"Can I help you?" Caspian asked over the booming drums, which were now joined with some rhythmic chanting. When K didn't answer, he flipped a switch in his cage and the music got louder.
K stepped forward into the office, still desperately trying to wrap his mind around what he was seeing. The office ceiling was littered with ominous red lights, and the deafeningly eerie music was coming from several large speakers that were scattered around the room. K blinked to make sure he wasn't seeing things, and peered into the red light, trying to figure out what was happening.
Near a large cage against one of the walls was what looked like a control box. The dastardly parrot was seated amongst the controls, pushing buttons and cackling. K couldn't see what the small green terror was controlling until he followed the wire that was issuing from the box. When his eyes reached their destination, he gasped.
The other side of the office has been partially blocked off with heavy red curtains. At the base of the curtains were gigantic golden pots, and K wasn't sure what their purpose was. Behind the curtains was a large conveyor belt that was slowly moving forward. Positioned over the belt were various weapons; Caspian had affixed everything from kitchen cleavers to war maces to machetes to the ceiling.
"Like what you see? I do parties, too." Caspian said from the controls. K glanced over his shoulder just in time to see the devil bird stomp on a large button. A few seconds later, fire erupted from the golden bowls, giving the room an even creepier atmosphere.
K jumped back from the bowls and walked closer to the conveyor belt, slightly scared of what he would find.
"Hey! Get away from there!" Caspian screeched, flapping his wings and pushing a few more buttons. Some of the weapons swung forward, towards K.
K ducked just in time, and realized that all of the blades the bird had stockpiled were on moving arms, capable of making slicing and chopping motions on the belt. He crawled forward, staying low to avoid decapitation, and only pulled himself up when he was right next to the conveyor belt. Once he was on his knees, he poked the top half of his head over the edge of the belt and almost fell over backwards with shock; he was face to face with Yuki.
"MMMph!" Yuki yelled through his gag. His eyes were popping and his hair looked like it had been ravaged by the conure; copious amounts of it were missing, and there were several bald spots.
"Holy…" K muttered, standing up and turning around to face the bird.
"Step away from the belt or the rat gets it." Caspian said, gingerly perching himself on a lever and bouncing slightly. The blades twitched a little over Yuki and he yelled again, trying to roll off of the belt. "I'm warning you…"
"You're warning me?" K asked, summoning all of his bravado to face the murderous pipsqueak. "Seriously?"
"Alright then." Caspian answered, completely unflustered. "It's go time."
Caspian jumped up and down on the lever a few times, and his contraption creaked into action. Yuki sat up to avoid the first cleaver chop, and desperately tried to roll off of the belt again.
K ignored the parrot and turned back to Yuki. He tried to start untying the ropes around Yuki's waist and legs, but he couldn't make his hands move.
"Oh…" K muttered, remembering the rules that governed him as a genie. He couldn't intervene randomly, he was bound by the rules of the lamp to only fulfill wishes. He cleared his throat and leaned closer to Yuki. "You have to wish for me to save you."
As he couldn't coherently respond, Yuki simply glared at K and gestured with his head and the sinister blades descending towards him. He rolled to the side as best as he could to miss one of the machetes.
"Can't help you without the wish, you have to say-OUCH!" K screamed. Caspian had landed on his shoulder and was occupied with ferociously biting his neck.
K tried to slap the blood-sucking bird off, but Caspian instead sank his beak into K's fingers, holding on for dear life. K grabbed Caspian's tail and tried to yank him off, but to no avail. When his yanking resulted in Caspian losing a tail feather, the bird immediately let go and flew up to K's face, taking a chunk out of the man's nose before he could defend himself. Caspian flew back to the control panel and pulled on another lever, causing the blades and other weapons to move faster.
"Just make the wish!" K yelled in a slightly higher pitched voice; he had one hand tightly clamped over his bleeding nose.
Yuki made a few incomprehensible sounds and started to twitch frantically.
