"You boys ready for a lesson?"
"Rig!" Spirit whispers as he pulls Rig in close, "One of my hookshots is still damaged!"
"Oh! Uh oh, that's a problem," Rig turns to the Hooded Hunter, "Err, excuse me, but you mind if we can do this another time? My friend's thingie doesn't work."
The Hooded Hunter blasts off, his feet straight towards them in a jump kick. Spirit raises his arms.
"WAIT, WAIT, NO-!"
The Hunter grabs Spirit's left arm, twisting him around by his wrist to use as a human shield. Rig swings his axe anyways, forcing the Hunter to let go and shove Spirit forward.
"You nearly sliced me in half!" Spirit yells as Rig grabs hold of him, "And why did you tell him that?!"
"Whoops!" Rig grins. He gravity rushes in the opposite direction of the Hunter with Spirit in his grasp, "If he was a good sport, he'd make it fair by not using both hands or something! Besides, we got away!"
"Yeah, but what's the next step, huh?!"
Where Rig had only jumped straight upwards, the Hooded Hunter travels in the air at a steeper angle, homing in the distance very quickly. A translucent platform appears just below Rig's feet, giving him the opportunity to propel himself again.
"Thanks!" Rig says as they fly towards the forest.
"Rig, where are we going?!" Spirit yells, continuing to make platforms.
"Anywhere but Vivica!"
A small rock whizzes past Rig's side as they travel deeper back into the forest.
"Not the pebbles again!" Rig cries.
Spirit summons vertical platforms behind them, each barely deflecting the rock-bullets. "Rig! I can't keep this up forever!"
"I know, neither can I!" he says, nodding rhythmically through building lightheadedness in between every long jump. Their pursuer has almost closed the gap when the trees begin to clear and Rig's face lights up, "Wait! Over there!"
In a small clearing just a few leaps ahead and to the right, several small plumes of neat, grey smoke rise into the air behind a tall, wooden fence.
"What?! What is it?!"
"A village!" Rig points with the arm that carries Spirit, nearly dropping him, "We can lose him there! HANG ON TO YOUR BUTT!"
They enter a steep dive towards the settlement with a gut-wrenching sudden turn.
"Wha-?!"
Before Spirit can say anything in response, Rig launches the two of them straight towards the wooden gate, swinging his axe. Splinters scatter everywhere as they crash through, rolling a few times on the dirt before coming to a full halt.
"Rig…" Dazed and laying on his side, Spirit mutters, "You couldn't have thought of a better way to land?"
"Well," Rig coughs, "We could have tried knocking first."
"That, would certainly have been appreciated," an unfamiliar, steely voice interjects.
Spirit gasps as something smashes against his ribcage. When he reflexively rolls onto his back, he realizes it's a steel-toed boot belonging to a man with a five o' clock shadow. The man adjusts the lapel of his ash-grey duster and cracks his knuckles on the flat side of a leg-length, double-bladed tuning fork stuck into the ground beside him.
"Hey mister, I'm sorry if we interrupted your lunch," Rig whips out his axe, "but we have someone to get back to."
"What a coincidence, so do I," the man responds, and then kicks the fork.
The resulting ground shockwave knocks Rig off his feet and flips Spirit over. As they recover, they notice the few dozen other similarly clothed and rough-looking men surrounding them, all brandishing a variety of bladed weapons and equally sharp sneers. Even more pour out of canvas tents, filling in the ranks to lock them in place.
"So uh, Spirit," Rig says as the bandit leader's boot presses against his partner's back, "Remember that campfire we found?"
"I know, Rig," Spirit wheezes, "Just... get him off me!"
Rig flips his axe into shield mode and barrels towards the fork-wielding bandit, who dodges out of the way, leaving his weapon in the ground. Spirit rolls away and jumps to his feet, closing the gap to reach his teammate.
"So what can you do without your oversized fork?" Rig asks.
"Rig!" Spirit chides.
"This," the bandit says through a snicker and whistles, sending a deafening ripple of wind towards the pair from his mouth. Although Rig and Spirit dodge the blast itself, upon hitting the tuning fork, a concussive force sends them back to the ground, spasming due to a lack of muscle control.
