Chapter 6: Trust Issues

Pilot wearily trudged through the forest, every step a torment to his injured leg.

How long had they been walking? It must have been over 40 minutes, if his perception of time was correct. His head hung low, though every few moments he glanced up at the sniper scuffling sluggishly in front of him.

He will change again. Filthy, treacherous zebra. Must stay wary, Pilot thought to himself, almost waiting for his drained-looking companion to turn into a monster any moment and eat him.

Suddenly Snippy raised his arm, and with suspicion in his keen eyes Pilot stopped and watched, judging his companion's every move – but it turned out that the shoe was just scratching the back of his head. Sighing in relief, Pilot resumed a more relaxed stance and continued walking.

Maybe what he said is really true. Could it be? Pilot wondered. The alien scarf was very pale and didn't seem to be doing so well, but Snippy seemed all drunk and dazed too. Hmm...

Thoughtfully, he watched the sniper dragging his feet and occasionally raising his hand to his forehead with a moan.

His leg was too damaged to run and in the condition Snippy was in, he could turn at any moment.

What should I do?

In front of him, said person was visibly shivering. Was he cold? Pilot remembered that the sniper often trembled like that when he came home with an injury. But when they spoke earlier, the sniper didn't look hurt at all.

Perhaps he just caught a cold and is getting sick. Who knew? People could be so fragile, after all.

As if he had heard Pilot's thoughts, the exhausted-looking man in front of him suddenly stopped in his tracks and stood with his hands on his knees, seeming to breathe quite laboriously. The way he stood and threatened to fall over a few times gave Pilot clear signs that he wasn't doing so well.

"Hey Pilot..." Snippy turned to him and uttered. "Mind if we rest here for a while?"

"Ugh... okay," the aviator reluctantly agreed, but felt slightly annoyed; he didn't feel in need of a break at all.

Snippy approached a massive tree stump, took the backpack from his hurting shoulders and sat down with a long sigh. Pilot seated himself on a different trunk nearby. A good forty minutes' walk lay behind them, but for some reason it exhausted the sniper a lot more than he thought it would, which seemed rather odd. Was the Biomatrix to blame for this? For now he could only speculate.

He rid his aching feet of their black boots and began stretching his stiff toes, then he grabbed his left boot and turned it upside down, trying to get out the sharp-edged rock he'd been walking with for who-knows-how-long.

Once he finally felt comfortable, a long, silent yawn escaped him.

Oh how great it would be to be home now... he thought longingly as he began putting his boots back on.

Snippy opened the zipper of his backpack and felt relieved to see that his supplies didn't get destroyed in the crash.

"Are you hungry? I've brought some canned food with me; we can share it if you want," he offered to his comrade.

"No," Pilot muttered flatly and turned his head away. "The gooblegooks tell me that red high heels cannot be trusted."

Snippy indifferently shrugged off Pilot's nonsense, pulled down his mask, opened one of the cans and began to eat. He'd been through too much today to still have enough energy left to let his companion upset him, so he decided to stop thinking about it and try to relax for now. Being at the edge of exhaustion, he definitely needed every minute of rest he could get before they moved on.

Silently he looked about and saw a gleam of light at the end of the road, where the density of the dead forest progressively loosened. Spending most of today in darkness had left him feeling rather gloomy, so Snippy felt relieved that he would still get to see at least a glimpse of the sun before it set, even if its light was damped by thick ash clouds.

He cast a glance at Pilot, who sat on the other tree trunk, tightening the bandage on his left leg. Snippy thought this would be a great moment to make an attempt at getting through to him and find out why he'd been avoiding him to such extreme ends.

"So... what's on your mind?" he carefully began the conversation, setting his can aside.

Pilot didn't respond and only gave him a short glance, before he continued fiddling with the bandage, even more nervously than before. Snippy's patience didn't last very long, and after receiving no reply for a while he just sighed and continued eating his cold rice and vegetables.

From the corner of his eye he eventually noticed that Pilot stared at him every time he looked down into his can. Eventually the awkwardness reached a point where Snippy just wanted to tell him to stop it, but obviously that wouldn't help.

"Oh come on..." Snippy eventually grunted. "You've been acting weird ever since we started walking, refuse to accept anything from me for no reason, and now you're giving me the silent treatment? How much longer are you gonna keep this attitude up?"

Pilot flinched in an almost-ridiculously dramatic way at the sniper's admonishment.

"We're supposed to work together!" the sniper exhorted him further.

