Chapter 2
After apologizing again to Director Faddon, Momo finally left the office building twenty minutes later. She shoved open the door and stepped outside, ignoring the troublesome stench to instead immediately turn and pin her hot-eyed glare onto the insolent cat-man leaning back against the wall.
Rei was certainly an imposing figure, and had Momo been possessed of a smidgeon less backbone she just might have been intimidated by him. He stood well over six and a half feet tall after all, and every bit of his large frame was corded with powerful, well-trained muscle. Most of which was visible, since his outfit did little in the way of modesty. Rei still wore the outfit he'd worn during their travels ; the brown pants that ended just below his knees and matching vest, foot wraps, a wide black belt around his hips and faded white strips of cloth wrapped around each fist and forearm and leg from the calf down. His two wide, dagger-like blades were crisscrossed in the small of his back as they always were when he was at rest, the well-worn handles still within easy reach.
All of him seemed to be covered in a very fine layer of golden yellow fur, with longer tufts sprouting from his heels, elbows, shoulders and jaw line. His fur matched his hair, which was pushed back from his forehead by a wide white bandanna and then hung down his back nearly to his waist, clasped at the end with a small white strip of cloth.
Two reddish brown stripes slashed across his cheeks on either side, and curved around his large shoulders, with the same color swirling around the thick cat-like tail that now swayed lazily behind his long legs. It looked thicker than the circumference of her two hands, though that could just be the fur and not the actual size. Momo wouldn't know, since she'd never been brave enough to touch it, though she would admit privately to herself that the urge had come upon her once or twice while they had traveled together. His hands and feet sported large red-brown talons—which was probably why he never wore boots, only foot wrappings that left his toes bare. His canines were notably pointed and his ears were upswept and furry with brown at the tips.
All in all, in her less guarded moments Momo could and did consider Rei to be a very handsome man indeed, at least when he wasn't being a complete jerk. This in spite of—or perhaps it was because of—his feline qualities. After all, Momo herself was a very far cry from being completely human.
Yet, as he had just so eloquently proven only moments ago, rare were the times when Rei chose not to be a complete and total jerk.
"Do you mind explaining to me just what in the heck that was all about back there?" she demanded angrily, coming to stand in front of him with her fists on her hips. Toe-to-toe, the top of her head barely reached his thick collar-bone. Momo forced herself to ignore the strange impulse she always got when coming within ten feet of Rei, and that was the odd compulsion to run away as fast as she could and hide from him. It was a very weird feeling, and one that didn't make any sense whatsoever, which was why she disliked it so much. It implied that she was in some way and on some level afraid of the ill-mannered thief and that couldn't be farther from the truth. Therefore Momo made every effort to stamp down and ignore the emotion through sheer determination every time it rose within her.
Rei gave her a look now as she watched, sky blue eyes slightly mocking. He always seemed to be mocking her, in one fashion or another. It was probably what bothered her most about him.
"Not really," he finally replied to her question, deep voice seeming to almost growl out of his chest and past his throat. It always put her in the mind of a big jungle cat. Before she could think to reply to that arrogant statement, Rei continued with, "you mind getting on with whatever the hell it is you brought me out here for?"
Momo felt her ears stiffen until they were nearly on end.
"Not really!" she spat, then spun on her heel and stalked away, not really caring if he followed. Her blue overtunic swished angrily at her ankles as she moved. Momo heard him heave a loud sigh, then he fell into step.
"Hey, let's not forget who summoned who, here."
"Well I've changed my mind!" was her petulant answer to that. Momo was acting rather childish, but right at that moment she could have cared less. "Just forget I ever said anything."
"Yah, like that could ever happen," she heard him grumble from somewhere behind her. Momo's only response to that was an unintelligent snarl and to walk even faster.
The trek back to the Tower took several hours, and they said not another word to each other throughout the duration. They finally reached their destination by late afternoon.
Momo walked up the front walk, nodding absent greeting to the merchant who always sat outside near the fountain. She then continued past, up the steps and in to the entrance hall. She walked past the large crystal centerpiece near the base of the fountain and then finally came to a stop at the wall behind it, near the sign that warned of monsters and traps to would-be visitors. She turned then, suddenly, and pinned a frowning Rei with an especially cheery smile.
"Well, see you in a few hours then!" she purred, and then pushed a button on the remote she'd kept hidden in the sleeve of her overtunic. A small trap door gave way underneath her and she slipped out of slight with a crow of victorious laughter. She heard Rei angrily bellow her name just before the trap door shut again with a mechanical hiss. Momo fell the ten feet to the cushions below, then rolled out of them with a smug giggle. She stood and then made her way to the elevator near the back of the room.
