Elemorts

Chapter XVII - Blind Spot

"According to initial reports, one of the passengers of the crashed helicopter was Felitte actress, Pinzailyn Ailoraw," the newscaster announced with an appropriate grimness. "She was last seen at the Hotel Grande where she made waves after she assaulted and thrashed the Digitch former GB Champion, Utsu Hoshek, to within an inch of his life. Loress Wenerly has this report," the newscaster intoned and looked to the side.

"Are you sure that Digitch fellow survived?" Pinz asked.

"For the sixth time, yes!" Heraclark assured her. "When we were done with those men, a medic arrived, patched him up good, and then carried him away. Anything else you would like to know?"

"It's just that it's a load off my mind," Pinz replied and looked back at her holophone.

The scene had changed to an establishing shot of the skyline of Brivil before a brunette with an exceptionally piercing voice began rambling on about the 'horrific incident.' Before long, the reporter launched into a detailed analysis of Pinz's recent troubling behavior to speculate on the possible cause of the tragedy.

"Oh goodness, you'd think they'd have something nice to say. I mean, I just died," Pinz muttered with an exhausted sigh as she wearily watched the hologram being projected from her holophone. "Do you think it will work, though?" she asked Heraclark, who sat across the campfire from her.

"I have no doubt it will," Heraclark comforted her. "They might even set your friend free now that they think you're dead."

"But they must have found out about Mert too."

"I am pretty sure they have," Heraclark agreed. "But so what? They can't know for sure you had a hand in that."

"Maybe," Pinz said resignedly. "I have never done anything like this before, you know."

"Like crashing your own helicopter?"

Pinz looked up from her holophone. "Like faking something."

She had been worried sick on the way about Seluna. She didn't really believe they would kill Seluna when they found out Mert was dead, but she was sure they would harm her in some way to teach Pinz a lesson.

An idea had begun forming. She obsessed about it over and over again in her mind, telling herself it was crazy before she finally succumbed and started looking for parachutes in the helicopter. When she finally found enough for all of them, she marched over to Jayrock and told him they needed to bail out and let the helicopter crash.

Both Jayrock and Heraclark tried reasoning with her and assuring her that Seluna would be fine, but she was having none of it.

They bailed out over the Gorven Hills surrounding the city of Brivil. They landed quite a distance away from the wreckage, but Jayrock still made his way over to it and made sure it went up in flames with one of his weapons called 'Flint Shotgun' or something.

They made their way down the slopes and then through the Gorven Woods for several hours before they made camp in a clearing using supplies they had salvaged from the helicopter. All of them, including Puff, had been extremely tired, so they were sound asleep in a blink.

They had had all the food they could find in the helicopter, so after waking up, they had to forage for more. All they could find were shrubs of the native fruit, erifi, a little, round fruit with a magenta to dark-purple skin, and a tart flavor, but it sufficed.

Heraclark popped a mouthful of the erifi as he pretended to pay attention to the hologram. Pinz had given him a description of a man who had boarded with her friend that could only be Umberton — plus, she had described a woman as well that must have been Rook. Heraclark chewed on the erifi as hard as he could and let their acidic juice fill his mouth, all the time imagining what he would do if he could get his hands on the pig again.