The Misty Fire

by Punk19

With Master Vile taking over the Americas, Angel and her children, who's numbers have recently been boosted by the adoption of Guyunis, are forced to reside in a different country. Will they be left alone to live a normal life or will the ghosts of their kin bother them again?

25. Chapter 25

The palms of the hands, that were around the hourglass-shaped steering wheel, that wore a dark blue leather cover, were rather rough while their tops were oddly smooth. The veins that bulged out from them were rather prominent, but that was normal. The owner of the hands was quite strong—they just emphasized this fact. In one small movement, the left hand lifted. It reached over to where a red button was; one long finger pressed the button before the hand was returned to the wheel. The ship that was being driven had listed ever so slightly to the left, after that movement was done; the owner of the hands righted the ship then continued driving.

The atmosphere meter, that was to the right of the ship's driver, was printing out a reading that said there was quite a lot of pressure being applied around the ship. The driver glanced at the meter twice before taking his right hand from the wheel. The driver grabbed a long stick that was connected to the floor of his ship's cockpit; the stick's end sported a round knob that disappeared after the hand was placed on it. The driver pushed the stick forward then, while keeping his hand on its knob, jabbed a blue button with that hand's index finger. There was a beeping sound then the atmosphere meter printed out a much more favorable reading that the driver was content with. The driver moved his hand back to the wheel after seeing the new reading that the atmosphere meter had printed out; he quickly corrected the balance of the ship that he was driving after returning his hand to the wheel.

"Driving a spaceship is much more difficult than driving a car," the ship's driver remembered telling his son, who was a right young child at the time, once. "A spaceship is much heavier than a car, so you'll need to have both of your hands on the wheel at all times because the weight of the ship can make it list. If anything should come up that requires you to remove a hand from the wheel, you make sure to either put the ship on autopilot or you do whatever you need to do with that hand and fast because, if you let your ship list too far, you might not be able to right it. Hear me?"

"Yes, Pubba." his son returned.

Before taking that potion that put him in Limbo, he was a pro in driving a spaceship. He had to re-learn a lot of things after being brought back from being in Limbo and driving a spaceship was one of them. It took him a short while before he was able to get his license to drive a ship re-instated; he had to re-take all of the tests that were required to be taken before one could lay-hand on the wheel of a ship and he also had to have a spaceship counselor accompany him on his first drive after his license was re-instated. Getting his normal license re-instated was a piece of cake in comparison to his getting his spaceship license re-instated; a car was much more easier to drive and handle than a craft that flew through space—not only did a car weigh less than a spacecraft but the controls were much easier to use and there were far fewer controls in a car. In order to get a car started, all one had to do was stick the key in the ignition, give it a twist, move the gear shift from park to reverse, then apply gentle pressure to the brake pedal to get the car backed out of the driveway—if the car was driven front-first into the driveway, that was. If the car was backed into the driveway, all one had to do was move the gear shift from park to drive then apply gentle pressure to the gas pedal then turn the wheel after they reached the end of the driveway. While a car was much easier to right after it started to veer over to an undesired part of the road that it was being driven on, it was still highly recommended to keep both hands on the wheel; if anything went amiss during the drive from point A to point B, the driver could apply brakes and horn to get the car to a safe spot on the side of the road that it was being driven on. Being that this was a spaceship that he was driving, he couldn't afford to make any mistakes. He had already made one mistake in driving a ship that was similar to the one that he was currently driving and that had cost him dearly.

He spent two years and seven months on the planet Jupiter—a planet that was in the Milky Way Galaxy, that actually destroyed the planet that had formerly been in its present-day location—over two hundred thousand years ago. He had fought starvation and disease and the nagging feeling of despair on that planet for all of two years and seven months before deciding to take the potion that he made for just that occasion.

Herleven potion was invented for a reason; while it caused death, it didn't make for the passing to be a full one. The potion-maker made the potion in the event that, if anything happened that was life-threatening—oh, say, crash-land on an unknown planet, that has hostile natives on it, along with either scarce or dangerous or near in-edible foods and/or animals—, he or she could save him or herself by taking the potion that would put him or her into a temporary or suspended death. Jupiter was Hell; the natives were hostile and the plant and animal-life was either scarce, poisonous, or horribly in-edible. When space debris in a space-made storm crashed into his ship, he had a hundred on board; only ninety souls—himself included—had survived the trek from the Kuiper Belt to Jupiter. He had to tear the control system that was in his ship at the time up in order to get it to drive after the collision happened; the first casualties of that trip occurred in the way back of his ship, after four or five of his staff got trapped in the storage space. Three of his staff had tried to rescue them trapped souls; all of them were lost after his ship's storage space went up in flames. Two others in his service died after his ship crashed on Jupiter—the ship cracked open in two places then them cracks sucked them two souls out. He and his eighty-nine surviving staff were forced to live a rather pitiful life afterwards.

The near-1000 page book, On My Knees by Geetix Laykewiss, had turned into one of his favorite reads after the first half of his relationship with his first fiancée, Bikare Globoosie, ended. He picked the book up thinking that it was one of them erotic novels; while it was a novel it wasn't an erotic one. It was an autobiographic novel telling of a man's struggles after he crash-landed on an unknown planet that was inhabited by hostile natives and dangerous animals and plants instead. He had read through that book four times and he had also watched the feature that was based off the book twice; thanks to the feature not staying true to what Geetix Laykewiss had written, he preferred the book to it.

That book had put a mild change in on how he traveled between galaxies—while he was already making and carrying Herleven potion whenever he went on his galactic travels, he had made a special point to make and then carry two vials of that potion on him after reading that book. Just in case something happened and the first vial was lost or broken.

As it turned out, making two of that one particular potion was more than a good idea. It was a life saver for him as the first vial of the potion that he made had disappeared from his pocket during the first few months of his stay on Jupiter. He and his eighty-nine surviving staff did well in surviving during the first few months of their forced stay on the planet then something happened that culled their numbers down some and that made their stay on the planet go sour—a group of the planet's native people came upon them one night. Them damn natives raided their camp and culled their numbers down from ninety to fifty before leaving. Over the months that followed, the number of his surviving staff had dropped until it was just him and two others remaining. He and his remaining staff were forced to live a nomadic life after that raid; during that nomadic lifestyle, his remaining staff did something that he had plain refused to do—while he survived by eating small amounts of the poisonous matter that was around him, his remaining staff ate their fallen comrades. He survived for three weeks after his two remaining staff members passed away then he took the potion. He spent over two hundred thousand years in Limbo afterwards.

His then, still-living staff eating the remains of their fallen comrades, his eating poisonous matter to keep himself alive, his fighting off the hostile natives and then finding himself alone after having some company on Jupiter for two years and seven months... that was all enough to make any being go crazy. He was lucky. Damn lucky to be back in the world of the living and damn lucky to be sane. Not many would of stayed sane after going through what he had, he was pretty damn sure of that.

"Entering planet's third atmosphere," a mechanical-sounding voice said. "Ozone: weak. Pressure: great. Stability of Vessel: ninety-eight percent."

He pulled his ship to the left to avoid the electricity that the clouds were about to release; a bolt of yellow lightning zapped close by his ship a second later. Thunder roared as sweat began to pour from his pores. Tazir, his thirdborn grandson, had really made a mess of the planet's ozone layers, it seemed. They were nearly gone; what he was driving through was pure atmosphere. If the ozone layers were there, and if they were fully healthy, he and his ship would of experienced a lot more pressure and friction.

He had no more straightened his ship out before letting the wheel drop to the right, to avoid another bolt of lightning; the bolts of lightning could well get past the electric barrier or shield that his ship had around it and, if one of them did that, he would find himself being in a situation similar to how he got to Jupiter. The lightning could fry his security systems; it could wipe out the heating and cooling system; and it could also do something to the ship's engine. It was best to fly a little wildly now; to veer around or away from the lightning. He could deal with the snow and the hail that was falling; thanks to the design of his ship's thrusters, he had nothing to worry about with the snow or the hail. The thrusters that were in the tail portion of his ship were straight; when he began his descent into the planet, he made sure that his ship wasn't pointed down. He entered the planet's atmospheres at an angle, like he always did when he drove into a planet. There was a slight vibration going on in the wheel; he could feel it in his hands but he wasn't concerned about it. The remnants of the planet's atmospheres, like all planetary atmospheres, were only doing their jobs in trying to keep the planet safe.

The dark blue leather chair, that he strapped himself into nearly three days ago, squeaked ever so lightly when he suddenly banked to the right. There was no warning with the bolt of lightning that just sliced down in front of his ship. If he didn't bank in the direction that he had, and as quickly as he had, he would of been in dire trouble. It'd be Jupiter all over again—an experience that he just didn't want a repeat of. The clouds around him were of the deepest of gray; he was keeping an eye on the flashes of light that were happening in them. If one of the clouds that were near him flashed a light more than once, he knew that a bolt of lightning would be happening. Lighting was electricity and, up in these clouds, it was caused by a rather negatively charged cloud bumping into a positively charged cloud and, boy, were there plenty of both where he was at the moment. He could imagine what was going on underneath these clouds. There was probably a light show going on that put all other light shows to shame and, quite possibly, there was either a mild or a medium-strength quake going on to herald his arrival. Usually, his arrivals were heralded with extreme weather changes, lightning flashes, and darkness, but, as of the last five hundred years, mild to medium-strength quakes had also been reported as happening during his arrival to a planet. A person of evil backing brought forth their own brand of heralded charm to a planet; the lesser known of the Universe's conquerors barely made their entrance known, while the arrival of the more known conquerors was so pronounced it was scary. Since he was of the higher group of galactic conquerors he knew that there were probably a lot of people running around scared in the areas that were under the clouds that he was currently driving through.