It should take him about an hour or so to navigate all the monsters and traps, she thought to herself as she pressed in the coordinates for the top level and then stepped aboard. That should give me plenty of time to wash off all the grime and get things in order before he gets there.
Momo might have toyed briefly with the idea of not telling the annoying thief her recent discovery, but she couldn't really follow through with that vindictive plan, tempting though it might have been. She hadn't been exaggerating at all about its importance. Once Rei heard what she had to say, his life would probably never be the same again. Momo knew hers certainly wouldn't.
The redhead arrived at the top level to her Tower home, free of monsters and traps. It consisted of the living quarters and residence area, with kitchen, bathing areas, bedrooms and guest bedrooms and other homey necessities. Once entering, Momo set Honey to the ground—who immediately pulled out one of her brooms and set about cleaning. Well used to the robot's antics, Momo paid her no heed. Instead she made a beeline for the bathing room. A hot bath was just what she needed to wash away the sweat and grit she'd worked up from a hard day, as well as relax her nerves after her first encounter with Rei after five months apart. The man never ceased to put her on edge. And if everything went according to plan, she very well could be spending a great deal more time with him in the near future. She groaned aloud at that thought, praying for patience.
Rei snarled low as he scaled the last parapet, claws digging deep into the mortar for purchase on the old Tower walls. Sneaky little wench. He should have known something was wrong the minute she smiled at him. Momo never smiled at him, unless she was being particularly devious. But if she thought she'd outsmarted him, Momo would be sadly mistaken. Rei scrambled up onto the balcony of the highest level, then crouched and took a moment to flex his pained muscles. While scaling the walls had bypassed the monsters and traps and saved him half the time, it had also been quite a workout and strained his arms a bit.
Rei slowed his breathing, managing to get his snarling and his anger under control. It was a reflex he guessed, the sounds he sometimes made, just like a scowl or a frown. He always did it when he was well and pissed off. And this latest stunt of hers had certainly accomplished that feat well enough. What gall! To send for him, and then ditch him to the mercy of her convoluted Tower infested with monsters and traps and only Myria knew what else.
With a heavy sigh the weretiger finally straightened, and then approached the tall paned windows. He had just enough time to peer inside and deduct that the room he stood outside of must be Momo's bedroom just before the door to the side of the room swung open. On instinct Rei pounced back out of sight and into the shadows of a tall potted plant on the side. Well hidden, he watched and waited to see what would happen next, thinking he might spring out and scare her or something as payback.
Then she stepped out of the slightly steaming doorway and Rei felt all the air rush out of his lungs as if someone had just punched him in the gut.
A slender vision stepped into the room, wet hair falling heavily like a crimson tide down her back, the curled tips brushing against her ankles. She had a soft white cloth wrapped around her middle at the moment, covering her breasts and falling to mid thigh, and the creamy skin revealed shone like pale porcelain in the fading sunlight. And then as he continued to watch, she suddenly drew the piece of cloth away from herself and tossed it onto the bed near-by. Rei swallowed hard, grasping at the wall so hard his nails bit into the stone. Dainty slender, small, yet somehow perfectly proportionate. Her arms and legs were long, waist tiny, but her hips and thighs were nicely rounded and her breasts were maybe on the small side of average but they were perfectly shaped and tipped in mouthwatering coral-pink. She was . . . well . . . beautiful.
Rei had never seen a woman who drew that word from his brain, not even the Wyndian Princess, who had been the most attractive female he'd ever seen before this. Yet there was just something about Momo, standing there pulling her luxuriant red hair over one shoulder to dry it with her garnet eyes half-closed and almost sultry now, that just yanked the word right out of his brain. With it came the word mine, which ripped through his frame with such force he shuddered. In his head he heard a voice—one that sounded suspiciously like Nina's—telling him that what he was doing was very wrong. That he should turn his back and grant her the privacy she deserved.
Rei ignored it. His brain had turned to mush, it seemed, while everything else was at full attention. Full, painfully errect attention. Just when Rei didn't think he could possibly take much more, Momo—still oblivious to his presence—turned around with her hair still over her shoulder and began walking toward the high dresser. He felt his frame stiffen yet again with shock. There, at the base of her spine and just above a very delictable rear, was a cream-white, violet-tipped rabbit-tail. It was rather large and poufy, dominating the small of her back, the fur long at the end and curling a little at the tip.
Momo has a tail! A bunny tail! Rei watched it twitch slightly in time with her matching ears and he suddenly grinned. And a rather cute tail, at that. He wondered dully how she had managed to keep it hidden from them, all those months they had traveled together. Perhaps that was why she wore overly large, shapeless tunics all the time.
