Miss.Ecofreak: hiya, sorry for not updating in four days even though I said I would but but our stupid computer had a virus infection
Zakura: it's not the computer's fault
Miss.Ecofreak: (ignore) so I couldn't use the internett at home anymore! But now it's gone... mostly so here's a new chapter, and the next one will be up soon (providing another virus doesn't come by)
CHAPTER 7
THE DARK MAKER
Mountain-Lake Town was quite a lot bigger than what Balder was used to, but he still felt a bit trapped by not being able to walk out.
There were still predators in the mountains, but Buster had no intention of doing anything about it.
Nobody heard much from Tunnel Town in years; most precursors who went there meant it had a creepy feeling to it, as if it was haunted.
"There's no one there" Rambo once said to one of his new friends. "What are you afraid of?"
"I don't know" his friend Willy replied. "But it's like… when I went down there, there was nothing but a big hole in the ground where the town used to be, the buildings were ruined, bones sticking up from the ground. But still I felt as if I was being watched".
"By ghosts you mean?" Balder asked. "They're not real".
"I know! That's what I try to tell myself!" Willy said but he didn't seem to believe it.
"Hey! It's a big hole, we've heard that now" Rambo said. "But there must be some way to rebuild it. We just dig further into the caves or something, perhaps we could make a tunnel from Tunnel to Mountain-Lake, and then we would get the biggest ottsel-town ever!"
"No thanks" Willy said.
"Very well. What do you think bro?" Rambo asked his brother.
"Do as you like" Buster said uninterested.
"Oh come on. Try to sound a bit enthusiastic at least!" Rambo said. "Its three years ago! Even Anny's gotten over it! How long are you going to mourn?"
"For as long as it takes. Okay?" Buster said.
"Takes to what? Do you think Snowrose is going to rise from the dead if you cry long enough?" Rambo asked.
"Will you drop it?" Buster said.
"Fine. Do it your way. Come on Balder, want to go ghost hunting?" Rambo asked and ran out the door before Balder had time to answer.
"Are you just going to let them run out like that?" Willy asked.
"Hey! Balder's a big boy now. He can look after himself" Buster said stubbornly.
Getting to Tunnel Town was no easy matter.
Balder and Rambo had hardly taken two steps outside the tunnel entrance, which was hidden behind a large shrubbery, before a large precdator came running at them.
The two ottsels had brought blue eco, so at least they could run away.
As they were approaching Tunnel Town however, the precdator stopped dead and turned around.
"What's his problem?" Rambo asked.
"I don't know. Maybe he still thinks there's more ottsels around here that kills precdators?" Balder suggested.
"That was a young precdator, hardly over a year old. He wouldn't know anything about the purple-eco" Rambo said.
The ruins of Tunnel Town were clearly visible through the threes now.
If he hadn't known better, Balder would have thought it was the ruins that scared the precdator, because they were scary.
The entire cave had a dark era flowing around it, dark eco was in fact flowing freely and there were no animals to be seen, not even insects.
"Ah, home, creepy home" Rambo said. "Wonder if the old pub is still open?"
"You don't want to go down there do you?" Balder asked.
"Why not? It's only a big abounded hole in the ground. Nothing to be afraid of, just don't step into the eco" Rambo said.
And so they went, into the hole which three years earlier had been a prospering town.
Tunnel Town looked just as bad as Willy described it, if not even worse.
The whole place had a creepy feeling to it, purple smoke lay over the dark eco lakes and more than once, Balder thought he saw someone hiding behind the building, or splashing in the water, as if it was something alive swimming in it.
"Okay, no we've seen it. Can we go now?" Balder asked.
"Why? Is my little nephew scared?" Rambo asked.
"Of course not" Balder said quickly. "But this is boring. There's nothing her but mist and broken houses"
And ghostly figures he added in his head but he didn't say it out loud.
"Look! There's your old house!" Rambo said. "Come on, maybe we can find Anny's old chinbit-toy!"
The house was nearly intact, but the paint was fading and it had purple spots on the walls.
Inside it looked just like it had done when they left it, except the half-eaten fish that Buster had been eating was missing.
Weird. Balder would have expected it to be filthy, but it was entirely spotless, as if time had stopped in this small house.
Only the view outside the windows had changed.
The kitchen however, was a mess.
All the cupboards were opened; plates were lying all over the floor, crushed.
All the food was gone, just as well because if it had been there it would stink horribly inside the house.
Anny's room looked as usual, the stuffed chinbit was lying on its regular spot at Anny's bed, close to her other stuffed toys, although no one had ever taken them out of the trunk.
"There it is. Let's get it, I'm sure Anny will be glad to see it again" Rambo said and picked up the toy.
Just as he did that, a hissing sound was heard.
"Er... Balder? That's not funny" Rambo said.
"It wasn't me!" Balder said.
He turned around and screamed very high-pitched.
Rambo of course had teased Balder for years after this although he sounded much the same afterwards.
In the door was a most bizarre creature, almost twice the size of the ottsels.
It had the dark-purple color of dark eco and looked more like a machine than a living thing.
"Nobodyzz allowed into the housezzz" the creature said. "None except thozze who cleanzzz, you did thizz?"
The creature held one of the broken plates.
"Er… no… of c-course not. Actually we came in by accident, we are leaving now" Rambo said and walked sideways out of the door behind the creature, clutching the chinbit-toy to his back.
But the creature noticed he was hiding something, and pulled the toy out of his hands.
"Drop it! That's my sister's!" Balder yelled.
But something unexpected happened as soon as the creature could have a look at the toy.
He hissed and dropped it.
"That toy is outlawed! You're with the lionheadzzz aren't youzzz?" it said.
"No we're… who?" Rambo asked.
The creature pulled out a small device from a pocket on his foot.
"Zpiezzz in the creatorzzz' houzze! Calling all devicezz!" it hissed.
Balder and Rambo figured it was time to go, forgetting everything about the chinbit toy they ran for the door.
But as soon as they got outside, they were surrounded by even more dark robots.
"Hold your fire!"
The new voice didn't come from any of the machines, it sounded more like an ottsel, and so it was.
It came walking out from the ranks of robots, the fur was dark blue and sparked of dark eco, but apart from that the ottsel looked very normal considering what it must have been through.
"Well what do we have here? Buster's brother and son, so where's the boss himself?" he asked.
"Jingo? What happened to you?" Rambo asked.
"So you remember my name after all these years. I have evolved Rambo, dark eco is the future. It made me and many others into what we are today, all-mighty!" Jingo said.
"Almighty? Then what about all those?" Rambo asked pointing to the bones sticking out around them.
"Some couldn't cope with the changes. But that's life, the weaker ones die sometimes, the Lionheads didn't like it much of course" Jingo said.
"Who are the Lionheads?" Balder asked.
"Wild beasts" Jingo snarled. "They live out in the forest near by, just never dared to come down as long as the precdators were here so we thought they had died out."
"Chinbits" Rambo whispered. "The Lionheads are chinbits!"
"Wow, the rodent has intelligence" Jingo said. "That was unexpected."
"What are you talking about creep? I am an ottsel just like you" Rambo said.
"Oh well that's where we don't agree mister. I have evolved from ottsel-state, I am now the creator of life, and I created these didn't I?" Jingo said waving his hands at the robots behind him. "I've created lots more creatures if you want to see them, and then there's the little pets my friends made, really cool"
"If you're not a precursor, what are you?" Rambo asked.
"Me little friend? I am the ultimate, the leader of the Dark Makers" Jingo said.
Miss.Ecofreak: just a little note before we stop, the robots appearing in this chapter are NOT metalheads, they'll appear in the next chapter.
Now please review.