Slugterran Saviours

Chapter 18

Author's Note: this week has been stressful i had a mental breakdown because of a bitchy teacher and i got 2 more tests. on a happier note, i need designs for Tad's company's symbol (you'll see why in the chap) and Ataro's symbol so if anyone's up to do it, just do it!

Tiffy's POV

Something was off with this entire situation.

As our mecha beasts galloped through the wood, quickly approaching the cavern, the three of us informing Johnny on what happened in Cyan's room before growing silent, retreating back into ourselves, thinking of the first time something like this happened to us. The first time a monster had broke into our home, taken a piece of us, then broke our caverns with the jagged edges. We knew exactly who we were all thinking of, we all had a piece of ourselves torn away when she fell. But ever since we lost that part of us, we've been closer while trying to mend it. Her death may have tore away something from us, but the only good thing that came out of her death was that it brought us closer together. We spent countless nights staring at pictures, silent tears falling down our faces as we stared at the framed picture in shaking hands, spending the night trying to pick up scattered broken pieces, our thoughts only interrupted by the wailing siren. Times when we wanted it to sound so badly, so we could sling our anger away, forget the grief for one second, hide the pain in our slashes and scars. Those dark times drew us closer together, until needed each other more than we needed water, until we knew each other better than we knew ourselves.

And now, I knew Cyan was hiding something.

I looked from my rose red, simple wrist blaster that Johnny and Cyan insisted I had, my eyes fixating themselves onto her pure white mecha beast, lines of cyan running through them, the power core glowing a vibrant, striking cyan blue. The pure white steed stood out in our dark, eerie surroundings, the crimson red undertones causing goosebumps to pop up on my skin, the hairs on my arms standing on end as I felt a unnerving cold creep up on my back. They also made me grimace: the amount of slugs and people Ataro had ghouled was starting to take a toll on the caverns and the slug energy. I brought my focus back on Cyan herself, noticing how the vibrant colours of her cyan blue chest piece stood out in the black. She looked forward, her body rigid, her hands constantly moving on the steering handlebars on the mecha beast, fidgeting with the rubber. Her posture was abnormally proper, her back so straight it seemed like she was focused and bent on upholding it.

"Cyan, any idea why they broke in?" I finally asked, my voice piercing through the thickening silence like a red hot knife. Her body turned towards me swiftly before I completed my question, but she turned back to the front quickly once she heard my question.

"No, it doesn't make sense to me, but we got another thing to worry about now." Cyan quickly brushed it off anxiously, her muscles tense as she rode slightly faster. Johnny and I looked at each other, and by the look in his eyes, I knew we were thinking of the same thing. Cyan was one to voice out her opinions, her anger. She wasn't one to internalize her feelings.

"But it doesn't make any sense. Why would Ataro send his best warrior to us and then invade a cavern without her?" Johnny asked, trying to probe her to talk, and I agreed,

"Yeah, it's almost-"

"Shut up, both of you!" Cyan hissed as she peered through the trees, her fist clenching, her nails digging into the material on her fingerless gloves. The two of us walked towards the trees, looking through them.

Ataro's soldiers guarded the entrance, a blaster aimed at Tad's head, the end of the blaster touching his head as he shakily signed a contract. Ataro's men pushed in gallons and gallons of dark water into a truck, a pitch black truck with the previous Blakk symbol on it, the symbol his father used, the symbol he discarded once he reworked Blakk Industries into a mecha beast company. We could never forget the bright red V seared into our minds. Innocent children below the age of ten years were handcuffed and shoved into another truck, also with the V plastered on it. Teens and adults were forced to carry materials to the city center. At first, I wondered why Ataro used Thaddeus Blakk symbol and not Tad's symbol, but my questions were answered once I saw hired people snapping pictures of the whole thing, sending it to multiple Slugnet news outlets.