"Ground distance from ship," he said. The voice that he just used was the same one that he used before he took that potion over two hundred thousand years ago. The voice that he just used was a strong, loud, and deeply husky one; it was the voice that took the place of the squeaky one that he used when he was a child and a teenager. The voice that he used as a child was okay for that period in his life while the horrible mess of a voice that he used as a teenager he could use to forget.

"Twenty-five miles below ship's undercarriage," the mechanical voice replied.

"What is the general location under the ship's undercarriage?" he asked. He had to be basic with the questions that he asked his ship's communications board. The communications board that was in his ship had the intelligence of a child that had yet to enter his or her teenage years; it was best to use small words and simple commands with it.

"The far west corner of the commune of Mothern," the mechanical voice replied. "Ship is over north-eastern France."

"How far is the commune of Mothern from the Rastatter Rheinaue nature reserve?" he asked the communications board. When there was no reply, he asked for the communications board to print out a log of the area that was both underneath and directly in front of his ship.

As the ship that was piloted by the man, who had made it possible for him to be created, was flying through Earth's near in-existent ozones, he was having a moment where he suddenly found himself thinking that everything that happened to him in the last eleven months was nothing more than a good dream. He was back to living with the Meyer family again. Gone was his new, loving family. Gone was his new mum. Gone were his four bruders. He was back to living a shamed life under the roof of Mathis Meyer Jr. and Lenora Falkenrath; he was back to being more of a servant and slave than an adoptive son. Instead of being called Guyunis or G or Guy, he was back to being called Demon or Brat or just plain You.

The sudden shiver that coursed through his body brought the image in clearer; he suddenly saw himself as actually, physically, being back in the Meyer attic. The chains that were around his neck, shoulders, and chest were now no longer wrapped around them parts of his body. He saw that one of the links to the chains that were on him went from the pair of shackles that the Meyer's had put on him after Mathis Meyer Jr.'s parents passed away. The other end of the chains were wrapped several times around one of the beams that was above his head. It was either meal-hour—Lenora always chained him in the attic to make double-sure he wouldn't intrude on her precious family as they ate their meal in relative comfort—or it was time for the Meyer's to go to sleep. Either Lenora or Mathis did the chore of chaining him in the attic when it was time for the family to go to sleep—they didn't want him to bother them or their precious family as they dreamed their good dreams or slept in their nice, cozy, warm beds... that probably had mattresses that weren't pieces of shit, with all the stuffing and foam gone, and that probably had good, warm blankets and sheets on them.

He was back to having to sleep while being chained up in the Meyer's attic. His old mattress, that was all spring, and that had little to no stuffing or foam in it, was what he was expected to sleep or rest on. He was back to having to sleep with having no sheet or blanket to keep him warm; he was back to having nothing to rest his head on. He was back to having to lie in agony on the piece of shit mattress that his so-called parents had given him to sleep on for hours; like with the many previous nights that he had spent in this damn house, he would experience two pains on this night. One would stem from the mattress's protruding springs causing either his back or one of his sides to hurt while the other would stem from the constant agony of feeling no love from the family that "the system" had awarded him to.

The wind that was blowing around him wasn't really blowing around him now. It was now blowing around the big, brick house, that sat on a big plot of land in the Hesse country-side, that the Meyer family called home. The attic of this house would make all sorts of scary sounds that would also keep him up for most of the night. The attic would moan and groan and he, as always, would imagine it as coming down on him. As he lay on his piece-of-shit mattress, he would imagine the beams and rafters all coming down on him after the house was shook by a big gust of wind. He would imagine his cries for help afterwards, which would go unanswered, and he would imagine the funeral that would happen later, all while he lay on his old and uncomfortable mattress-bed. Maybe the Meyer family would be decent and bury him someplace nice or, quite possibly, they'd just say for someone to dig a hole that was big enough for him somewhere far from the house. He'd be buried, the Earth would be shoveled over him, then he'd be forgotten.

The hail that was mixing in with the snow grew to nearly the size of a full grown man's fist as two tears dropped down from the corners of his eyes then ran down his cheeks; the wind blew his blue hoodie from his head then made his black hair fly back—this caused a faded, and recently fragmented, memory to come back full and clear. He remembered Lenora Meyer, née Falkenrath, grabbing him by his hair. She gave his head a great, big, yank back after coming upon him sitting on the last step of the stairs that went up to the second floor of her and husband's house. With all that he did that day—the house's floors and windows, cleaning the gutters, lugging basket after basket of laundry from the basement, and then, after the sun had set, doing the yard—, he was exhausted. Utterly drained and in need of a little breather. Lenora hadn't been sympathetic to this need. She grabbed him by the back of his hoodie instead of letting him sit and take a short break. Her fingers, he remembered, had hooked into the fabric of his hoodie, and his oily and rather un-kept hair. She grabbed him, then yanked him back, and then to his feet. After he was pulled to his feet, she pushed him forward. The order that she gave him afterwards was to go "clean my husband's office of its dust"; he did so with no fuss. There was no rest for the servant, no break allowed in the Meyer house for the slave; he did nothing but lie on his back on the mattress that he was given to sleep on after being told to go to the attic for the night. The back of his head, he remembered, had hurt him for all of the rest of that night and for most of the following morning.

This happened some five years ago, but he felt like it had just happened. The back of his head was throbbing. It felt like someone had just grabbed and then pulled his hair back again.

His heart ached; more tears flowed from his eyes as something hard slammed into him. He was driven back a few feet by, he imagined, Mathis Meyer Jr. Mathis Meyer Jr., a fat, ugly, overly-grumpy and very mean man, who grew very rich from what he inherited from his fader, Mathis Meyer Sr., had his black belt in his hands. He imagined Mathis giving him another undeserved beating. He imagined... no, no he actually lived through the beating that Mathis Meyer Jr. gave him three years ago—the one where he was driven up against the wall. The black belt, with the buckle still attached to it, had risen and fallen numerous times; Mathis had made him cower against the wall as he rained blow after blow on him. Was he hearing laughter during this beating? That was a yes; he could hear it clearly! The Meyer kids had always been present during his beatings; they had gotten a sort of cheap thrill out of them. The Meyer kids would cheer as their fader beat him, made him cry and beg, and as he put welts and marks all over his arms, chest, and stomach. They would tell their fader to get him and get him good or hard or to add some oomph to his swings. As always, he'd head up to the attic to cry his tears and to nurse his wounds, and his pride, and to wish that he had a better life than the one that he currently had and to wish that something would happen to his tormentors and abu—

"Move, G!" Guyunis shook his head; tears were still flowing from his eyes as he was pulled from his past. He looked around for a bit then Bile, the oldest of his adoptive brothers, came into focus. Guyunis shook his head again; the snow, and the chunks of ice that mixed in with his black hair, flew every which way. He felt a pressure on his right arm; after shaking his head, he looked down and saw that Bile had his hand wrapped tightly around his arm, right above his wrist. Bile's fingernails had punctured the flesh of his arm in numerous places.

"Le-k-t go of me, Bile." Guyunis said. He suddenly wanted to grab Bile up in a hug. Bile had broken his remembrance of his past. His big bruder had brought him back to the present, where he wasn't only being treated as one within a family but where he was also being treated with love and respect.

"Move your feet!" Bile said through gritted teeth as he yanked Guyunis towards and then around him. When Guyunis was in front of him he gave him a shove. Guyunis dropped to one of his knees then got up; he turned towards Bile questioningly.

"Wh..." it came back slowly. The sudden change in the weather; the heavier and faster falling snow; the pebble-sized hail that grew to the size of a fifty euro cent piece rather quickly; the rising winds... Guyunis turned around then started walking forward.

"Where's Lazeer?" Guyunis asked.

"Good question, he ran off after the hail started falling." Bile replied. "Franziska ran under the conveyor belt, think that's the best place to go."

"What's that sound?" Guyunis asked. The rumble-pops, that were sounding from the sky, seemed to be right loud and menacing. Guyunis detected the low-notes of thunder and he also saw flashes of yellow and red; when he looked up to see where the flashes were coming from Bile smacked him on the back of the head.

"Walk forward, and don't look up." Bile said.

"Ow, Bile! That hu—"

"Yeah, that hurt. So what, you'll be hurting more if you get hit in the face by the hail that's falling." Bile said.