Rig manages to stagger back and recover, whipping his weapon into shotgun form and firing a warning shot into the air. Wearing a bare-all face of focus, he takes advantage of the momentary intimidation and gravity rushes himself over to Spirit.
"Just make it past three," Rig mumbles to himself under a heave.
Grabbing Spirit, he then rushes once more, this time to dodge the bandit, who had recovered his fork and come at them with a hair-grazing swing. Another rush gets them just feet from the entrance, and then one more…
One more-
And Rig blacks out.
Just like their entrance, they come crashing through wood, their Auras flashing. Spirit raises his left arm and misfires with the wrong hookshot, a limp arrowhead pouring out the end by its wire and collapsing just inches from freedom. An impact to the back of his skull sends Spirit down too.
His head aches, his stomach grumbles, then his Aura subsides.
And he blacks out.
-XX・XX-
Spirit's stomach grumbles as he sits with rope tied around his hands, clutching his knees to his chest and watching meat slowly turn on a fire pit only half a dozen feet away.
"Well… at least we know they don't eat people," Spirit mumbles to himself.
Rig lays curled into a ball beside him, with both his arms and legs tied. His nose starts to move before anything else, and he flops awake onto his butt.
"Hey boss! They're awake!" The beefy guard at the tent entrance calls.
The tent flap opens and a bandit enters with a few more in tow behind him. Spirit straightens up, eyes widening as he notices it's the tuning fork wielder.
"Rise and shine, kids. Tell me," the leader says as he kneels down to their level, "Why'd you two idiots come tumbling into our camp?"
"Oh you know, we're just- t-tourists," Spirit blurts.
"Oh," he motions with faux awe, "Do tell me where you were planning to go."
"We're Hunters, and we're going to take you down," Rig says with indignation, puffing out his chest.
Spirit gives Rig an angry and confused glance.
"That would explain the weapons we found on you, and the powers, but yeah right- you have no IDs. You boys lost? Can't find your way home?"
"Maybe," Rig pouts.
Spirit realizes the act, and similarly makes a pitiable face.
"Perhaps you'd like me to take you home?"
"Really?" Spirit chimes in, "You'd do that?"
"Yeah," the leader leans in, smiling, "How about that cozy little village just a bit west of here?"
Spirit goes limp.
"What? But we're from Anchor," Rig protests.
"You can drop the act," the leader commands, straightening out.
Rig looks down and away, going meticulously quiet.
"Don't beat yourself up about it, kid," the bandit sneers, "That's our job. If our scouts hadn't been tracking you, I almost would've believed you just now."
He stands back up and turns to his men, "Get your gear. We're raiding in an hour." The bandit leader looks at the guard. "That includes you too."
The guard nods and they all exit the tent. Rig sniffs the air.
"Foood?" he calls with a hint of melancholy.
"You and your nose again, Rig. Did you shove a smoke detector up there when you were little or something?"
"It'd be a lie to say I didn't put anything up my nose," Rig giggles mischievously.
"Gross. Didn't your mom teach you better than that?"
"Did your mom teach you how to untie a knot with no hands?"
"Wait, what? If you're telling me you could have gotten us out of here an hour ago, then you better have a couple of ice packs on you."
"No ice, but I do think we have fire," Rig replies coyly, nodding his head towards the fire pit.
"How's that gonna help us?"
"Moral support- but also a distraction if we need one."
"How are you so calm right now?!" Spirit whispers angrily.
"Even hostage situations can be fun if you have your buddies- well, usually, at least."
"In case you're forgetting, Rig, we have a buddy waiting for us back at the camp and -wait," Spirit looks around the dark, crate-packed tent, "how long were we out for?"
Rig shrugs. Spirit looks at the tent's flap entrance.
"Can you blow it open a bit to let some sunlight in? I didn't really get a chance to see while we were being interrogated."
Rig scrunches his mouth, "Been a while since I had to do something that precise, but let's see."
