Things you need to have read to understand this chapter: Crimson (general background), In the Shadows (again, general background)

Really lazy disclaimer of Doom: (don't forget the italics)
Urby's feeling lazy and cheap!
There once was a girl who played video games.
There were very many she thought that were lame.
But when she picked up TOS she
Said so sadly,
"I wish I owned Namco, but I don't. Shame!"
I dare ya to guess where else I put that.

The sight of two Penguinists sneaking around a base formally owned by Desians, I must say, is a sight you don't see every day.

Mostly because you don't see Penguinists around Desian bases most of the time and they never sneak.

Except now.

Yeah.

Uhm...where was I?

Oh yeah!

"Funny that the guards haven't noticed us," Sam whispered.

"Duh, they're all on break right now," Myn answered in a low voice. "They must have been partying, look how drunk they are," she pointed at a sentry who bumped into a wall and fell unconscious. A Katz soon followed suit, flopping on the other dood and singing a nonsense song drunkenly.

"I gots a lovely buncha coconuts...deedeelee meow..."

"Katz and Desians...working together?" Sam wondered.

"Here we are," Myn turned a corner and arrived at the jail section of the base. "According to Byruu, it's the cell in the back."

The cell in the back wasn't lit, but they could hear some...thing breathing within.

"Hello?" Sam called out into the cell. It echoed a bit.

"What?" a rather annoyed, raspy voice answered.

"Are you...Lynn?"

"Yeah," the voice spat. "Whadda ya want? I already cleaned the floors today."

"We're here to get you out," Sam said.

There was silence. Sam opened her mouth to repeat what she had said just in case Lynn hadn't heard her, but there was a sound coming from the cell.

It was the sound of...laughter.

"You? Get me out? If I can't, you might as well give up," she snorted.

"You haven't tried bombs," Myn smirked.

"I have," she spat. "It alerted the guards. Janitor duty for weeks...with nothing but a toothbrush."

"Not this kind," Myn held up a small, wobbly bomb-pebble. Rubbing it furiously, she stuck it in the keyhole.

It took some long, slow, agonizing minutes, but the lock finally melted. The door opened sluggishly.

A gaunt, blindfolded girl with a bad haircut poked her head out. Her hands were cuffed together behind her back.

"Freedom!" she grinned, showing fanglike teeth. She ran around in circles, miraculously avoiding any objects to trip or run into. She stopped, having a thought, and suddenly whirled. "Why did you do that?" she demanded, stepping forward. She might have pointed at them, but she's got her hands bound, remember?

"We need your services," Myn nodded.

Lynn sighed, expecting something like that. "Alright, fine, I'll do what you want, after you get me out of here and get these stupid cuffs off me. Just...no cleaning any floors, okay?"

Shadow lay bound on a stone table, waiting helplessly for whatever Dragon was going to do to her.

Apparently, from the snippets of conversation she occasionally caught, he must have had a lot of green boxes on his desk, because he kept sending Russet to go get another.

She sighed, trying to move her toes. A silklike substance was tied around her front and back paws, and then to each other. Her wings were bound to her sides, utterly useless.

She tried to inch off the table, but Dragon was back, and with the right box this time.

Dragon sat down on a chair next to the table, tearing the box apart with his claws.

"Mwahameow...finally! A little Mana Seed I stole somewhere..." he cackled, holding up a large seed that glowed softly.

Shadow blinked and continued her quest to get off the table. (Inchie squinchie...)

Dragon grabbed her roughly by the scruff of the neck. "You know about Mana Seeds? They're just like Cruxis Crystals...when put on properly. Meow."

Shadow struggled, yowling. She had enough experience when she was Colette's Resident Soul that they were not something she wanted to have.

"Don't worry...the process of putting it on is...oh, relatively painless."

Ruby wandered around the Katz' base, feeling very bored. Nothing to do, no one to talk to, and nothing to eat. Oh, how she wished there was something to eat...

She heard a high-pitched shriek, enough to freeze blood. She covered her ears against the noise, fearing it.

Whatever the sound was, it was cut short by something.

Ruby's ears drooped, feeling sorry for whatever-it-was. It was a sort of helpless cry for help, knowing no one would come to its aid and yet still hoping.

About a half hour of wandering and wondering later, she came across a still shape, cast carelessly aside, on the floor.

She picked it up carefully, as it twitched every once in a while. The thing was a blackish kitten with little black wings on its back, and a fluffy yellow mane. On its neck was a sort of seed, which was rooting itself in the skin.

Ruby tried to pull it out gently, but the cat snapped awake and slashed at her, yowling and hissing.

"Sorry," she sat down and placed it gently on the floor. It tried to stand, but its knees were too weak and it crumbled.

"H...hhh...ll...p..." the kitten croaked, looking up at Ruby in a humanly feminine voice. The blackness of her fur was...fading. it was a slow crawl at first, but then the black pelt seemed to be gobbled up and replaced with a white coat.

The kitten blacked out then. The seed on her neck throbbed for a bit longer and then seemed to be satisfied, no longer moving.

"That is fuuuunky..."

"This is too weird," Sam sighed, running alongside Myn and Lynn.

"What's weird?" Lynn tipped her head.

"I mean, we come in, we come out, with no one stopping us...the old cliché states there has to be some type of interruption."

"Is that interruption enough?" Myn pointed at an army of Desians blocking the only exit.

"Stop right there!" a Desian stepped forward. "Give us back our floor cleaner!"

"I'm not cleaning any more floors!" Lynn barked.

"Stand back," Myn took out a sling and threw a bomb-pebble.

"Nice try," a soldier fired a shot at it, detonating it somewhere between them.

"Damn," Myn readied the sling. "Lucky shot!"

Another soldier shot at it, preventing it from reaching them.

"How..." Myn started, but she gave up. She put her sling away. "Sam, you got anything?"

"No," Sam shook her head. "Just a simple hand-to-hand weapon...no match against all of them, and they've got guns."

"We're dead," Myn sighed.

"Hold on, I want to try something," Lynn gestured to Sam. "Take off my blindfold, please."

Sam nodded, untying the bandana covering her eyes.

Lynn shook her head to get the hair out of her eyes and stepped forward. The guards gasped and took a few steps back.

"Someone, shoot her!" a commander ordered. None did.

Long...uncomfortable...stare...

"Flee!" the commander shouted. There were no objections.

"Whoa," Sam managed.

"Blindfold, please," Lynn felt for it.

"Here," Sam handed it to her.

Lynn nodded her thanks, tied the bandana around her head again, and said no more.

'What did you do?" Myn asked, wondering.

Lynn was silent for a while.

"...I looked at them."

"That's it?"

"Yep."

"...Really?"

"Just one look?" Myn sweatdropped.

"...Yeah."

"We looked at them, and nothing happened! What's so spiffy about your eyes?"

Lynn walked off toward the exit. "You'd rather not know."

Author's notes (blaaaaah):

Yes, I know this chapter is short and it took forever to write. So sue me!

Don't expect a new chapter in a while. Sorry guys. School comes first.