He didn't like the idea of him and Guyunis being separated from Lazeer but, what could he do? Thanks to his slow reaction to the change in the weather, he hadn't been able to keep him and his brothers together. Lazeer's reaction time was perfect; he jumped to his feet then ran off, towards the trees, after the hail started falling. While Lazeer was still exposed to the elements, he was smart in finding some sort of cover to hide under. He raced right over to Guyunis right when visibility grew poor; the kid was just standing in place, with his arms stretched out, looking very much like a dark version of the Nelson Mandella statue, that was unveiled on the December 5, 2013, in Pretoria, South Africa. Guyunis had just stood in place, with his arms held out, the entire time that he was yelling for him to get under something. The entire time that he was running towards his brother, he was thinking about how spaced-out the kid looked. That thought was confirmed after he ran into him.

The snow, that was both falling and that had accumulated on the ground, was being thrown all over the place by the wind; the hail was now the size of a full grown man's fist, and it wasn't necessarily round. The hail that was falling was in all sorts of shapes; he saw conical shaped hailstones, he saw jagged-edged hailstones, he saw star-shaped hailstones, and he also saw round and square-shaped hailstones. All of the hailstones that were falling and mixing-in with the snow were staying the same size, which he thought was strange. He had never seen or heard of same-sized hail falling before and he bet that there were a lot of others that were saying or thinking the same thing.

"T-k-his is a normal storm, right?" Guyunis asked.

"Doubt it," Bile replied as he stretched his hand towards Guyunis's shoulder. He slid his hand on Guyunis's shoulder slowly; Guyunis glanced at his hand, then at him, without stopping. "While thunder and lightning have been recorded as happening during snowstorms, I don't think anything like the thunder or lightning that's happening in this storm has ever been recorded. Goes double for the rumble-pops that we're hearing and the same-sized hail."

"Where's mum?" Guyunis asked. He suddenly wanted his mother to be there, with him and his brothers. He was cold, his arm was bleeding, and he had a strange feeling that something bad was about to happen.

"Probably still at work." Bile replied. Before he could say anything else, four jagged-edged hailstones fell on his head. He felt the hailstones cut into the flesh of his elongated ears and he felt the warm wetness of his blood flow from the cuts that they created. Bile shook his head at the same time that a cone-shaped, fist-sized hailstone pegged Guyunis in the back of the head; as more hailstones dropped on him, making new cuts and bruises appear on his body, Bile pushed Guyunis forward. "We'd best get under that conveyor belt and fast, Bro. We're hot commodities for the hail."

"No kiddin-k-g!" Guyunis exclaimed.

While the belt of the conveyor structure had long since rotted away, the metal of the structure was still intact; they made good use of it after reaching it. Bile saw Franziska almost immediately; she was sitting, cross-legged, nearby, under a piece of metal grating that was offering her some protection from the elements. Franziska was raising her hand to show that she saw the two of them when Bile removed his black leather jacket from around his body; since Bile was busy with his jacket, Guyunis rose his hand to show that he saw her. The grating that Franziska took cover under was the only remaining grating on the structure. The other gratings had either rusted or fallen from the structure. The only thing that was over Bile and Guyunis's heads were two steel bars, that were quite rusty and holey. Bile, working just as fast as he could, tossed his jacket up, into the wind. He punched his fist up after the jacket settled over one of the two rusted steel bars; a strong, red-heated gust of wind rose out of his fist. The gust of wind made one of the jacket's sleeves fly up and then over the other rusted steel bar. Bile quickly pulled the jacket over the bar, so it would give him and Guyunis some cover; as he worked to snag the ends of the jacket's cuffs to one of the jagged-edged holes that were in the steel bars, Guyunis ran his hand over the back of his hair.

"Shit!" Guyunis cursed. The palm of his hand was covered in blood... and not just any blood at that. He knew his blood well so he knew that the reddish-green fluid, that was in the palm of his hand, was his.

"Like I said before, we were hot commodities for the hail." Bile returned. "Don't worry about it, G. The hail got me good as well, you're not the only bleeder under this structure."

Now that they were under some cover, Guyunis could safely look out at the landscape that was around him or at the sky that was above him. Just one look was enough to make his jaw drop; never in his life had he ever seen the sky look the way it currently did! He bet his left arm that Bile and Lazeer had also never seen the sky look the way that it currently did too. Before the storm came in, the sky was a single sheet of light gray. There were no clouds in the sky then; it had looked rather peaceful. Now, the sky looked rather ugly and menacing. The sky that was in front of and to the left and right of him was an ugly, dark gray color. There were low-hanging, heavy and rather ugly looking, multi-gray and black clouds in this new sky; these clouds would periodically splay out as a bolt of either yellow or red lightning shot out of them. He didn't know what compelled him to turn around and look out from under the conveyor belt, towards the Rhine river, but, once he got the urge to to do so, he did it.

The contents that were in his stomach—the Hostess cherry fruit pie, the snowball, and whatever remained of the chili, chips, and bacon bits that he ate for breakfast that morning—churned suddenly as the temperature in his stomach dropped.

"B-B-Bro..." he just barely managed to choke out. He pointed one, trembling finger towards the Rhine river after Bile turned towards him. "You ever... you ever see anythin-k-g like... like tha-k-t before, Bile?"

Bile rolled his eyes then turned towards the Rhine river. At first, all he saw was a wide river that had a thin layer of ice on it then, when he tilted his head up, he saw what his adoptive brother was so shocked over. The sky that was both over and on the other side of the Rhine river was a bruised, purple-red color. He was stunned to silence when he saw that there were all sorts of flashing lights coming out from that bruised sky.

For a few short seconds, he thought that what he was seeing was just cloud lightning then, after he got over his initial shock, he noticed that it wasn't what he thought he was seeing. He saw bolts, he saw intra-cloud, and he saw balls of radiating lightning, or ball-lightning, shooting out from that bruised, purple/red sky that was both over and on the other side of the Rhine river. While he had never seen ball-lightning before in his life, he had read up on it once, after Hazaar bought and then brought a book, that was on weather systems, home some years ago. Ball-lightning, that book claimed, was described and partially studied in 2014, but the report was lost sometime after it was published so, no one really knew anything about ball-lightning and no one knew of how dangerous it was... or if it existed. The book that Hazaar brought home had also listed several scientists that called balls on the phenomenon and the book had also quoted them same scientists as saying that ball-lightning was a sort of light trickery or a fabrication of truths.

"Oh, I hope someone has a camera or something and is capturing all of this as it unfolds." Bile thought as the red and green-colored lightning-balls rocketed out from the center of the bruised sky that was in front of him. "Good footage of this happening would put all of them damn, ball-lightning skeptics to sh—"

"Hey everyone!" Bile wheeled around. While Aubin sounded far away from him, his brother, and Franziska, he had still been able to hear him. "Talk or make some sort of noise so we know we're all here and accounted for."

A chorus of rather vicious sounding rumble-pops sounded from the Heavens, muting everyone's responding yells to Aubin's request in everyone either making some noise or saying something so they'd all know that everyone that should be in the area was in the area.

Bile shook his head; he couldn't remember how long it was since he last saw Angus or Aubin. He was wondering if they were still where he left them or if they got smart in finding something to wait-out the weather under. When he rushed off, towards Guyunis, Angus and Aubin were standing side by side. They had looked confused and bewildered when he left them. He hadn't really been thinking about his friends when he rushed off to retrieve Guyunis. He was pissed over the fact that he hadn't thought about trying to keep everyone together—it was only instinct that told the members of a group that they should stay together when the weather turned bad; it lessened the possibilities of panic, and bad injuries, and yet, here he was... with just Franziska and Guyunis. Lazeer ran off after the hail started to fall—he hadn't even thought about grabbing or telling him to come back. He left Angus and Aubin behind when he rushed off to grab and then take Guyunis to some place that was safe and Abelle, Aubin's younger sister, who he did think was rather attractive, hadn't returned from going off to use the bathroom. Was Abelle okay? Had she taken cover under something? Had she managed to find her way back to her brother?

"You fairing alright over there, Fran?" Bile yelled over at Franziska. Thanks to a sudden shift in the wind's direction, a barrage of hailstones were suddenly thrown at her. Bile grimaced as he watched his friend bat the hailstones away from her.

"Oh I'm just peachy, Bile!" Franziska yelled back. She scrambled to her feet then turned around, so she wasn't facing the hail.

"Where are we all?" Aubin's yell was barely audible, but Bile heard it.

"Ahhhhh-b-eeehhh-nnnn," a scream penetrated the area; it took Bile a short second to identify the screamer as Abelle. "I'm f-iiiiii-nuh!"

"Where are you, Abelle?" Aubin yelled back. Bile detected the notes of relief in his friend's yell.

"Under a bush!" Abelle's scream nearly overshadowed the roaring winds and the rumble-pops. "Where are you, Aubin?"

The falling snow and hailstones had gone in a westerly direction after the wind did its changing thing; Franziska was facing in that direction, so she was in the direct line of fire. He and Guyunis had either had their backs turned or were facing to the side of that direction. Aubin's response to Abelle's question was loud, but Bile's roar of pain was louder; the wind, yet again, suddenly changed directions so, instead of blowing in a westerly direction, it was now blowing north... right towards him. The heavy and fast-falling snow blew into his face; he held his hands up to shield his face from the snow—an action that he regretted doing at once!