He strains rapidly against his bindings, moving like a worm to send himself flying a little bit away. As he lands, air rushes and folds the flap open for a few seconds.
The bright yellow light of midday sun peeks in and they see many, many pairs of legs.
"Did you see that? They're all gathering outside- it's like an army!" Spirit exclaims.
"Mhmph," Rig responds, slowly mulching a large chunk of meat into his mouth.
"Rig."
"Mphaph?" Rigs eyes widen and he nods eagerly.
"At least give me some, would you? I'm starving."
Rig launches himself back and rolls towards Spirit, who stares angstily at the food in his friend's mouth before going, "Nevermind, you can have it."
With glee, Rig continues to work at the food as Spirit taps his foot patiently.
"Could you untie us already?"
"Mph," Rig swallows, "Sorry, it was tasty."
Spirit watches Rig contort, stretching his arms and shoulders to bring the bindings under his feet and over to his mouth. He sinks his teeth into the rope, making a plethora of activated chewing noises.
When it starts going on for a bit too long, Spirit speaks up, "Is that how your mom taught you to do it?"
"Oh gosh no. She taught me to do it like this."
POW!
With a swaggering heave of his chest, Rig uses his gravity rush to rip his hands apart.
"Great, now only if she could have taught me. You're not biting the rope off of my hands by the way."
"Nope. Watch and learn," Rig says, grabbing Spirit's wrists in one hand and angling a chop at the center of the rope with his other.
"Wait, wait, wait-!"
POW!
Rig tenses his shoulder and brings his hand down with an air-warping force clean through the rope. As Spirit rubs his newly freed wrists, Rig falls over onto his side.
"Rig, are you okay?"
"Probably," he mumbles, and after a little wiggling around to regain his senses, adds, "My legs are still tied."
"Yeah, hang on. I gotcha."
Spirit manually unties Rig's legs with both hands.
"So what now?" Rig asks.
"Well, I would presume we're going to try and escape. But so would our favorite stalker."
"So he's just waiting for us?"
"Exactly- probably until right after all these bandits march out and then- Clap!" Spirit claps his hands, "he swoops in and takes us away to whatever twisted rat-hole they throw AWOL Hunters in. So as you can tell, we need to escape before they leave."
"What about as they're leaving? That way, we can confuse everyone."
"That- might work?"
"Yeah, one of us can play keep away while the other sneaks around and finds an escape route."
"Can we actually pull that off? We would need to find our weapons first," Spirit feels for his pockets, "They took our map, too."
"Yeah, you're right. And also, I think that was my last shotgun shell back there, so…"
"We need to find supplies and locate our weapons before anything else."
Rig stands and kicks open one of the nearby crates, filling the room with a dim red light from inside. He reaches in and pulls out a small, red Dust crystal full of little grey capsules indicating impurity.
Spirit helps him open a few more crates, only to find much of the same.
"Did they really put us in the same tent as crates and crates of explosives?" Spirit scoffs.
"Well, don't get excited," Rig frowns as he examines the crystal, "in Atlas, we call this Slack Dust."
"Slack- Dust?"
"Yeah, it's basically an intermediary byproduct of pure Dust processing, because during preliminary retrograde purification there's always impure, natural ore deposit-laden chaff that gets sifted out and -wham- Slack Dust. Any questions?" Rig asks, motioning with the crystal the whole time.
"Yeah… One, how do you know all that, and how do you know all those big words?"
"That was two."
Spirit groans, "You get the point."
Without skipping a beat, Rig starts up, "This stuff's gonna be more or less useless without something to set it off, so-"
Rig crouches near the campfire. With an eager expression, he reaches his arm out and drops the crystal in, resulting in a blast about as loud as a finger snap and a puff of black smoke.
"Rig, can you not alert the entire camp while you're playing mad scientist with Slap Dust?"
Rig goes back to the crates and fills his cargo short pockets with as much as they can fit.
Spirit puts his hand to his chin, "So, let's split up then. You take-"
"I'll sneak, you distract," Rig interrupts, crawling out under the rear left wall of the tent.