"Holy lights of Captania, keep the angry high heel away from me!" Pilot yelped nervously, hiding behind a cross he just formed with his two index fingers. "I will find my way back to Captain alone if I must..."

"No you won't. Just look at your injured leg. A steep descent is up ahead, and we both know that you won't make it far without my help."

Pilot suddenly froze as if he had completely forgotten about it for a moment, then he stared at the bandages, slumping his shoulders and hugging himself in distress, avoiding further eye contact. But no matter how hard he tried to hide it, to Snippy he was showing clear signs of feeling uncomfortable about his impairment, which awoke a growing feeling of compassion in him.

"Look... I'm the only one here who can help you, but... you see, it's no use if you don't let me," Snippy carefully explained. "So will you cooperate?"

His green-eyed crew-mate looked very clueless about what to do.

"Let's seal it with a good old-fashioned handshake, eh?" the sniper suggested, trying his best to not lose his confidence.

With that, he slowly extended his hand, and after some hesitation, Pilot did the same.

But the very moment their hands grasped one another, a strange energy shot through Snippy's arm, feeling like a thousand needles tinctured with a numbing poison rocketing down his shoulder and curling around his hand. He felt the scarf around his neck stir, then it took the shape of a snake and arose from its sleeping position.

"OUCH! MY HAND!" Pilot screamed in terror and jumped back, legs kicking wildly, tumbling backward.

"I KNEW IT! IT'S BEEN WAITING FOR ME TO GET CLOSE ALL THIS TIME!" he yelled at the top of his lungs.

"No! Listen Pilot, it's not-" Snippy tried, but the other man continued to drown out everything he said with screams of senseless accusations and loud cries.

It all seemed hopeless, until something completely unexpected happened. Snippy saw a bunch of needles shooting by his head at Pilot and felt alarmed as he yelped in terror. Instinctively Snippy ducked for cover, trying to figure out what direction the shots came from – until he realized that his scarf was the one who fired them, and was just about to produce some more from its red skin.

In that instant he grabbed the scarf and choked it, feeling the needles boring into his hands, but he didn't care.

"What did you do?!"

"I sedated him," the Biomatrix answered calmly.

"You did WHAT!? WHY?" Snippy shouted in agitation, gripping the scarf even tighter.

"Oh, I completely forgot you are unable to perceive status reports on other sentient beings. Let me inform you that your friend's heart rate was rising critically, so we took action and made sure he wouldn't die of organ failure. You should thank us for it."

"That's not the point! You can't just go around sedating people!"

"We also required a little donation of organic resources to restore our body, which you alone were unable to provide after we had to completely drain out our organic matter in order to return you to your previous state. But thankfully your friend was kind enough to provide it."

"That's it... You've gone too far," he hissed, barely able to contain his anger.

With that, Snippy grabbed both ends of the scarf, wrung it out vigorously, and tied it into a tight triple knot around his neck.

"NOOooooo...!" The scarf screeched in pain and fell silent.

Next to him Pilot was quietly sobbing and groaning on the ground. Snippy watched the poor guy trying to wriggle away from him like an animal with a broken leg, and deep regret welled up in him.

"Pilot...!" he called out, concern in his voice.

Snippy tried to fight the urge to check on him, as he knew that his companion wouldn't allow it after what happened, but no answer came from the ailing aviator, and his senseless flailing continued.

"Pilot, stop!"

Without spending any further thoughts on what may happen, Snippy skidded over to him and held Pilot down. For a while Pilot flinched and wriggled under the sniper's weight, trying to fight him off, but his strength was starting to fade.

"Let go of me, slug!" he snarled defiantly. His voice trembled, though, as if he was... frightened?

"P-Please listen to me... I understand that you are scared of my red scarf – you have good reason to be. But I swear, I will make sure that you will be safe around me from now on," Snippy tried to console him, though desperation tinged his tone. "You have to trust me on this one, you hear me?"

His frightened comrade finally relaxed, though the sniper wasn't sure if it was courtesy of his words or the effect of the sedative needles kicking in. After getting off him, he indicated him to turn around so that Pilot was lying on his back. Quickly he spotted the needles in his comrade's chest and neck, then proceeded to pluck them out one by one. To his surprise, Pilot didn't even try to resist, though he incessantly kept his eyes on Snippy.

"I know this may all be hard for you to understand right now, but you've got to believe me. My psychopathic scarf did this to you, and up until it happened I had no idea that it planned to tap you."