Protecting one's face from injury from the elements was an instinctive thing; it was only by instinct that he held his hands up to keep his face safe from the elements but, instead of his face, he really should of either turned away from the wind-driven snow and hail or leaned his hands down to protect his still tender and sore left shin and knee.

He was quite surprised that morning, after waking and finding himself able to use his leg without feeling much pain; in the few hours that followed his and his family's return from the second-held Oktoberfest funfair, it sure gave him grief! It had also caused him grief for the following seven days. His shin had taken quite a beating on the night of the second-held Oktoberfest funfair; the man that was his adoptive father's stepfather and who, technically, was his adoptive grandfather, had really done a number on him. The edge of Good Ole Granddad Cheshire's tailor-made shoe had raked a rather long cut on his left shin; the fall that he took after his grandfather's energy band struck him had opened that cut up more. He had tried to keep his wound from his mother but she had found out anyways. He and she had fought over the wound after it was discovered.

"Bile, this macho-phase that you're going through needs to stop." his mother said a few hours after she got home on the day following their return from the second-held Oktoberfest funfair. Earlier that morning, he woke up yelling in pain. His shin and knee were balloon-sized and, while they both hurt him a great deal, he had plain refused to allow her to help him, which had resulted in their fight. She went to work mad, she worked all day while being mad at him, and she was still mad at him when she came home; he went through all of that day feeling like crap over having started their fight. "When you have a cut that's as bad as what you have on your leg you get it treated. You're a big boy, yes, but that doesn't mean that you're invincible. You're not impressing anyone and you're not helping yourself either."

The following day wasn't a good one for him either; while he tried to apologize, and make-up for what he did the day before, he had still been given the cold shoulder. The fight that he and Guyunis had on that same day, just twenty or so minutes before their mother came home from work, hadn't helped matters for him on getting back on his mother's good side. Guyunis was the main instigator of that fight; he said something pertaining to his stubbornness about not wanting his cut shin healed then he got physical with him. Guyunis pushed him twice, then asked him how he liked being pushed around, then pushed him some more, which resulted in him snapping. The fight, that happened in the room that their mother called the "Son Cave", was a right bad one. Both he and Guyunis were bleeding and bruised afterwards, and his shin and knee were screaming as well. Since ma wasn't at home at the time, Lhaklar had to break their fight up. He did so, but not before getting punched or thrown around a few times; his mother was more than pissed after coming home. He and Guyunis came very close to getting grounded on that day; ma had used a dish towel on them several times, and she also voiced her mind on how they behaved during her absence. While he and Guyunis felt ashamed of themselves for their fight, they had still not regarded one another in a good way afterwards.

His knee and shin were balloon-sized for the four days that followed his and his family's attendance at the second-held Oktoberfest; he nursed his wounds himself, and he also walked around with a very pronounced limp on them four days. Even though the swelling went down after them four days, he had still been in a lot of pain; just because his injured knee and shin dropped in size didn't meant that he didn't felt any pain when he used his leg. His knee and shin were a little under half the size of what they were earlier that week and, while his leg still pained him, the pain was much more bearable that day than it was earlier that week, which was one of the reasons for why he asked his mother if he could go off and spend some of that day with Angus and some of his friends. The other reason for why he asked her if he could go out with Angus and his friends was based on his desire to get back on her good side.

Even though his mother voiced how displeased she still was in him, after he called her to ask if he could go out with his friends that morning, she wasn't as cold towards him as she was eight days ago which, he fully thought and believed, was a good thing. The thought of his mother's coldness towards him having run its course was a strong one, but the thought of his mother's mood towards him being softened up by the two little gifts, and the little note that he left on the night table that was in her room, was a stronger one. He decided to brave the pain that he was feeling yesterday to go to Karlsruhe for a little "mother-gift-shopping"—most of the money that he was given to spend at the funfair, that Mr. Leinart invited his family to, wasn't used. He nearly had €200 on his person. He spent nearly all of that during his shopping.

The oval-shaped, blue rhinestone and imitation diamond ring was moderately expensive; the sterling silver necklace, that had a blue opal pendant hanging from it, had cost him the most. He wasn't worrying about being dirt-poor at the time, he had just been worrying about finding something for his mother that'd show her how sorry he was about his recent behavior. When he poked his head into his mother's bedroom that morning, he found that both the jewelry and the note—which simply said I'm Sorry, Biley—were missing from her table. He wasn't one that poked or prodded in his mother's things; he went down to use the downstairs bathroom afterwards, thinking that she either put the jewelry away, in one of her dresser drawers, or that she went to work wearing them. After calling and then explaining the reason for why he wanted to leave the house, she gave him permission to go play with his friends, then, after a few seconds of silence, she said for him to take one or two of his brothers with him before hanging up.

The chunks of frozen water, that struck his left knee and shin, brought the pain that he felt during the previous eight days back, while the chunk of fist-sized frozen water, that sailed into his groin, made that pain become non-existent. His roar had no more been emitted before dying in his throat; he sank to his knees almost at once. He choked out some groans as the rest of his body was assaulted by more hailstones. As the hailstones hit him, caused his flesh to open and then bleed, he reached his hands down to cover the spot that had just been so cruelly struck by the one hailstone. His hands had no more grasped his groin before he dropped to the ground; when he felt the cold snow under his backside, he started to roll.

"Oh shit!" Guyunis exclaimed after seeing a greenish-red blob spread across the left knee of Bile's pants.

"My balls! Oh shit! My fuckin' balls!" Bile wailed a few seconds later.

"Your knee..." Guyunis said. At the moment, that was all he could think of to say.

"Fuck my knee! My knee can bleed... it can freeze and then fall off as much as I care!" Bile yelled.

"What's going on over there?" Aubin yelled as the wind changed directions again. "I hear someone yelling. Bile? Guyunis? Franziska? Lazeer? You four okay where you're at?"

"Fuck no!"Bile roared.

"We're under the conveyor belt, Aub." Franziska yelled. She had gasped, and then pulled back, after seeing where the hailstone struck her friend. "Bile, Guyunis, and I are under the conveyor belt."

"How you three fairing?" Aubin yelled as Guyunis dropped to his knees then started to scoop handfuls of snow up from the ground. While Bile punched Guyunis's hands back, Guyunis still managed to shove three handfuls of snow down the front of his pants.

"I'm doing well, and I think Guyunis is okay." Franziska yelled back. "Bile, on the other hand, isn't. The hail hit him in a rather bad place—he's right bad hurt at the moment!"

Despite being a distance from where his brothers were, he heard Franziska's yell loud and clear. While he didn't really know what happened to make his brother yell in the way that he did, he had a pretty good idea on what happened—thanks to that idea, he was having a time in keeping his betraying mouth shut. All of the times that Bile said something to him, or to Hazaar, pertaining to testicle abuse or assault; all of the times that Bile had gotten on either he or Hazaar for when one or the other of them kicked or punched the other in the groin; and all of the times that Bile had silenced him when he made a testicular joke seemed to of been repaid in some unknown way by the hail. Bile had done plenty of assaults or abuses on testicles in his life, but had he been chided for them assaults or abusings? Most of the time, that was a no. Most of the time, Bile and the one that he testicularly assaulted or abused made up—mom was called in on the few times where that didn't happen; she made sure to get on Bile and then make him apologize to the one who he testicularly abused or assaulted afterwards.

He had acted by pure instinct after the hail started mixing in with the snow; he ran off then started looking for something—a hunter's platform or a tree that had many low-hanging branches or that had many branches that overlaid one another—to hide under. Instead of finding one of those two things to hide under, he found himself having to be content with hiding under the nearest tree that he came upon. The tree that he was under was one of them European Larch's. It was a young tree that had a reach of maybe ten or so feet; its branches were pretty thick so, in a sense, it was what he was hoping to find. Despite being the thing that he was hoping to find, he did have one problem with the tree—either it was diseased or it was shedding its needle-like, green-colored leaves. The tree's leaves were falling alarmingly fast from the branches that they were on. There was a fine layer of needle-like leaves around him and the base of the tree; he also had a good layer of the tree's leaves on his head and shoulders too.

While finding a tree to hide under was an instinctive thing, he didn't run off to find a tree to hide under because of his worry over the sun causing his photo-sensitive left eye to pain him. Hail was dangerous. It could make all sorts of cuts and scratches appear on a body and it could also put an eye out as well; his taking refuge under one of the trees that were in the Steinmauern Kiesgrube mining area was made to keep himself, and the injured half of his face, safe. He was okay with the snow that the wind was blowing in his face; it was causing his face to sting just a little but that was all. While he didn't have to worry about the sun making his photo-sensitive eye hurt, and while he didn't have to worry about the snow, he did have to worry about the hail.

While he didn't know where he was, or how close he was to Bile, Guyunis, or Franziska, he did know where Abelle was. The snow and hail had slowed down a little and visibility had cleared up a touch after the wind did its first sudden change in direction; he took advantage of the opportunity to look around and get his bearings when that happened. He glanced around quickly and, in that quick glance-over, he saw Abelle. She was sitting, all safe and sound, under a thick bush that was about ten or fifteen feet to his left. Before the weather settled back to its former fury, he was able to see that the bush that she was sitting under wasn't the only thing that was protecting her from the elements—there were several trees around her; nearly all of their middle and lower branches had become tangled around one another in the past. The hail was practically bouncing off them tangled branches. He shook his head when he felt a glob of snow fall on him; the red toboggan hat, that he left home wearing, wasn't on his head at the moment. He took it off after it started to irritate the bruising that was on the left side of his forehead.

