76. The last of his kind

 
 
Jaden stopped twitching and just sat a moment, exhausted from the effort of dancing.
“Now, do you think we can go?” Marius said, turning to Nox, who could bamf them back in the truck. And it was true. They couldn’t go back up the waterfall, and there was only a set of stairs and a passageway leading from the room they now found themselves. As if in response to Marius’ question, Yung charged off up the stairs, disappearing down the corridor.
“Hey, wait for me,” Marius called back and ran up after her with Nox and Jaden trailing behind. None of them had far to go as the passageway seemed to end in a pit or only just seemed to end in a pit. The pit was thirty metres across, and Nox’s little Hedge light seemed to just disappear intoits depths. Standing on the edge, they could feel the tug of some force drawing them across the hole. Grabbing a loose rock, Marius threw it as far as he could. It arched up as expected, reaching halfway across the hole before heading straight across to the other side and clattering against the wall as if falling on a floor.
 
With a self-satisfied grin, Marius pulled out a rope and handed one end to Yung. Seeing what he was doing, Nox flew across the hole, turning so her feet faced the wall and was on the other side to meet Marius as he descended the rope.
“I suppose you think you’re clever,” He said. She smiled and lit her Hedge light so he could see.
 
Jaden followed down on Bellyache, let down by the straining Yung. Once Jaden touched the group, Yung dropped the rope, stepped back three paces and ran for the hole. She lept, spun in the air and landed on the other side in a three point pose.
“Now who’s the clever one!” Nox laughed at her friend's prowess.
 
The hole was now a corridor leading down…or at least away. There was a small alcove off to the right before the corridor ended in a large room at the far end. Yung’s long artificial nose sniffed the air and smelt something… not nanotech, but buttery. As soon as the others started moving, they could smell the delicious smell of hot butter and corn from somewhere ahead. Walking down the hallway towards the smell, they could hear the sound of small random popping noises, like something small moving with force and hitting metal.
 
As they turned into the alcove, the smell of butter and corn became overpowering. Along the back wall, a machine stood, randomly making the popping noises as small white items the size of small rocks, tumbled out of a door in the front. Yung picked up one of the white rocks. It was very light and still slightly warm from whatever creation process made it. She ate it, enjoying the chew, but not overly enjoying the slick fatty, salty taste. Nox scanned the few grains that had tumbled from the machine and found them to be organic in origin and technically edible. Marius and Jaden both took a rock and popped them in their mouths. The buttery-salty flavour was just what their travelling bodies craved, and the light, fluffy texture was delightfully moreish. They took a handful each, Marius filling a bag full of the exotic delights, and Nox tentatively tried one. She, like Yung, found the crunchy texture appealing but recognised that there was no nutritional value to the morsel and scoffed who would invent such ridiculously useless food. Yung fed a few of the puffy morsels to her purple worm companion as her nose twitched again. This time there was a faint smell of nanno technology ahead.
 
 
At the end of the hallway was another hole, this time going up. Marius tried running up the wall hoping the gravity would catch him before he fell back…it didn’t. He tried the rock trick again, and sure enough, the gravity did flip, just further than he could wall run.
 
Nox starts flying up again until Jaden calls her back.
“Take this with you and find a spot to tie it off,” She said, once more spooling out the rope, this time with a rag tied to one end. Nox flew, the flag showing when the gravity flipped. With the rope tried off, Yung and Marius climb up and down the other side. Jaden once more rodes the tied in Bellyache.
 
They were in another corridor, this one a buzz with light and sounds. Occasionally, from the other en,d the lights appear, forming a giant foot or sometimes a shin. The clashing of machinery follows the lights. The group got to the doorway of a new room and were awed by the giant fighting robots, one blue and one red. Nox stealthed in and flew up to sit on a balcony several metres above the ground. From that height, she could see that the room was a circular arena, a boxing ring where spectators sat and watched the fight from the balconies. Though the mechanical sounds match the movements and clashes of the two robots, a quick scan proves to Nox that the robots were nothing but illusions.
 
Across from her balcony is the room’s one and only occupant, a small and scrawny magr, missing a horn and bright pink from his altercation with Yung’s pet worm. Down below, Yung walked into the room, admiring the robot fighters until she spots the magr, laying back in a comfortable seat, eating handfuls of the puff balls. Memories of her flight through the Endoval Forest, a cut across her back, fill Yung’s simpler mind. With a roar of rage, she rans and jumped up four metres, grabbing the balcony.
 
Across, Nox watched on with glee. Magr attacks had always been a fear that Celeron folk lived with. Many Celeron rangers never returned home because of magr attacks and even Jaden had fought once in a magr raid on the township. Nox herself still remembered how the magr viciously attacked the vulnerable refugees that first night and how they’d gone on to kidnap members of the second Celeron group. She crowed in triumph as Yung leapt from the ground, right up the balcony where the magr lay and heard the magr cry something in surprise.
“Crazy….lightning…bear?” Nox translated. It was a good name for Yung, and confirmed this creature had been at their attack on the magr village months before. Nox started chanting the title in support.
 
Below, Jade and Marius also spotted the small magr with two different responses. While Marius sprinted across the room and starts climbing up a metal ladder affixed to the wall, Jaden stops to look at their surroundings. The magr was alone. There were no other signs of inhabitants. He was also small and runtish, unlikely to be one of the magr that attacked Celerons.
“Yung stop!” She cried, “Grab him by the scruff and bring him down, but don’t kill him.”
“Let her play!” Marius called back, as he desperately tried to reach the balcony where all the fun is happening.
Yung, her eyes never leaving the stunned magr’s, climbed over the railing and onto the balcony. With surprising speed, the magr kicked a bucket of the puffed snacks at Yung and leapt for the ladder. The bucket landed on her Yung’s head.
 
