Kidnapped

Lizard listened to the message for the third time as she walked briskly toward the meeting location

"Lizard," started a shrill mans voice, " I have your son."

Something sizzled in the background, and the boy could be heard shrieking in pain.

"Call back soon."

And with those eight words, the message ended. This kid was already more trouble than what he was worth. She hadn't left him alone a full two hours yet and he was already damn kidnapped! Lizard seriously considered leaving him, even as she approached the squat hut near the outskirts of the town. If this was what traveling with him was going to be like she was not interested.

She listened to the message two more times before adjusting her heat sensing frames until the outline of two bodies became visible. Presumably, the one laying on the ground was River. The man really had come alone, to her surprise, just like he said.

As she neared the hut at the end of the pebble road, the civilians retreated into their polabroid homes, closing their entrances with fabric, and at times, sheets of tin or wood. The trodden spores made the path slippery, and stained the hems of many pants and skirts the color of fresh blood.

A beaded curtain was pulled to the side of the doorway of the agreed location, and out came a willowy man wearing a faceless mask.

" I didn't know you were the family type," he says holding the curtain as he motioned for her to enter.

She remained still.

"I want to see him first."

The man nodded, then went into the hut. He returned, dragging River by the ankles, his body swollen and bloodied, and dropped his legs in the doorway. River's deformed state surprised even Lizard.

"Shit, are you ok?" she asked, stooping to cut him out of his bondage.

He responded with a groan.

Alive. Of course.

"This is overkill even for a hunter." said Lizard to the man in the faceless mask.

"I did what I had to do. The boy wouldn't talk."

Lizard glanced at River's crushed face. He should've just gave her up. Loyalty to a near stranger was idiotic.

The man continued, "Throw your weapons by this wall here."

Lizard glanced at River's crushed face once more, then pulled out her trench knives as if to toss them - she charged. He made a motion to fire his laser, but she was swift. She severed both shoulders of the masked man instead, slicing through flesh and bone with one, precise, motion. In that very moment, the sound of dozens of lasers clicking into gear filled her ears. Behind her, standing atop, behind, and covered by sheets of tin and wood, were the civilians, all armed with cheap lasers, all charging to fire.

She dove into the hut and swung behind the wall as swiftly as she could, but, as slow as the lasers were compared to the hunters standard, she still couldn't avoid them all. Holes were burned into her thighs, back and arms. The masked man was not so lucky. The civilians had not chosen a side. Unfortunately, neither was River. His body trembled with each new injury, and he laid there like a fish, flopping for lack of water.

He's going to survive this, she reminded herself, taking a deep breath. His glitch would save him right? But, she couldn't just leave him here outside, no matter how tempting it was. She inhaled once more, then faced the barrage of fire, lasers burning her arms as she grabbed River by the shoulders and dragged him back into the hut, a trail of blood painting his path.

Lizard looked around. Nothing here but a circular oven in the middle of the room and River's bags. No exit except the entrance, and a hole in the roof that was blocked by a fan.

They were trapped, and sooner or later, these sturdy walls would weaken.

"River! Can you move at all?" she shouted, yelling over the whiz of a hundred flying beams.

He groaned, twisting his porous body.

"Can you speak?"

He groaned once more.

Lizard sighed. She wasn't expecting to have to use her strength upgrade so soon. She pulled the needle out of her mirror and murmured a quick 'good luck' before injecting herself with the shit brown fluid.

They needed to move now before they were surrounded, or before the walls came down. She'd have to carry him.

The rogue hurriedly packed all of his bags into her mirror, and tossed the teen over her shoulder as well as she could. She used the last of her leather bombs to blow a hole in the back of the building, and leaped through the fire, golden flames licking their clothes and skin.

She sprinted into the wooded area near the outskirts of Bandsland, but the spores hindered her. Her feet were slimy with red goo. She found herself slipping, sliding into the roots of trees. The deeper into the forest she ran, the higher the spores, the harder to see the ground, until she was wading in them, leaving a thin trail of crimson behind her that stirred itself in with the unbroken spores.

Lizard cursed. This would make them easy to track. They had to get away from this city altogether. But the boy couldn't move, and she couldn't carry him like this forever. The citizens would overtake them easily.

She stopped to rest by a hollowed cyprus, large and wide enough to fit them both inside.

"Hey, how does this bug thing work? How long do I have to wait for you to heal?"

The boy did not respond. The boy could not respond.