"You'd be amazed at what cold air can do to one's injuries, Lazie." he remembered his mother saying two days ago, after coming home and then asking him what he did during her absence. Instead of lying, he confessed to staying inside after Lhaklar, Hazaar, and Guyunis went out in the backyard to play in the snow. "The cold helps prevent infection and it also speeds up the healing process; instead of staying inside, you should take advantage of day's like today. You never know what tomorrow will bring—for all we know, it may be a scorcher or everything may just freeze up."

"While I like the snow, I do wish that the weather would make up its mind." he said back. "Cold one day, hot the next, maybe snowing or raining the next, and so on. How's one to plan for the day when the weather is... you know, the way it is?"

His mother had a feeling that his father was the one responsible for the weather's unpredictability; while she was vague on the issue, she had said something around the area of thinking that his father's entrance to the planet had caused the planet's weather patterns to be knocked for a loop. Lhaklar thought that she was right in thinking that. So did Bile, for that matter. When he walked in on his mother a few days ago, when she was on the phone with Mr. Leinart, he could of swore that she told Mr. Leinart her feeling as well—and he could of swore that Mr. Leinart had said something about the planet's ozone layers too. He came close to wishing that his mother had purchased another phone for the house on the day that he heard Mr. Leinart say something about the planet's ozone layers—he had been, and he still was, curious about what Mr. Leinart said about the planet's ozone layers. His mother had said nothing on what she and Mr. Leinart had talked about on the phone, and he hadn't asked her what she and her friend had talked about.

He didn't know how long it was before Bile's loud moans and cries ceased but, when they did, his mouth decided to work. There were now flashes of purple, green, and blue mixing in with the yellow and red lightning that was flashing in or coming down from the multi-gray and black clouds that were in the dark gray sky to his left, right, and directly behind him, and there was a slight shake going on with the ground underneath him that he, at first, mistook as plain vibration caused by the rumble-pops that were still sounding from the sky above. The snow, it seemed, was falling at a much slower pace. The hail had, without a doubt, slowed down. The wind was still blowing maniacally around him, so he knew that the storm hadn't moved on. The ground vibration that was going on under his feet grew steadily until, finally, he noticed that a mild earthquake was happening. It was at the same time that he noticed the mild quake that his mouth opened.

"Hey Bile!" Lazeer hoped that his yell went in the direction that his oldest brother was in. Thanks to the rumble-pops that were sounding above him, in the sky, he had to put a lot of effort in on his yell.

"What!" Bile practically roared back.

"I bet Hazaar's having a bird over staying home now," Lazeer yelled. "The Sourpuss is missing out on the hail and the light show, man."

"We'll have to send him tickets to the next one." Bile yelled. A rather vicious rumble-pop droned out the subsequent yell that Bile did.

"What? I couldn't hear you!" Lazeer's throat felt a bit dry and scratchy after that yell.

"I said, I bet the Party-pooper is doing cartwheels over our being out in this mess!" Bile repeated what the rumble-pop had droned out.

If he had yelled out a reply, it would of been lost. The storm suddenly got angrier. It seemed that the short period of weakening had caused the storm to grow furious; the wind changed directions, the thunder and the rumble-pops that were sounding from the sky above grew louder and more menacing, and the snow and hail fell at a faster pace. Even if he yelled like a barbarian, Bile wouldn't hear him. He shook his head then cleared his throat. He spoke lowly and found that his throat was more than a little dry and scratchy—the last yell that he made had caused something to happen with not only his throat but also his vocal cords. He felt damn sore in the throat now; he couldn't yell, much less speak normally. He'd either have to speak in a low whisper or just plain nod or shake his head or gesture with his hands if any sort of conversation happened between he and his two brothers or he and one of the human teenagers after the weather calmed down.

The wind was now blowing towards him; it brought not only the snow but also the hail with it. His action of turning around must of been anticipated because the wind suddenly changed from blowing in its new, easterly direction. It lashed at him; made his light brown leather shearling sheepskin jacket flap every which way as it blew in its new, southerly direction. With the thought of the left side of his heavily injured face being in the direct line of fire firmly placed in his brain, he turned his body. He was in the process of turning his body from the wind-swept hail and snow when three large hailstones slapped against the side of his face that he was trying to protect.

The first hailstone slammed into his left cheek while the second and third hailstones rained into his injured eye; he let out the loudest sound that his sore throat would allow him to make then he turned completely around. He was now facing the trunk of the European Larch that he took refuge under so, without putting any thought into what he was doing, he wrapped his arms around the tree's trunk. He buried his face into the tree's trunk then waited for the wind to die down some and for the hail to either be blown away from him or to stop.

"I believe ya about how the cold air will do one's injuries good, ma, but I don't think this weather is going to do anything good for the left side of my face." Lazeer thought. The thought that came afterwards was a sad one. He wished he had some Aleve on him because the left side of his face was really paining him now. The two hailstones that slammed into his left eye had re-opened the gash that went across that eye; he could feel new blood flowing from the gash. He didn't much like that. "First that fair guard and now two hailstones, my eye will probably never heal."

He didn't need to be told that his final descent to the planet was heard by many; the start of his descent was quiet, while the conclusion was quite loud. A roar, and a loud one at that, was heard all over Germany and by the the denizens of four of Germany's nine bordering countries; it caused everyone and everything within a hundred mile radius to scream out in pain and shock. The roar that was caused by his final descent to the planet would, later on, be compared by scientists that worked and resided all over Europe to that of what was recorded after Krakatoa exploded on August 26, 1883—at the moment, no one cared about the comparison to the Krakatoa explosion. The roar that came from his final descent would, in a few hours time, cause all manner of ear-related traumas to over a thousand people—all of whom had taken shelter under some surface after the weather suddenly changed for the worse.

After finishing his descent, he found himself having to take to his right hand from the wheel—his ship had started to vibrate violently after his final descent. He grabbed the vibration control stick, that was to his right, then pulled it to its original position quickly. Since his index finger was too far from the button, he shot a thin bolt of energy from the end of his finger—that action of his caused the blue button that kept the vibration control stick in place to dislodge immediately. His hand was no more returned to the wheel before it was removed again; this time, he had to adjust the pressure valve that was above his head—the pressure gauge that was in front of the wheel had read in the orange; he had to act fast in adjusting the valve that was above his head to get some of that pressure stabilized.

It took him only a second to locate the larger of the nine valves that were above his head. When he found the valve that he was looking for, he grabbed and then twisted it to being half-open. He pulled his arm down then wrapped his hand around the wheel after that was done; the wheel was slowly turned to the right afterwards.

Driving through a planet's final atmosphere and ozone layer was never easy; he preferred to compare it to how a woman gave birth, because that was really the only way he could explain the drive through the last of a planet's atmospheres and ozone layers.

"Why not refer to it as that?" he asked his stepmother, Malakay Surfeit, née Dubalakee, after she gasped and then told him in her usual, meek voice to not compare planetary visitations or travel to that of a child being born. RikiVile Levav Surfeit, his younger, half-brother, who was a grown man at the time, and who was also getting ready for his first planetary conquest, had asked him what it "felt like" when a spacecraft was driven into a planet; he just gave an honest answer back. He went on to give both his half-brother and his stepmother a vague description of what he was talking about. "The space beyond a planet's known atmospheres and ozone layers is like that of a womb while the planet's known atmospheres and ozone layers is like the birth canal. The exit from the last atmosphere is much like that of a woman giving that last push to get her unborn baby out of her."

Regardless of the fact that he wasn't with anyone steady at the time, he had known quite a lot about pregnancies and child-birth; his father, RaalVile Dawlur Surfeit, had agreed with him on his opinion on how it was like when a ship was driven into a planet. He had even stepped in to offer his own, similar, explanation to what it was like when one drove a ship into a planet. Both his father, his birth-mother, his stepmother, and all of his siblings were gone now. The disease known as Shlock's Plague, that had the M-51 Galaxy in its grip for over a hundred years, had claimed all of them. Sadly, even his two daughters from his two previous engagements—EbaishaVile Etalett Surfeit, the only child that was born alive from his first and only marriage, and EblouissieVile Axodaa Surfeit, the only child that was born alive from his first fiancée—were lost to it.

Shlock's Plague wasn't a discriminating plague; it claimed just about everyone that it came in contact with—the healthy, the strong, the weak, the young, etc. There were also reports on how young children were left parent-less after the plague blew in. His family had very nearly been wiped out by that damn plague; he had done all that he could think of at the time to keep himself and his then-young son sealed away from the plague that was claiming lives outside of their house. After a hundred and eighty-nine years of just waiting it out inside the house, a report came through on one of his small radios that claimed that a vaccine had been made. At the time of the vaccine's creation, there were only fifty thousand souls still alive on Gamma Vile; the plague had claimed millions of lives—his then-young son, he did believe, had come very close to being among the plague victims.