With a soft growl Rei abruptly tore his eyes away as she began to dress. Mostly to help regain his sanity, because if he witnessed much more Rei was afraid he just might shove open that window with much more than scaring the redhead on his mind and in his intentions. As it was, he went to the edge of the balcony, still out of sight, and put himself directly into the chill wind in the hopes that the cold would help cool other parts of his anatomy. Stars, who ever thought that seeing Momo naked would put him in such a state? He never thought he'd be turned on by her, of all people, and Rei grudgingly admitted that right now he was probably more aroused than he'd ever been before in his life. His eyes narrowed. Maybe he'd been too long without a woman for company. The last time had been well before he'd joined the group to meet God, just before he'd ransacked Syn City.
Rei stayed outside until he was sure he had his libido in check, giving Momo plenty of time to get dressed and vacate the room. Hopefully he could be done with whatever business she had summoned him for soon. Rei suddenly didn't trust himself around her at all, or the strange reactions she was suddenly getting. He could only hope that once she was dressed again, the strange need that gripped him would go away. Rei growled again, and reitorated his previous thought. The sooner he could be away from the mouthy engineer the better.
Momo finished brushing and braiding her hair, then put on her slippers and glasses and padded from the room. After her hot bath and dressed now in a fresh blue tunic and white pants, she felt a million times better than before. Momo turned her steps to the kitchen to get refreshments, since she'd no doubt be talking for quite some time. The things they needed to discuss were numerous, and as her father said, talking and planning were never done well on an empty stomach.
She set two tall glasses filled to the brim with her favorite fruit drink and some various snack foods on a tray, then carried it out into the main room. Momo estimated she should have about twenty minutes left before Rei arrived. Therefore she was quite startled to see the man in question lounging in one of her chairs.
"Ack!"
She jumped with surprise, and only had a splint instant of dismay to realize she was going to drop the tray and spill everything on it.
Yet in the next instant he was standing there in front of her, his hand beneath the tray to help steady it. Momo jerked again, though this time she had the sneaking suspicion it was from more than simple surprise.
Rei stood so close to her now that she could actually feel his body heat seep into her skin. His hand, beneath the tray, was spread over both of hers and nearly covered them it was so large. His fur was soft. Really soft. Almost like velvet. Warm velvet. For some reason Momo felt her face heat uncomfortably, and her mouth went dry. She stared up at him while Rei stared down at her, an unreadable expression in his blue eyes.
"Th . . . thanks," she managed to croak.
Rei wordlessly took the tray from her lax fingers, then turned and set it down on the low table. Momo swallowed several times, doing her best to regain her bearings. It took her long enough for him to plop back down in the chair again and snatch a couple of beef briskets off the tray for this to be accomplished. When she did, Momo scowled.
"How in the heck did you get up here that fast?" Rei popped one of the morsels into his mouth and chewed, pausing long enough to give her a cheeky grin.
"I ain't a thief for nothin, sweetheart," he growled playfully around his mouthful. Something in her brain still must have been off-center, because instead of thinking the display ill-mannered and disgusting, Momo found herself hard-pressed not to smile back. Instead she sighed and turned around, heading for the study.
"Well whatever. Since you're early, you can sit there by yourself while I finish getting things ready." She heard a soft rumble emanate from behind her. As always, the sound sent shivers down her spine and she felt her skin prickle. "I'll only be a minute," Momo felt inclined to throw back over her shoulder then, inwardly cursing her own cowardliness.
"C'mon, Mo, this game is getting old," he snapped at her from the other room while she began gathering her things. "Can't you just give me a hint or something?" Momo felt herself grin.
"Let's just say, I found some very interesting information in these old data tapes," she called.
"Great, a lecture," he muttered, voice slightly muffled, with more food no doubt.
"Not a lecture," Momo snapped, scowling at the doorway. "Let's just say I now know what to call you besides a jerk, a thief and a cat man."
"Oh yeah? And what would that be?" Momo ignored the sneer in his tone and came back into the room. His voice had been flippant but there was a corded tension in his frame, a reluctant spark of hope building in his eyes.
She smirked and replied, "a Woren."
"Woren?" he parroted while she came and set up her small data displayer on the table, one she had salvaged from Junk Town and rebuilt with the help of her father's notations. "What the heck is a Woren?"
"I'll show you, if you'll just give me a minute," was her snippy reply, giving him a frown. He crossed his arms and gave a tigerish huff, but quieted.