"Guess I'll check the boss's tent for our weapons," Spirit mutters and slips out under the right side.
Spirit exposes himself for a brief moment before quickly moving under the next tent spaced just a few feet away from the last. He moves swiftly and quietly enough that a few of the bandits who turn around shrug off the unusual shuffling as wind.
"Okay. First tent…" Spirit whispers as he looks around.
The sight of just a wooden table and a few cylindrical logs as makeshift chairs immediately dashes his hopes. His eyes quickly scan the table, telling him there are only a few half-eaten plates and a small amount of Lien the bandits left lying around. Spirit grabs the money and one of the drumsticks with a large bite in it. He peels off a small, unchewed portion of the meat before tossing it into his mouth like a piece of gum. Although it's cold and gamey, his starvation makes it taste like Mother's cooking.
Hearing voices nearby, Spirit rolls through the back of the tent just as one of the bandits steps inside, laughing. The laughter stops abruptly.
"Rick!" The footsteps now grow distant, leading towards the tent entrance, "Did you take my Lien again, you greedy pinhead?!"
"Who're you calling pinhead, you lying punk?!"A second voice replies from outside, "I didn't touch your filthy pocket change!"
Loud scuffling ensues and is soon overlapped with cheers from the other bandits. Spirit faces the next tent, which is much farther away than the space between the last two tents. Its relatively large size and dark color catches Spirit's eye even before the bandit leader storms outside with his fork at the ready. Just as the leader passes by while screaming incomprehensibly amidst the chaos, Spirit sprints for the tent and rolls underneath.
The yelling from outside dies as Spirit gets up. Various treasures surround him here, including a plaque-mounted, fake Grimm skull, a large, ornate flower vase chock full of various swords, and ceramic wares encrusted with twinkling gemstones. In the center of it all is a out-of-style leather chair standing in front of a fine wooden desk. Spirit stands over the desk, pocketing the Lien laying on the leader's table.
"Consider that your entertainment fee," Spirit whispers to himself, "Hope you enjoyed our company."
After taking the last of the money, he picks up a piece of old parchment left on the desk:
Their map.
In its fully repaired form, to be exact. Tape has been sloppily slapped across, connecting the ripped-off Atlas portion with the rest of Remnant.
With a sigh of relief, Spirit lowers the map and involuntarily looks to a corner. He breathes in more than usual on the next inhale.
Their weapons.
Spirit clicks on his hookshots. He clenches his fists, feeling a surge of warmth as if his Aura is overcharging.
"Alright, Rig. You want a distraction?" Spirit narrates, picking up Rig's axe, "I'll distract the whole continent."
On the other side of the camp, Rig comes across a large backpack hidden behind one of the many metal cots in the tent. Heaving it up, he dumps out its contents, which turn out to be a rock collection with each colorful stone individually packaged in its own small, clear case. They make a, thankfully, quiet plastic clatter as they tumble out.
"That's one way to get your rocks off," Rig snickers, and stands.
Whatever boxes and chests remain in the tent are promptly opened and sifted through, although Rig finds little but dirty clothes and knick-knacks. Before he slips out the back and heads to another tent, he takes one of the rocks, a small orange topaz, as a keepsake, shoving it into the backpack.
Inside the next tent, Rig finds a pantry beside a few portable Dust-powered grills and ovens. He clears through most of its contents without wasting a second, cramming whatever looks good and whatever he can manage into the backpack in between gobbling down any bit of unpackaged food. Rig turns on the cooking devices, tossing Slack Dust into each and causing them to belch flames.
Before the entire inside of the tent can catch fire, he escapes into an alley between tents. As Rig rounds a corner however, a person-shaped blur lands in front of him into a crouch. It stands up and he gets a clearer view:
The Hooded Hunter.
Rig groans, rolling his eyes, "You again?"
"Me again," he quips with a 'yeah I know' look.
A yell coming from their left catches both of them off-guard.
"Boss!" One of the bandits finally cries out, "The kids are gone!"
"Y'know- This place is a little cramped," Rig says and turns to run towards the center of the camp.