He and Duru came down with the fevers, and the hot and cold chills, three months before the vaccine was completed, then the rash appeared on their bodies. He used almost all of the honey and oatmeal supplies that was in the pantry on both he and his son; they had bathed in that shit for all of two months and three weeks, before the report came in, saying that a vaccine had been made to combat the plague. His son went into a semi coma-like state on the day that the vaccine was put out for the survivors that were in his birth and home galaxy. Like the experience that he had on Jupiter, he hoped that he would never have to go through another experience like the one that he and his son went through when Shlock's Plague was waging war on the masses of the M-51 Galaxy. Shlock's Plague was one hell of an emotional roller coaster for him; his experience in being stranded on Jupiter with eighty-nine other souls was pale in comparison to what happened during the Plague years.

He glanced at his lap for only a second then looked back at the ship's windshield; his ship's communications board had said that he was driving over the far west corner of a commune in north-eastern France that was called Mothern and, indeed, the print-out that he had on his lap had shown that he was flying over that location. The print-out that was on his lap showed that there was a large river separating Mothern from two nature reserves. He was driving over said large river, that the humans in the area that he was headed towards called the Rhine, now. The river in his present location looked to be half-frozen; the non-frozen parts were churning rather angrily. There was steam rising up from the parts of the river that were still frozen. The area that was directly in front of him, that was on the banks of the half-frozen Rhine river, was very heavily forested over. It looked like it had once been a clearing of some sort.

As he turned the hourglass-shaped wheel to the right, he glanced at the area that had once been a clearing; he saw that it had a few rusted or unused vehicles in it and he also took note of the small, medium, and tall Larch trees and the snow-covered bushes that were growing in and around it. He had time to see that there were two people in the area that had all the rusted or unused machinery in it before the realization of how long he had gone without eating a meal, and without taking a shower, popped into his head. The two people that were in the clearing seemed to be either lying down or rolling around on the ground; he wasn't really sure of what they were doing and he really didn't care at the moment. He drove his ship down the river, away from the two people that were in the clearing; he didn't have time to think it over on why them two people were in the area, and he didn't have time to wonder who them two people were, or if the two people that he saw were just people looking for scrap metal or old machinery parts for some project of theirs that they were doing, or if they were hunters. His gurgling stomach made him speed up his progress to the area where his only son's, his two grandsons', and his uncle's camps were in.

He went by a routine after he took to the helm of a ship—once he was in the driver's seat, and once them belts were strapped around him, he fasted. He refused to take in food, drink, and he also refused to leave the helm to shower or use the toilet. He had spent all of two days and twenty hours behind the wheel of his ship; he was starving and he had a stink to him that was pretty revolting. He had four objectives on his mind to do now: find the area where his family's camps were; land his ship, then run all the necessary protocols afterwards; then do all the appropriate activities in his appointed chamber's bathroom—use the toilet, shower, shave, etc.—, then eat a good meal.

"Gamma Ship Urumbuis-12 to Surfeit Camp, requesting clearance for landing. Over." he said after reaching the area where his son's ship, his two grandsons' ships, and his uncle's ship were parked in. He had the CB radio microphone in his left hand; he was currently circling the area where his family's camps were set-up in. "I repeat, Gamma Ship Urumbuis-12 to Surfeit Camp, request—"

"Surfeit Camp to Gamma Ship Urumbuis-12, you are clear for landing." his son's voice came through his radio loud and clear.

The deafening road that made Angus collapse and then roll back and forth on the ground; that made Abelle grab and then squeeze her ears as she rolled around on the ground, that was under the bush that she took refuge under after the hail started to fall; that made Lazeer punch at the sides of his head, where his ears were located; that made Bile slam his head repeatedly into the snow in an attempt to stop the pain that he was feeling in his ears; that made Guyunis squeeze the sides of his head, where his ears were located, as tightly as he could; that made Franziska crouch as low to the snow-covered ground as she could, with her hands pressed tightly to her ears; and that made Aubin clap at his ears as he collapsed to his side, had signaled yet another change in the weather.

The fist-sized hail didn't taper off like one would normally think it would—it completely and inexplicably stopped falling from the sky right after the roar was heard. The lightning and the thunder stopped right after the hail stopped falling from the sky, while the speed of the wind dropped down to a very mild breeze. The heavy snowfall dropped to a mild flurry. Because of the visibility, which went from being very poor to very good, Baruk and his group—who dropped to the ground, screaming in terror and pain, and who stayed either on their sides or on their stomachs for all of five minutes after the roar sounded—could now look out from under the bridge that they took refuge under. What they saw stunned them; the rumble-pops, that started right when the hail started to fall, were still sounding above them, but they were now very faint. It took only thirty seconds before they ceased being heard. It looked as if no storm had happened eight minutes after the roar that made thousands scream and act-out their pains occurred; by around the nine minute mark, Baruk was taking his first tentative steps out from under the bridge that he, his siblings, and the rest of his group were under.

"Whoa! Someone sure knows how to make an entrance!" Baruk exclaimed after going a considerable distance of nearly ten yards from the bridge.

"Where are we?" Blaiga asked. "Baruk, do you know where we are?"

"Of course he doesn't you oaf!" Kaasa scoffed. "He doesn't know where we are, or where camp is, and he also doesn't know—"

"We're near a town," Baruk said. Frustration was very evident in his voice. "Some town near the river."

In the back recesses of his mind, he heard his mother telling him to not interrupt others; he gently and carefully put a block over her voice as he looked at the area that was in front of him. He didn't so much interrupt his sister to keep control of his group, or to show her up—his sister had been berating him for all of thirty minutes and he was downright sick of it! What happened for Kaasa to be constantly berating him? Well, about thirty-five or so minutes ago, after he recruited Gaajah and Selik, and then Eshal, Phaggo, and Blaiga into his then-small group, that consisted of just him and his two younger siblings, he instructed that they all teleport to this little-used path that led away from their folks' camps. They set off eagerly. They teleported to the path with no fuss after he said for them to and they followed him down that path obediently and without getting on his nerves... at first.

His sister, about five minutes after he started leading them down that little-used path, had started asking him questions on where they were going and on what was at the end of the path and on what they were going to do after they reached their destination. He answered her questions quickly and honestly, at first, then, after she continued to ask them same damn questions over and over again, he started to ignore her. Three or four minutes of silence happened then, after the snow started to come down faster and harder, and after the wind picked up, she started to complain. His sister had very nearly driven him insane by saying such things as, Oh, my legs hurt me so bad, are we there yet? Oh, I'm so cold, are we there yet? My face feels like its about to fall off, Baruk! My feet are killing me, Baruk! over and over again. His nerves were close to being torn to pieces by then and his general attitude wasn't very good either. By the time she started on him, berating him on his knowledge of the paths that led away from their folks' camps, and berating him on how he had gotten them lost, he was close to wheeling around to tell her to either shut up or go back to camp... and not in the best or in the nicest of ways either. He was angry enough to shout a torrent of bad words at one of his parents then, that was how angry he was.

His sister implied very early on during her first round of berating him that he had gotten them lost on purpose, which wasn't true. He had just gotten his little-used paths mixed up. Instead of telling his group to teleport back to camp, like he should of done, he decided to take them down the unknown path to see what was on the other end. No one was against doing that; everyone had wanted to know where the path led to and everyone was willing to follow him as he started down the path. Kaasa included in the mix.

The path that he wanted to take his group down had also been little-used, but he knew where it went. That one path went to a small clearing, where a few trees and a bunch of bushes grew and where quite a few things were left out and in the open. The first time he went to that clearing, he wanted to bring a few things back; he was too pressed for time to rummage through and then pick something that was worth bringing back to camp, though. If he didn't get his little-used paths mixed up, this would of been his second time visiting that clearing. If the path that he and his group teleported to was the path that he went down that one time they would of had a blast in scavenging items to take back to camp to show their parents. Instead of looking for things to take back to camp, that the humans had either thrown away or to the side some time ago, he and his group were cold and miserable in their trek down that unknown, little-used path. Maybe that had elevated his sister's mood some; she had sure hurt his feelings with her constant berating and she had really gotten on his nerves too.

"Go on, Baruk." his father said to him, after he grabbed his coat sleeve then asked if he could get his permission to go to some other place three times. His father was pretty angry and annoyed with him then; while his father might not be angry with him now, he might still be annoyed with him. "Take Kaasa and Sudir with you."

Done deal, Daddy-O! He grabbed Sudir, then motioned for Kaasa to follow him to where Trobrencus's camp was. While he didn't think highly of Bohir, or of anyone in Bohir's family, he had still been hoping that he and his younger sister, Fleebe, were still out. Sadly, when he and his siblings reached Trobrencus's camp, they found that it was very free of activity. Whoever it was that he saw out and about in Trobrencus's camp earlier had either gone inside or decided to go adventure walking without him and his group. He went over to his grandfather's camp next; his grandfather had told him to take his three kids—Gaajah, Uevaa, and Selik—with him and he had full intentions in doing just that. He had only been able to recruit Gaajah and his "baby" brother, Selik, into his group—according to Selik, Uevaa was in their father's ship, helping their mother bake cookies.