Lizard glanced backward, toward the city. The flame from the leather bombs were dying down by now, and the rogue hunters would be looking for them soon if they weren't already. She tucked River inside the cypress tree, buried and covered him in the compost and leaves she found inside of it, and ran away, allowing her tracks to lead further down, away from the boy. She would have to come back for him.

If she had been alone, she could've handled them easily. But, with River ... Perhaps she should change her identity.

If she had been alone, she would just leave. Running was safe and easy and most people couldn't match her speed. She could see no reason to hang around for unnecessary fights. But with River to drag around, she had to rethink her strategies. He was worse than the average civilian, he was a hick, completely naïve, too trusting, quite useless. Less able to fend for himself than she initially thought. Perhaps he was right about her needing to change her identity, but in the meantime, she had to get her hunters somewhere alone. She couldn't afford to have the civilians butting in this time.

..............................

The Monster loved her shoes. She loved the white light that emanated from the place where her scarlet and black soles touched the water. She loved the tiny sound each of her steps made, the lovely sound of glass bells ringing, playing a soft melody that was kind to her ears. She loved them, until of course, it was time to sleep. Her shoes couldn't save her from the water then. And when she wanted to sit, her shoes didn't keep her rear end dry. The light they emanated wasn't enough to counter the candy-red corals, or enough to light her path, and the little jingle they played was not enough to drown out the perpetual squeak of the darkness beyond her tiny shack.

The Monster squatted, her scarlet shoes saving her from the unusually icy puddle of water currently flooding her shack. Thighs sore, bored as ever, she flipped through the Green Hunt channels, looking for something to change her melancholy mood. It was in style to hunt in large groups these days, which was not to The Monster's taste. Who wants to watch somebody get jumped? Not her. But many of the Red Edeners loved it. Unfortunately for her, it seemed like every channel she flipped to was of some rogue hunting trash, working with teams as large as twenty.

She opened her list of channels and typed L-I-Z-A-R-D, out of mindless habit.

A green light flicked. That's when she saw. Her heart began to pound, her breaths became short. She couldn't allow herself to believe what she thought she was seeing or she might break her own heart. She closed her dark brown eyes and took several deep and slow breathes before she was ready to look again, until she was sure that she wouldn't cry if she was wrong. She peeked again, holding her breath.

The Monster fell onto her butt, sinking waist deep into the icy puddle, knees weakened by the force of exploding excitement: Lizard was back!

The, now wet, girl was tempted to call the old Lizardites just to wave it in their faces: she was right all along. They had called her crazy, told her to let it go, now look at her!

Maybe she shouldn't tell anyone and keep Lizard all to herself. That would be the meanest thing to do, but the most righteous. The Monster was the only one who stayed when Lizard was gone, she had every right to keep her a secret.

But her idol was different though. The Monster couldn't quite place her finger on it, but besides her stylistic choices (her short, lime hair was shaved clean bald and her clothes were flowing and feminine) there was a sense of urgency behind her signature saunter that made her seem somewhat less aloof, even as she allowed orange specks to pile on her tawny skin and apricot clothes, and as the hem of her wide-leg pants became soiled with crimson.

The Monster easily recognized the area as Bandsland, or, at least the forest surrounding it, but Lizard was not taking the main road, or any road period. She was taking a brisk stroll through the woods towards one of the poorer parts of the city. Perhaps she was taking a back way? The teleporter tended to be stronger where people lived, she'd better have a pretty strong electrical device if she wanted to get through.

Lizard stopped suddenly, near a large cypress tree, then stooped down low. She emerged with the brutalized body of what looked like a teenage male, his brown skin burned pink and bruised black, obviously dead.

The Monster wondered how the body hadn't vanished by now and what use could Lizard have for a body that didn't go away. She adjusted herself, climbing out of the puddle and balancing herself on top of it with her scarlet shoes, hoping to get a better view. Maybe she should tell Jam so she could use their zoomer...

BANG BANG BANG!

The tin sheets of her tiny shack rattled as someone politely knocked on her needlessly thin door.

"Who's there!?" The Monster shouted, without looking away from her screen.

"A messenger, from Ante."

"Who!?" she asked incredulously, peeling her eyes away from the image of Lizard mounting the guy on her back. He was talking, alive somehow. They were talking together. Were they partners? Why would she help him?

"My name is Scythe, I'm a messenger from Ante. I have an opportunity for you. If you answer the door I can explain everything to you in detail."