"What?!" The bandit leader yells back, "Find them and chop off their legs if you have to!"
"Fire! Fire!" another bandit calls out, causing everyone to whip their heads over to the source, that being kitchen tent that has become almost fully engulfed.
"Belay that order, I'm going to take their heads!" The boss yells, face turning shades of red as he runs off to his tent.
He doesn't even make it a couple steps before Rig pops out between a couple of tents with the Hooded Hunter hot on his heels.
"There you are!" The bandit leader fumes, brandishing his double-blade at him, "I'm going to break you, you little-!"
The Hooded Hunter grabs Rig by the scruff and throws the boy behind him, "Yeah, I can't let you do that."
"Wha-?! There's three of you now?!" A vein pops out of the side of the leader's head, "Who are you supposed to be?!"
"That isn't relevant. I'll be out of your hair soon anyways, with these two troublemakers."
"Does this look like an open-house to you?! I'm not letting you take them in any less than two pieces!" The bandit leader extends his blade out, "And you're not going anywhere, either!"
"Then I have a bit of a conundrum on my hands," the Hunter responds.
When the leader rushes forward, the Hooded Hunter slaps down his tuning fork, burying it into the ground. The Hooded Hunter swings around its long handle and slams his knees into the bandit's face, sending him flying backwards.
Just as the leader manages to land back on his feet, Spirit bursts out of the big tent to everyone's left. He hookshots out to a totem pole in the middle of the camp, madly swinging Rig's axe and managing to take down a few bandits here and there before sticking the landing and balancing precariously atop the wood pole. Bandits begin to swarm the bottom and clamber up as Spirit starts panickedly flipping Rig's weapon between modes.
"How do you even use this thing?!"
"Don't know!" Rig calls back, having started to run away from encroaching bandits and towards the burning tent.
He grabs a spear out of a nearby basket and dips the wood end into the flames, then turns to face his pursuers. Reaching into his pocket, Rig tosses a handful of Slap Dust through the fire, causing it to explode in their faces as it activates.
Using his whistling wind, the bandit leader shifts the flames towards the Hooded Hunter. They fly by like dragons in an inferno, forcing the Hunter to dodge whilst spreading the raging fire throughout the camp.
"Catch!"
A dull thuck behind Rig makes him turn around, seeing Spirit's hookshot impale itself into the camp wall by the busted entranceway. Hearing a whoosh right after, Rig spins to catch his shield-moded weapon just in time to block a bandit's club.
He puts his weight behind a shove, knocking the bandit over before rushing off.
"Sweet!" Rig says as he gets a good feel of his weapon again.
"Let's go!" Spirit yells by the camp gate.
Rig gravity rushes to grab onto his friend before they zip off, leaving the rest of the bandits in a fiery panic. It only takes the Hooded Hunter a few moments to realize his targets are retreating yet again.
"Gentlemen," the Hunter says as he casually sidesteps another flame attack, "As fun as this warmup has been, I really must get going."
"YOU'RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE!" the leader screams, charging with his recovered Fork-blades.
"Not without leaving a present," the Hooded Hunter responds, dodging the attack and slapping the side of his foe's head.
This sends the bandit flying with a sudden change of direction and he comes down crashing through his own tent. The Hooded Hunter evades the remaining bandits around the totem pole and uses it to fling himself after Rig and Spirit, who by now are disappearing into the distance.
Crawling out from under the canvas wreckage, the leader rallies the bandits with an angry yell.
"AFTER THEM! WE'LL MAKE SURE THEIR RAGGED VILLAGE HAS NOTHING LEFT TO LOSE TOO!"
Distracted by their last-ditch firefighting, the soot-covered bandits do not respond. The leader sighs.
"... After we take care of the fires," he mutters.
-XX・XX-
"Did we lose him?!" Rig yells as he continues platform-hopping.
"I don't know!" Spirit replies, barely managing to maintain his swing with only one hookshot. "I really can't turn around right now! Get rid of that backpack, it's slowing us down!"
"No!" Rig cries in protest.
"What?! Why?!"