Gaajah and Selik were all too happy to join-in on what he had planned when they joined him and his two siblings; after recruiting Gaajah and Selik to his group, he trudged none-too-enthusiastically over to where his uncle's camp was. Uncle Tazir had said for him to take his daughter, Eshal, and the two Ubalki-peasant kids, Phaggo and Blaiga, with him too. While he was eager to add his grandfather's kids, and while he might of wanted Bohir and maybe Fleebe to join his group, he hadn't really been all that eager in asking Eshal, Phaggo, and Blaiga if they wanted to come along.

"My dad told you to take me, Phaggo, and Blaiga with you?" Eshal said after he explained why he, his two siblings, and Gaajah and Selik had wandered into her father's camp. Eshal had looked pretty reluctant to join his group; he had actually been hoping that she would turn his offer down but, sadly, she had said okay, I have nothing better to do at the moment anyways instead. Phaggo and Blaiga had only come along because of Eshal; they would of stayed behind if Eshal had said no in joining his group.

In a way, he wished that the three of them—Eshal, Phaggo, and Blaiga—had turned his offer of joining his group for a walk down one of the paths that led away from their folks' camps down and he really wished that his sister hadn't come along too. His sister's constant questions and berating, and the bad promises that she only added in to make his heart beat a little faster, was bad. So had Phaggo's and Blaiga's slowness, for that matter; Eshal being a dead-weight was a lot worse, though.

Eshal, according to his father, had turned into a nervous and emotional wreck after her father's ship was parked in the nature preserve. Eshal's father had asked for her, Mr. and Mrs. Ubalki, and their two adult kids—Efagti and Amadh—, and a few of his staff to accompany him to Washington D.C. right after he landed his ship; they went to visit his oldest brother. From what his father told him and his siblings a few weeks ago, something happened that hurt Eshal mentally.

"From what your uncle told me, your brother tried to attack Eshal after they paid him a visit." they were told. He and his siblings had just stared at their father—Vile had tried to attack Eshal? His oldest brother had tried to attack not only a member of the family, and not only a girl, but also someone who was thousands of years younger than he? While he had heard stories on how his brother had attacked certain members of the family before, he hadn't really believed his father when he told him, Kaasa, and Sudir that their brother tried to attack Eshal. Only after seeing how much of a wreck Eshal was had they believed what they were told. Eshal was pretty jumpy for a few weeks following his brother's attempted attack on her; she also refused to leave her father's ship without having someone at her side as well. While he didn't see her get emotional he did believe that she was emotionally fragile too.

Either Eshal had gotten over her nervousness, and over what happened between her and his brother, or she was trying to force herself to be normal; though initially reluctant to join his group, she was very firm with her decision and, other than the nurse routine, she hadn't acted in any way clingy with anyone while on the walk down the little-used path that he got them to teleport to.

Eshal had acted like a damn nurse while they were walking down that path; she was going back and forth, from one person to the next, to see how everyone was doing and to see if everyone was feeling alight or not. Along with being embarrassed by her actions, he also brushed her off when she came to see if he was doing alright or not.

While he was planning on obeying his grandfather in taking all three of his kids with him, he was glad that Uevaa was too "busy" to join his group. Much like he and Gaajah, Uevaa and Kaasa got along like two peas in a pod—besides doing all them girlie-things, like makeup, dress-up, and girl-gossip, they were also big on teaming up to tease, taunt, or make trouble for people of the opposite gender. Uevaa would of joined Kaasa with the berating if she had been available to join his group. Having one person berating you was bad, having two was much worse.

All of the girls were raving mad when they exited the woods that were on either side of the little-used path that he led them down. He took a lot of abuse from his sister after they walked out of the woods. Except for Phaggo, he and the rest of the boys in his group had wanted to keep going; the girls had just wanted to stop and "hide" under the bridge that they were still under to wait the weather out. A verbal fight had started between he, Kaasa, and Blaiga about taking refuge under the bridge; he was stubborn in not listening to them. He was leading Gaajah, Sudir, and Selik away from the bridge when Selik accidentally stepped on the thinly iced over Murg river. Selik went knee-deep in freezing cold water; before leaping out of the river, he cried out in shock. Kaasa and Eshal raced out from under the silly bridge that the girls, and Phaggo, were hiding under to retrieve Gaajah, Selik, and Sudir; they led only Sudir and Selik to the bridge then they returned for him and Gaajah.

Another fight happened. Kaasa had hurt his feelings pretty bad and she had also promised to tell their parents about how he behaved while on the trip down the little-used path—he did quite a lot of cursing while on that path; their parents were very hard on all of them when it came to their using curse words. Other than the usual bar of soap in the mouth, he had also been slapped in the face and rear, and he had also been whipped with a belt, for using curse words. He only went under the bridge after the snow started coming down harder and after the wind picked up and after the hail started to fall. Selik was sitting on the right side of the bridge. He was shivering pretty badly, but he had insisted that he was fine when "Nurse" Eshal went over to ask if he was alright or not. Sudir was with him, so was Phaggo. He and Gaajah had just decided to join them on that side of the bridge. At the time, he, Gaajah, Sudir, and Selik had thought that being on that side of the bridge was better... better to be on the right side of the bridge than to be on the left side of the bridge, were his annoying little sister and the other fun-sucking girls were.

"Kie—gr—be," he murmured. The sign that was in front of him—which was quite rusty and dirt-encrusted—was screwed onto a steel beam. The sign was of the aluminum kind; not only did it look to of been an orange color at one time but it also looked like it had once had thick, black bordering to it. The few black letters that were on the sign were badly faded, but he was able to read them.

The town beyond the sign was in ruin. He couldn't believe that the region's humans had let it go like they had! While having seen abandoned towns before—when he and his family were in Green River, Wyoming, he did a lot of wandering around; there were a lot of abandoned towns in that area and he had seen some of them—, this one looked... quite morbid. The housing buildings, that were around the town, were either leaning far over or were laying on their foundations in pieces. He was surprised that the ones that were leaning were still standing. There were trees and bushes galore growing in areas that had once been yards. There were cars that had either rusted to the ground or had fallen apart where they stood; Baruk thought he saw a few jungle gyms and kiddie pools in what he believed were the residential units' backyards, but he wasn't sure, because of all the foliage that was in the area.

Most of the houses that were built around the town were nearly the same size and make and it looked like they had all had vinyl siding on their outsides at one time; the houses that were still standing were stripped of all of their vinyl sidings, and all of their windows were missing. Baruk took in a deep breath then shot his arms out. The gust of blue air, that flew out from the palms of his hands, blew the snow that was in front of him back. A road, all cracked and in need of some serious maintenance, was under his feet. The cracks that were deeper in the road were spewing out a thick, vaporous steam—he knew better than to investigate the steam vents; Triskull had warned him and Sudir about how hot the steam was and Sudir had even commented on how hot it was after he started digging under the snow, where a steam vent was, earlier.

Baruk repeated the move that he did to get the snow that was in front of him blown away three more times before walking forward; as he took in more of the town, he started looking for a souvenir or two to take back to camp with him—a little something that would, at least, show that all of his pains during the last thirty-five minutes hadn't been for nothing.

"M-maybe we shouldn't stick around," Blaiga said. Baruk picked a weather-warped board, that had several, rust-covered nails in it, up. He examined the board for only a second before discarding it. "They'll probably want us back, we sh—"

"We'd of heard from them by now," Sudir said. "If it was important, or if some intruder just came to the planet, we would of either heard from them or one of them would of come to retrieve us."

Baruk looked over his shoulder at the same time that the snow started to fall heavier and faster; the girl that said something about how they shouldn't stick around had taken maybe a step or two out from under the bridge. It looked like she was trying to look at everything at once and it also looked like she was nervous, which he thought was hilarious. While he didn't know much about the Ubalki's he did know that Blaiga Ubalki was the fourth child and the first daughter born to Cheshire Ubalki and the woman who had once been his grandfather's third wife. Blaiga Ubalki was a pureblood Zetakin and she looked like one too; she had an upside down, teardrop-shaped head from which two, large and brightly silver, oval-shaped eyes looked out from. There were two holes where a nose would normally be under her eyes and there was an O-shaped mouth, that sported thin lips, underneath them nose-holes. Like her mother, father, and siblings, Blaiga had suction cups on the tips of each of her fingers. She had dark blue skin that was very feminine looking; she stood just five foot, one and half inches.

Blaiga Ubalki was wearing a long, grayish-purple wool coat that had a simple, self-tie around the waist; he thought that the coat resembled a bath robe more than a coat and he came very close to saying that twice while on the walk down the little-used path that they teleported to. Blaiga was wearing a long sleeve, purple shirt and a pair of blue pants, that had paint splotches on the outer thigh, under the coat. The waterproof, faux fur insulated snow boots, that were on her feet, did nothing to make her look taller. Baruk didn't know how old Blaiga was; he knew that she was older than he was, and he also knew that she was younger than her brother, but he couldn't remember her exact age.

Sudir came out from under the bridge next. He looked around for a bit before going towards a pile of bricks; he was sifting through the bricks when Blaiga Ubalki's older brother decided to venture out from under the bridge.