Snippy took a deep breath, removed the last needle from Pilot's neck and set it down with the others.

"...But I handled it, and... I have it under control now—this time for good. You don't have to be afraid anymore, and I promise that everything's going to be alright from now on. I won't ever let it hurt you again."

Slowly Pilot sat up, and after a while he finally dared to take his eyes off Snippy. Tentatively, the sniper reached out and laid his hand on Pilot's shoulder.

"I know it's a lot to ask for, but you gotta trust me. Please try, at least for today... This concerns both of us, so it is very important that you listen to me."

Pilot sighed shakily, slowly relaxing his shoulders and nodding in agreement.

"O-okay... I will try," he finally responded, and a smile formed on Snippy's face, hidden below his mask.

The train rattled as it suddenly began to slow down, making alarming noises that indicated that something wasn't right.

Engie jumped up from his seat, instantly checking all the levers and power displays, and felt disconcerted when he couldn't find anything.

"No, No… Please don't tell me something is busted for good. It worked perfectly all this time, and now… !" he uttered, knocking on the displays and frantically fiddling with the levers. "Come on, this isn't supposed to happen. What made the propulsion stop so suddenly?"

He brought his hands to his head in despair, trying to come up with a solution. Captain got up from his seat and strolled over to Engie's side.

"Hmm..." he hummed, his thumb and index finger stroking over the lower part of his gas mask. "I think I know what is missing."

"How-" Engie spluttered. "I mean, what do you think is missing, Captain?"

The train got slower and slower as Captain left the engineer waiting impatiently for an answer, until they finally drew to a halt, stuck at the entrance of a terrifying tunnel. Engie deeply hoped that it wasn't inhabited by enormous tunneler worms.

Captain stared down at the stuffed teddy bear sitting in the front window.

"Mr. Teddy, I have to inform you that you have failed in your job as a surrogate hula doll. You are fired!"

"Uhm..." Gromov tried to make sense out of Captain. "How is that of any importance right now? We're stuck here, and the damn train won't move!"

Again he tried to push the buttons and levers, but to no avail. In that second, Captain turned to look at him, and the engineer could nearly feel his piercing cold stare.

"Doctor Engie, we just lost an important employee," the Captain said sternly, making Engie flinch. "I hereby promote you to his rank."

"What."

"From now on you are to do the hula doll's task in this train. It is of utmost importance that you perform your task well."

"You want me to... dance?" Engie choked out disbelievingly and had to suppress a giggle.

"Yes, mein engineer! Swing your hips and dance, like you are merely seventeen! For you are the dancing queen!"

"No. I will not dance," he refused and went to sit down on his chair.

Before he could lower himself onto the chair, it was torn out from under his bum and he painfully fell on his tailbone.

"Resistance is futile, Mr. Engie," Captain spoke, holding the wooden chair in one hand. "Now jump up and show me your moves!"

Gromov sluggishly got up with a frown behind his goggles, slowly rubbing his now terribly aching backside. He stood there frozen and was caught off-guard as Captain grabbed his hands.

"Now come on, mein minion! I will show you how it's done," the Captain told him and shook his hands like the reigns of a horse.

The enthusiastic leader swung his arms and started to sing the lyrics of Abba's "Dancing Queen" as music began to play out of seemingly nowhere.

At some point Engie stopped wondering if Seven had secretly repaired the radio of the train in a moment he wasn't looking, or if it just miraculously started working because of his infinite luck.

"Come, Doctor Engie! Let us dance, and all our worries will disappear!" he commanded, pulling that heap of grumpiness along.

After almost stumbling into Captain, Gromov tried to tell himself that this wasn't so bad, so he bashfully attempted to imitate Captain's dance moves.

"You are the dancing queen, young and sweet, only seventeen~!" the Captain sang along in a surprisingly clear voice.

For a moment Gromov forgot about his worries and actually started to enjoy the embarrassing tune and danced in almost perfect unison with his leader.

Captain let go of Engie's left hand and they began to spin through the room. At some point Captain almost stumbled into the controls board, but managed to catch himself. The song continued playing for what felt like forever, until the train suddenly came back to life, the floor below their feet vibrating satisfyingly.

Engie's heart was pounding heavily, and he wasn't quite sure if it was because of his excitement over the sudden start of the machines or from exhaustion from the dance he had just performed.

He pushed the lever up, and... the train began to roll.

Many thanks to eight_0f_hearts and Corv for proof-reading this chapter!