Rig reaches into one of the pockets and shoves a piece of meat into his friend's mouth. Spirit tries protesting as he chews, but once he swallows, the annoyance on his face melts.
"I see your point and I got nothin'. Just check behind us, would you?"
As Rig tries to turn his head, he feels a golf-ball sized impact from behind. His back reflexively arches as he yelps. He lands on the next tree, taking a second to recompose himself before jumping again.
"It hurts, but I'm ok!" Rig rubs at his side as his Aura glimmers, "I don't think he's playing around anymore though!"
Spirit grits his teeth before yelling, "Then we won't either! Land to the clearing to our right!"
With a confused expression, Rig makes a hard right with Spirit. They soar a little farther before stopping in a small, grassy part of the forest, devoid of trees.
"Why are we stopping?"
"To fight."
"Huh?!"
"We need to overwhelm him now before he follows us back to Vivica!"
"But how?"
"With as much brute force as we can muster."
"I don't know, Spirit. Didn't he save us from that Behemoth the first time we ran into him? And from the camp, too?"
"Exactly! He clearly needs us alive for whatever reason! We can use that to our advantage and break him!"
"That's a little harsh…"
"And so was him using me as a meatshield!" Spirit braces himself as something blurs towards them, "Come on, we're doing this!"
The Hooded Hunter lands, lifting himself back to his feet slowly. He dusts himself off.
"Are you two finished running yet? Because I'm getting real sick and tired of this."
"Salty because you're 'it,' ya slowpoke?" Rig asks with a grin.
"Adorable," he says, taking a wide stance in preparation for any predictable retreat, "For managing to escape this long, I'm going to give you both an ultimatum."
The Hooded Hunter motions with a handful of rocks, "The next time you both run, I'm aiming for the back of your heads and I won't miss. So unless you want that to happen, you can make this easier for everyone involved and put an end to this ridiculous, month-long game of cat-and-mouse."
"That's why we're not running," Spirit says, putting on the most confident expression he can muster, "You're gonna pay for what you did back there to Rig."
"Yeah!" Rig hoots, maintaining eye-contact with the Hooded Hunter and then whispering to Spirit, "What the heck are we doing?!"
"Bash him on my signal."
"And what's the signal?"
Spirit feels for the mushy pile in one of his pockets, "You'll know."
"So be it," the Hunter shrugs, and charges straight for them.
Spirit runs toward him as well, while Rig trails from behind. The two sides rapidly close the gap. Once the distance between them is only a few meters apart, Spirit lifts his arm and fires his hookshot. The Hunter dodges to the side, turning for a perfect split-second to see the hookshot impale itself to a tree behind him. When he turns back around, Spirit's other hand slaps into his face with a handful of stinging berry mush.
In less than a moment, Rig's eyes narrow with cold and focused recognition. He lowers into a stance so rigidly that his feet dig into the ground, readying his axe for the widest swing possible. Each individual muscle's tension and release rings out as Rig's frame enters the free fall of a full-on attack leading into a gravity rush. Pushing off from the ground, the pocket of force extends beyond merely a kickstart and follows him through the air like a sustained acceleration. Surprised by the extra force, Rig barely manages to flip the double-headed axe to its blunt side before impact.
The air shivers from the blow just before a cannonball-like boom blasts throughout the forest, dropping small beehives nearby like fragrant grenades. Their opponent visibly bends over sideways before flying straight into a tree at mach speed, crashing straight through a first and well into a second. Wooden debris and bees form an artificial smokescreen as the Hooded Hunter disappears from view.
Spirit pulls the arm he used to cover his face from splinters away, "That was insane! How did you just do that?!"
"I… just kinda held it I guess?" Rig answers, knees wavering. He nearly collapses before Spirit catches him falling backwards.
"You alright?" Spirit asks.
"Yeah, just a little woozy."
"Well, at least this time you didn't pass out."
"I sure didn't!" Rig squeaks and jumps to his feet, barely balancing.
"Let's hope the same can't be said about our biggest fan over there."
"Where?"
"You know, past that living barrier of death," Spirit shrugs towards the whirlwind of bees blocking off an entire swath of forest, "Hope he's allergic to those stupid things."