Phaggo and Blaiga looked very much a-like; one would only have to look at them to know that they were related. Like Blaiga, Phaggo had dark blue skin and an upside down, teardrop-shaped head that two, large and brightly silver, oval-shaped eyes looked out from. Like Blaiga, Phaggo had two holes where a nose would normally be under his eyes; while the O-shaped mouth, that was under them two holes, resembled Blaiga's, the lips that were on it didn't. Phaggo's lips weren't thin nor were they even. Like Blaiga, Phaggo also had suction cups on the tips of each of his fingers. Phaggo had a brown leather jacket on over a white, long sleeve shirt that had white buttons going down the front. Phaggo's faded blue pants were loose on him; he had a pair of blue tennis shoes on his feet. Phaggo stood six foot, one and a half inches. Like Blaiga, Baruk didn't know how old Phaggo was. He knew that Phaggo was older than he was, and he also knew that Phaggo was older than Blaiga, but he didn't know Phaggo's exact age.

"Come on, everyone." Kaasa said quite loudly. "Time to head back. Our parents probably want us back in camp."

Blaiga and Phaggo looked over at Kaasa; they looked half-willing to do as she had just told them to do before deciding to go and do as Sudir was doing. Kaasa sighed when she saw that neither he, Sudir, Blaiga, or Phaggo were going to do as she wanted them to do then walked over towards what looked like the remnants of a stone well. Eshal, the next one to come out from under the bridge, came out right when the wind picked up; she shivered, then pulled the long, red-brown rabbit fur coat that, Baruk guessed, had cost her father a good penny and a half around herself tighter. Eshal gave the area a good looking over before walking towards him; she walked right by him without stopping to say hello or to ask if he was alright or not. Baruk sighed in relief; when he saw that she was coming towards him, he had readied himself for another of her nurse-play moments. He was glad that she was leaving him alone.

Baruk was walking over to a rather long box, that had a fine layer of moss and mold growing on its sides, when Gaajah and Gaajah's younger brother, Selik, walked out from under the bridge. After reaching the box, Baruk dropped to his knees then opened it; he braved the box's pungent odor as he started rummaging through its contents. He had just wiped the side of his head with his coat sleeve when Gaajah gave Selik, who was just standing in place, shivering in an almost violent sort of way, a slight push to get going. After pushing his brother, Gaajah walked towards Baruk, who was now trying to stifle a sneeze.

GaajahVile Vulbub Surfeit, or just Gaajah to his family and friends, looked nothing like his father or older brother in appearance. His skin wasn't bi-colored and he didn't have ears that went the full or even half the length of his shoulders; he had light blue skin and a normal-sized head from which two, slightly elongated ears stuck out from. His slightly elongated ears were a tinge darker than the rest of him; they had just one, black, Tiger-like stripe on them. His body build was very unlike that of his father and older brother's—it was lean; the immature muscle, that was on it, made him look physically behind in development. The only things that he had that said that he was DuruVile Bolushi Surfeit's son were his eyes—which were a glowing green color; there were yellow pupils in their centers. He stood a good, six foot, two inches—which, according to his father, was a little under the usual height for a male of Surfeit breeding. The fingernails that came out from the ends of each of his fingers were a dark blue color; they were filed to fine points.

Almost all of what Gaajah was wearing was worn by his father when he was a teenager. The long, dark gray, double-breasted peacoat, that was over a long, red velvet and satin overcoat, that had dull gold buttons and embroidery down the front, were very old, but there was not a stitch out of place nor a button missing on them. The red, long sleeved, button down shirt, that had a bright red vest, that had gold ties on it, were also old but in very good shape. The red pants that were tied at his knees by garter strings, and the pair of white stockings, and the pair of dark brown shoes, that had a silver buckle on their tops, looked a little worn-out; there was a small tear to Gaajah's left stocking and his shoes were slightly scuffed up. Gaajah had once confided to Baruk that the only things that he wore that hadn't been worn by his father were his underwear—while his father had let him to "slip" in that wardrobe choice, he was adamant that he wear what he, himself, had worn in his youth. Gaajah had just recently aged a year; he was two thousand and one years old.

Gaajah's younger brother, SelikVile Oan Surfeit, was under the same dressing regiment. SelikVile, or just plain Selik to his family and friends, looked like only half of what his and Gaajah's father called a typical Surfeit. His skin was bi-colored, with the left side of his head and body being dark red and the right being fully silver; unlike his father and older siblings, he had a pair of horns on his head that were nearly ten inches long—along with having several rings on them, and having three twists to them, they were a dark red color. Instead of having the typical elongated ears of a Surfeit, Selik had normal, human-like ears that were slightly elfish. The eyes that were in Selik's face were oppositely colored than his father and older brother's—a bright glowing, yellow color, with green pupils in their centers. His fingers had long, and sharply pointed, dark silver fingernails on their ends; he stood exactly six feet tall. There was no hint of muscle on his lean body. Selik was just one month shy of his one thousand, six hundred, and tenth birthday.

The hems of the waist-high, brown-colored peacoat, that was over a white, long sleeve, button down shirt, that had lace cuffs and gold buttons going down its front, were slightly faded—the coat was worn by his father when he was a teenager; it had already been fading on the hems when he gave it to his son. Selik's black pants went down to his knees; like Gaajah, Selik's pants were tied tightly at the knee by garter strings. The white stockings that came down from the pants were wet; their were many holes in them. Baruk had a feeling that his grandfather was going to hit the roof when he saw the state of Gaajah's and Selik's stockings. The stockings went into a pair of black shoes, that had a large, silver buckle on their sides. The wind was causing the black, frilly lace cravat tie, that was around Selik's neck, to blow all over the place; Selik wasn't putting much worry in on the tie, though. He was more concerned over how cold he was. He looked downright miserable! Like Gaajah's clothing, everything that Selik was wearing had once been worn by his and Gaajah's father during his youth.

"Cool," Baruk said. He held a rather rusty, sawback bayonet butcher knife, that was missing its handle, up. Gaajah looked at the knife then reached into the box that Baruk was looking through. Baruk shoved him none-too-kindly back; he gave Gaajah a stern, Stay-Back look before placing the bayonet knife on the ground, beside him. "Finders keepers, losers leapers. You're a loser, go find your own box to look through."

"In your dreams, Baruk." Gaajah returned. Since there were a few boxes nearby, he went to them. Baruk sifted through the box that he found the bayonet knife in for a few more minutes before getting up and then going over to where Gaajah was. Gaajah imitated Baruk's shove and then his stern, Stay-Back glare when his friend—who was also, technically, his nephew—tried to muscle him back so he could look through the box that he was looking through. Although it was no contest—Baruk was way more stronger than he—, he still stood his ground. Baruk walked over to the box that was two feet away a few seconds later.

"Grampy coming?" Baruk asked two minutes later.

"Think so," Gaajah replied. He made an excited sound after finding a stainless steel, two-pronged fork and butter knife, that had flintlock handles, that were complete with trigger, cock, frizzen, barrel, and muzzle attachments. He pocketed the two utensils then started looking through the contents that were in the box that was next to the one that he had found the two utensils in. "Did a little overhearing a few days ago when my dad was on the phone with his dad."

"What'd grampy say?" Baruk asked. He knew how dangerous it was for anyone to eavesdrop on his grandfather. If his grandfather found that he had a listener on the other end of the line he was apt to do more than just yell... the eavesdropper would surely be getting a verbal scolding and then a beating.

"Just to be on the look-out," Gaajah replied. "He never said when he was going to load his ship, or take off, or even show up. He just—"

The item that he had just found was cool, and he was very excited about finding it, but the item, a sterling silver, casket-styled jewelry box, that had a silver-toned snuff bottle, that had either a real emerald and sapphire or an imitation emerald and sapphire on it, attached to it, wasn't the reason for why he left his sentence unfinished.

While the snow that was falling had grown heavier, it wasn't blizzard-like; the wind was still mild, which allowed for the high-pitched scream to be heard loud and clear. Kaasa and Eshal, who were just looking around at the ruined buildings, stood straight up. Selik's shivering stopped. Sudir dropped the item that he had just found—a pipe that had a hand-carved skull as its base—then jerked his head up and then around. Blaiga moved closer to Phaggo as Baruk and Gaajah rose to their full heights. Gaajah was quick in saying the spell that sent the box and its attached snuff bottle to the chamber in his father's ship that he was given during the trip's duration; he wiped his hands on the back of his pants then turned to look at the others. Baruk stood perfectly still.

The scream that they heard had sounded like something someone would emit in horror—they knew that screams like the one that they had just heard were usually emitted after someone had either seen something horrifying or after some unsuspecting something leaped out or surprised someone who wasn't watching his or her surroundings. Baruk had just turned to look at Gaajah when another scream penetrated the quiet; the scream was followed by a half-coherent yell that made Baruk and everyone in his group freeze in place.

"Don't...cuh...is...I...out...Numbskull!" the yell, which seemed to come from somewhere close-by, said. Nothing else was said. No follow-up yells or screams followed. The area went back to its former, eerie quiet.