side. It occasionally thwacked into Eti's side.

Safyr3 however, was just getting warmed up.

"Oh please. And I suppose it's perfectly acceptable for your kind to kill off half of the Syratopes, enslave the other half, and leave the few who escaped to fend for themselves in the jungle," sge spat. "Plenty of innocents were murdered there, and I don't see you too choked up about it."

And idea occurred to her.

"..In fact, I don't see anyone too choked up about anything!" she snarled. "If those Kyrenien colonists we killed were so important, and the event such a tragedy, why did the Overarch back out? Why didn't he avenge them when your kind so clearly outmatches us in size and strength?! Do any of you matter at all to him? Does your government even care?"

Eti paused for a minute, unsure. He finally said, "It's the way it is, okay? It might not be right, but it's not going to change. It really isn't."
He seemed to think he was done, then started up again. "What are you guys going to do, anyways? Kill everyone?"

For some reason, that struck Safyr3 as enormously funny.

"If we wanted to kill everyone, we wouldn't have brought you with us," she said, "and we certainly wouldn't have just waded through that crowd..."

She laughed slightly.
Faez joined in and made everything awkward.

Eti didn't even smile. "So how do you think you're going to fix everything-- why do you even care, anyways? You're not even one of us."

"...All we want to do is go home," Safyr3 admitted.

She cuffed Faez, who was still laughing.

Eti stared at her, and said, "Me too."

Opajik felt horrible. He tried to lighten the mood. "W-well, once we get a ship, we can go home. And you can come too."
Eti looked so tired and hopeless, it was surprising that he was still getting the words out of his mouth. "That isn't my home."
Opajik struggled to form a suitable response. "B-but it can be... It's really not so bad. I promise."

"Don't promise."

Safyr3 was suddenly reminded of her time spent wandering the jungle in a state of confusion and disrepair... She remembered reeking of blood and rage, and being so afraid of what she'd done...

She shuddered.

Faez was thinking about the time he'd fought over cookies with Opajik.
"....I want a cookie," he mumbled.


Parell was almost asleep, and hadn't been paying much attention to the conversation. He looked over at Rhey, and wondered what he was thinking.

Rhey was watching quietly, puzzled. Admittedly, he felt awkwardly out of place in the situation, but at the same time he found it interesting. He'd never really thought about Invaders' emotions before.
There was a long silence.

Opajik knew how to be assertive with his brother, but he felt like a monster for doing it now. "You have to come with us, Eti. There's no other option."
Eti didn't answer. He just looked with tired, sad eyes.

He didn't say "I hate you", but Opajik could see it.

The sun seemed to slip behind the buildings.
It was beginning to get dark out.

"It'll be night soon," Safyr3 said, staring upwards between the buildings. "We should find a more safe place to stay for a bit..."

"Right," Vienna agreed, eager to move things along. "If we keep navigating through these alleys, maybe we can stay hidden."
She glanced around. "Maybe if we get far enough, we can steal a ship in time."

Rhey spoke up from the back. "What about the others?"
Not understanding, just stared at him.
"The Dim," he reminded her.

"Oh yes, The Dim..." Safyr3 said. "That shouldn't be a problem. We get a ship and raise the shields, wheel around to that entrance type thing, and get everyone aboard, no?"

"That sounds easy," Faez said.

"Too easy," Parell mumbled.

"We'll think about that once we have the ship," Vienna decided. "Right now we have to move."
She started on her way down the alley, and the others followed her.

Eti followed slowly, knowing he wasn't being given a choice. He stayed away from the others.
Opajik hung back to walk next to him, but anything he tried to say was pretty much ignored.

Safyr3 took up the rear, in case anyone strayed off too far for her comfort. Mainly Eti, who she was half-afraid would try to make a run for a side-alley.

Plus, she wanted to keep everyone in view.


Faez wandered up behind Vienna, humming softly to himself.
"Hey Parell do you know this song?" he asked, singing a few notes.

Parell was too tired to respond, so he climbed on Faez's back and fell asleep sitting up.

Opajik kept trying to ask Eti about how he'd been and what everything was like now and all sorts of other questions, but he was unsuccessful.

Eventually he went to walk next to Safyr3, evidently stressed out of his mind.
"I don't know what to do," he sighed.

"...He's upset," Safyr3 said softly. "Give him time. He needs to process what we've told him, no? Maybe he'll start asking us questions."

"What if he doesn't?" he moaned. "What if he never forgives me?"
If they hadn't been advancing through the alleyways, he would have been pacing. "It's my fault..."

"No it's not," Safyr3 said briskly, "it's the Overarch's."

Opajik cringed, his eyes widening and then narrowing in confusion. "What does he want?"
He hoped that what he wanted wasn't to kill them. Then again, if it wasn't that, it would be something much worse, wouldn't it?
He took in a heavy breath.

"I don't know," Safyr3 answered. "..But I'll bet he's not going to be too pleased to learn we've escaped."

***

Safyr3 was correct.

Equally displeased were the guards themselves - a handful of which now had to report back to the Overarch stating their failure.
Four of them stood in a cluster in front of his door, hesitating to go inside.

"Well boys," said the head of the patrol, "it won't do us any good to keep him waiting."
A few of them shuffled their feet and stared at the ground. They didn't want to go in; they felt as if the halls were already stained with their blood.

"After you, captain," said one of them.

The captain sighed, and opened the door slowly. The darkness within was intimidating, but he was determined to show no fear....Or to at least try to. His fellow guards followed in behind him.

They didn't notice, but the Hunter slipped in the last second before the door shut, having safely returned Kydi to his room. He stared at the guards for a moment, and decided to hang back behind them.

The captain and his patrol moved forward obliviously. After a few seconds the patrol stopped, and the captain lowered his gaze and addressed the Overarch's feet.

"...Sir..."