"But bumblebees are cute."
Spirit shrugs, "I prefer ladybugs."
"Can we compromise with 'pollinating' insects?"
"I don't know… that sounds really dirty for some reason."
Rig pops his tongue out, "Anything can be dirty if you put your mind to it! Like that trick you pulled- I can't believe you came up with saving the berries all day for that! It's so smart!"
"Yeah, you really don't wanna know how the inside of my pants feel right now…"
"Spirit, I thought we agreed to keep our private time to ourselves!"
"RIG. STOP."
"Sorry, yeah, we don't have time for jokes."
"Right. We have to get back to Vivica and warn the villagers."
"And find Kanoa," Rig adds.
"Yeah- of course."
As soon as he latches back onto Rig, the two of them fly off with a gravity rush, aided by the steering power of Spirit's only working hookshot. They land at where their camp was supposed to be a few minutes later, only to find it empty.
The pair splits up in a search.
"Kanoa!" Rig calls out with both hands by his mouth, "Kanoaaa! We're leaving! Where are yoooouuu?!"
"She's gone, Rig," Spirit says, emerging from the nearby brush with a scowl.
Rig stands in the middle of the camp, looking around vacantly in silence. He turns back to Spirit with a sullen face.
"No. She wouldn't just leave us like that."
"Well, she did."
Rig frowns, "Isn't it a little early to assume-"
"She's not here, Rig," Spirit says with a bit more weight to his words, "Stop worrying about the unimportant things and let's get a move on. We've wasted enough time as is."
Rig stares straight into Spirit's eyes, "What's that supposed to mean?"
"What's what supposed to mean?"
"You don't abandon your team members."
"But we're not a team. As far as I'm concerned, she was the one who chose to tag along."
"Is that how you always thought about it? Just because it wasn't your choice, you get to treat her like how you treated Nima and Flora?"
"Nima and Flora stuck around because they had to. And since Kanoa didn't, she just left."
"Well maybe she wouldn't have left if you didn't treat her like that before!"
Spirit goes quiet. Shortly after averting his eyes, he glares back at his friend.
"Don't make this my fault, Rig."
"Spirit, I'm just worried, ok? What if something happened to her while we were gone?"
The two of them fall silent.
"...Well," Spirit mumbles, "She did take her radio..."
"Wait- radio?"
"Yeah, I found it earlier while you two were out berry hunting."
"What do you think she was doing with her radio? Maybe she stayed up all night listening to it?"
"I don't think that honestly matters. All that does is that she's probably heading back to Vivica as we speak."
"Then we have to beat her there."
-XX・XX-
The Hooded Hunter watches the sun begin to make its descent, sitting on a thick tree branch several stories above the forest canopy. One hand holds a Scroll to his ear, and the other rests limply in his lap.
"What took you so long?" a voice on the other end chimes in.
"I took a real bad hit during a little wrangling sesh with the kids. For whatever reason, it took me hours of dragging my butt through the middle of nowhere to even find a signal.
"I thought you said you could take on this assignment alone."
"It's a little more complicated than that. I- Listen, those two seem to just court danger wherever they go. I could really use the backup."
"Fine. What's the nearest CCT relay to you?
"Seems to be this one near some place called Anchor."
"Like the old Atlas colony?"
"Don't know."
"Whatever. Go there, rest up, and wait for further notice. I'll contact you again when we're ready to drop by, so just lay low."
"Yeah, thanks," The Hooded Hunter trails off before piping in, "One more thing."
"Huh?"
He rubs a patch of swollen bumps on his side with his elbow. The Hooded Hunter sighs.
"You think they have any ointment for bee stings over in Anchor?"
"How should I know?"
The voice on the other end trails off and the call drops. As soon as the Scroll turns dark, the wounded Hunter gasps, letting out a pained exhale. He's loud enough to startle a nearby squirrel, scaring it right back into its tree hole. Leaning his head back and sighing, he rests his working arm over his wounded one.
This is gonna be a long night.
-XX・XX-