Momo finished her preparations, inserting the tapes into the machine, then reached over and pressed a button on the side of the table. The vid-screen kept hidden in the ceiling came sliding down with a hiss, and Momo relished in Rei's startled jerk. She giggled and his glare deepened.
"You mind warning someone before you start making things pop out of the walls?"
"I'll keep that in mind," she wheezed, then sighed and straightened. She pressed several keys, inputting her password to get into the main system, then brought up the information she'd extracted from the data tapes. Information and images began flickering to life on the screen in front of them. Rei sat forward, frame tense and stared at them as they passed. Momo began explaining her purpose for bringing him here.
"I went to the north to see the remnants of the Techno-Age, but my reasons for wanting to do that were actually very similar to your reason for traveling." He glanced at her and she sighed. "It hasn't escaped my notice that not too many people have these," she replied, tugging on one of her ears. She glanced at her hands, suddenly realizing that she'd forgotten her gloves. She closed her hand for a moment, self-consciously hiding her claws. "Or these," was her soft murmur. Then Momo sighed and continued. "Barring the possibility that I'm some kind of failed experiment my father and Palet created with their Chrysm research, logical deduction would conclude only two other possibilities. One, you and I are some kind of creation of Myria, singular in type and with no other purpose other than to amuse her. Or two, we're actually survivors of another race, wiped out by Myria 1000 years ago like the Brood."
She typed in a couple of commands, and the screen flashed to life with the image of a man looking somewhat similar to Rei, though his fur was a darker red and his stripes were nearly black. He wore nomadic, tribalesque clothes, with a long white feather hanging from a strip of cloth around his forehead and resting against a furred cheek. The image showed him standing in a thick jungle, spear in hand, staring off in the distance at some unknown thing. The image shrank and shifted to one side, and on the other another image flickered to life. This one showed a man with long rabbit-like ears in a faded yellow jumpsuit, a wrench in hand as he worked on some large machine of some sort. Rei stared at the screen, eyes wide.
"According to the information I've found," Momo murmured, "1000 years ago there existed two races in the far southeastern continent, which was called the Vecna Region." The image shifted again and displayed an archaic map, showing a small island continent beneath the Urkan Region. "One was a fast and agile race of rabbit-humanoids, known for their genius level intellect and their gift with machinery. They were largely responsible for a great deal of the machines and technology that existed in that time. They were called Grassrunners. The other was a nomadic race of tiger-humanoids, known for their fierceness in battle and, for some, the ability to shape-shift into a powerful weretiger form, called the Tigren. Not everyone could do it. The information is vague, but it indicates the Woren had to come from specific bloodlines to gain this ability." She smirked. "Ironically enough, I think you're actually what they would consider nobility."
Rei continued to stare, seemingly deep in shock. Momo continued.
"I think I also figured out why you and I seem to fight all the time, other than the obvious." That got his attention, and he glanced at her questioningly. She brought up another image, this time showing a battlefield with Woren on one side and Grassrunners on the other. "Apparently in ancient times, your race and mine were bitter enemies. It's said the animosity was ingrained on a near instinctual level. The information alludes to Myria using this against them somehow, but it doesn't go into detail. When Myria decided to take out the Brood, she took out the Woren and the Grassrunners as well. For some reason Wyndians were left alone. I don't think she considered them to be much of a threat."
Momo reached for her drink and took a few sips while Rei continued to stare at the screen. He finally sighed and shook his head.
"Well doesn't that just beat all," he murmured. "So I'm not some freak after all." He paused again, then turned to her. "So . . . what now?"
"Well, the records that I've found indicate that while longer lived than humans, neither of our race can exceed three or four hundred years old. So the fact that we exist means that there has to be others like us somewhere. My father and mother were Grassrunners, but where did they come from? After all, the Brood survived Myria's genocide. What's to say that a few Woren and Grassrunners managed to escape and go into hiding as well?" Momo tapped a few keys and brought up a current map of the world, and highlighted the area listed as uncharted, where the Vecna Region had been on the older map. "I think there might still be Woren and Grassrunners alive. And I think we just might be able to find a few clues if we go here."
"So, you want to go? As in you and me?" Momo shrugged.
"Why not? We both have a vested interest in what we'll find, after all. And as powerful as we've become, the road is still a dangerous place to be alone. I think if we put our minds to it we could manage to possibly not tear each other's throats out long enough to do what needs to be done."
Rei got quiet at that, seemingly deep in thought. Momo let him think, glad at least that he was doing that much and not denying her outright. Plus, he needed a little time to come to grips with all that she had just shown him. It had taken her a few hours herself, when she had first learned. After only a few minutes he sighed, then nodded.
"All right, I'm in. So what's the plan?"