“You get her Crazy lightning bear!” Nox cries from her balcony. Placing a hand down to stablise herself she activated something and suddenly her muscles froze. Marius seeing the magr ahead on the ladder tried to jump ahead catch up. Grease from the magr’s snack covered fingers made the ladder slippery, and he fell instead. In a moment, Yung grabbed the falling Marius and with the momentum of the fall, swung Marius up back onto the ladder, just below the magr’s foot.
“I mean it! Catch him and bring him down unharmed,” Jaden called again but was frustrated when no one seemed to be listening to her.
 
On the ladder, the magr kicks out with a two-toed hoof at Marius’ head. He dodges aside and landed a punch on the magr’s calf, making it squeal. It leaped up, scrambling onto a second, higher balcony. Nox’s consciousness transfers from her frozen body to another, much larger in the centre of the room. She looks around, realising she’s in the red fighting robot at the beginning of a new round. The controls responded to her thoughts, and they’re focused on the fight at the second balcony. She moves one large metal fist up and toward the balcony.
 
The magr has a moment’s shelter, but this was as far as the ladder went, and the crazy lightning bear and it’s friend are right behind. It looks over the railing to see if there’s another way when the red robot turns its blocky metal head its way, the massive metal fist rising like a massive claw. The magr cowers back just as Marius and Yung reach the balcony.
“A magr…but not magr!” Jaden screams, finally catching Marius and Yung’s attention. Marius’, who had planned to pitch the fowl little thing over the balcony, relented and settled for pinning the creature to the ground.
Yung, leaping up from one one balcony to the second, climbed over the railing a second time and snatched up the tiny magr in one hand.
“Magr…smoosh!” She roared and below, the red robots started a dance in her honour. From her virtual cockpit inside the robot, she can hear the magr cry for its life.
“Please….please don’t hurt me!”
Yung seems unphased by the pleas and leaped from the top balcony to the lower, the magr a rag doll in her hand.
“Yung smoosh!” She bellowed.
“Please….please…” The magr cries, now that it felt its life was over.
Another jump, and Yung landed on the ground in front of Jaden.
“Jaden smoosh?” She said, opening her hand and giving over custody of the foul creature to Jaden.
 
“Thank you, and no, Yung, I don’t think we need to,” Jaden looked down at the tiny creature only slightly larger than Nox in front of her. Just a moment ago, it had been watching robots fight with a full belly of puff treats, and now it was surrounded by the murderers of its people as one seemed determined to talk gibberish at it.
 
“You were at the village when we came, right?” Jaden asked and received a confused and terrified look in reply, the same gobblygook repeated over and over again. Jaden was good at communicating across barriers, but this was more of a divide than she could handle, and she didn’t know how long she could hold off Yung’s retribution.
“Ah, Nox? Do you think you could come down here to translate for us?” She said, looking around, and realised Nox was frozen in place on a balcony, “Nox?”
 
The red robot stopped dancing and turned around to see the tiny figure frozen in a seated position on the balcony railing. Having a body was a lot of responsibility, Nox realised. You couldn’t just leave it lying around. She looked around the controls in front of her, found one that seemed to symbolise exit and pressed it. Suddenly, she was back in her own body. When a flit of her wings, she dove off the balcony and back to Jaden.
 
“He says he’s on his own. He says he ran away from Irongfang’s camp the night the Crazy Lightning Bear attacked. He travelled a long time, fearful of the Crazy Lightning Bear, until he found the forest and the boxes. One made the ground sloppy, and one made the waterfall to the roof. Swept down the waterfall, he heard the voices and ran. He found the puffed things and found they were good.” Nox translated for everyone to listen in a monotone.
 
Meanwhile, Marius, who had scrambled to climb the ladder all the way to the second balcony, found himself alone. He sighed and started the climb back down, stopping long enough at the first balcony to see what the magr had found. In a bag next to several buckets of puffed treats, Marius found some shins and two new cyphers. He grabbed the bag and headed down the ladder to the group encircling the magr.
 
“So, he’s alone as I suspected,” Jaden said, while Nox translated back, “Lucky we came along, he’d have never survived alone.”
“He’s fine, “ Nox protested, “He’s lived months alone. He doesn’t need us, and we don’t need him!”
“Yes, what if he decides to follow us back to Tiltspire?” Marius agreed, and Jaden turned back to the terrified magr.
“Would you follow?”
“Follow and kill, yes,” The magr said through Nox as if this was the natural and normal way of things. It didn’t seem to say it with much enthusiasm, but neither did it deny its violent nature.
“What a short and brutal life they must lead,” Jaden said, almost to herself before rummaging in Bellyache and pulling out a cypher. It was an instant shelter, a clever if one use device the group hadn’t had a chance to use.
She handed over the instant shelter.
 
“You are a magr, but you are not magr, do you understand? You don’t have to live that way anymore. Take this and not kill.”
The magr seemed to understand Jaden very well. It looked at the cypher, “Take and not kill?”
“Yes, and for your own sake stay away from people,” Jaden pointed at the group.
“Or Crazy Lightning Bear will have something to say about it!” Nox added, and Yung agreed, snorting aggressively through her nose.
 
“Yung smash now?”
“Let the minnows go, “ Jaden said, patting Yung’s arm.
Yung took the advice to heart, grabbed the magr and threw him back where she’d found him on the top balcony.
 
A strange but satisfying adventure completed, Nox bamfed the group back to the truck. It was just as they’d left it, its precious cargo still strapped in place. With little in the way of discussion, the group climbed back into their seats and continued their journey back to Tiltspire.