"Works for me." K said, snapping his fingers and causing a large cage to fall on top of Caspian, who was in attack formation and aiming for K, successfully imprisoning the raving lunatic. Caspian started yelling and running around the small cage in circles, trying to find a way out. When he saw K smiling at his misfortune, he charged the bars of the cage and knocked himself unconscious. K spared a few seconds for laughing at the defeated maniac and then snapped again. The control box exploded, showering the room with sparks. "That should do it."
Instead of stopping, however, the conveyor belt of doom only sped up. Smoke was billowing out of the mechanical arms and the blades were chopping randomly. Yuki held perfectly still, hoping against hope that nothing vital would get lobbed off.
"Shit." K said, wishing he had thought things through more. Before he could intervene, the machine sped up even more and subsequently exploded, sending the weapons flying all over the room. K shrieked and hit the floor as a throwing spear whizzed by his head.
When the thunks and metallic clanging noises stopped, K raised his head a fraction of an inch and squinted through the hazy smoke. On the conveyor belt, Yuki wasn't moving. K went numb. He jumped off of the floor and ran over to Yuki's still form. K checked for a pulse and breathed a sigh of relief; he wasn't dead. There was a large bruise forming on his forehead, and K guessed that one of the weapon hilts had hit him in the head.
K untied the ropes and lifted Yuki off of the belt. He lightly smacked his face a few times, trying to wake him up. Yuki remained still, completely oblivious to K's rousing attempts. K sighed in frustration and put Yuki back on the conveyor belt.
"Come on you, get up…" K muttered, glancing over at Caspian's prison to make sure the bird hadn't gnawed through the bars. Returning to the task at hand, K smacked Yuki a little harder, this time trying to jar him awake. Yuki didn't so much as twitch. "Dammit man."
K ran a hand through his hair, trying to think of his next move. He walked over to Caspian's holding cell and stared at the bird imprisoned inside. Feathers littered the bottom of the little cage and Caspian was sprawled flat on his back with his feet sticking straight up and his tongue hanging out of his beak. K shook his head, unwilling to believe that such a tiny bird could cause such large-scale destruction. As he turned around to continue his waking attempts, he noticed something red glinting off of Caspian's grayish beak.
"Eugh…" K said, feeling slightly sick. He gingerly felt around his own bird wounds and decided to check Yuki out. He walked over to Yuki and started to examine his limp form, looking him over for any serious injuries.
Yuki's once-glorious head of hair was blotched with bald spots. There was blood matted in a few locks and Yuki's face was very pale. His shirt and pants were ripped where Caspian had attacked him and from the various scrapes and scratches of the conveyor belt. K shook his head, glad that Yuki had been the one birdnapped and not him.
Feeling slightly relieved that Yuki's injuries weren't life-threatening or oozing blood, K took a few minutes to calm himself down. He closed his eyes and did some deep breathing, focusing on ridding himself of his bad bird thoughts. When he opened his eyes, however, the first thing he noticed was a dark red trickle running down Yuki's neck. His ear had a gaping cut and some blood was still running out of it at a leisurely pace.
K reached out towards Yuki's ear, intent on gauging the severity of the gash. When his fingers brushed against Yuki's ear lobe, Yuki came to with a blood-curdling screech, causing K to fall over backwards in surprise.
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING?!" Yuki screamed, clapping a hand to his assaulted ear and then wincing with the pain of it.
"Trying to help…?" K offered from the floor, a little bit too afraid to get off of it.
Yuki glared at K and massaged his ear. Several silent minutes passed, and K spent them watching Caspian drool. Yuki's mind was racing with everything he'd heard before Tohma had left him in Caspian's clutches. He stayed quiet for the time being, trying to formulate a plan without K interrupting him. He had to stop Tohma before one of his cockamamie plans succeeded. He didn't feel like getting murdered by a parrot anytime soon.
"We need to find Shuichi." K finally said, worrying about what the dark look on Yuki's face would portend for him. "The Sultana and the vizier summoned him and he seemed pretty uneasy about it."
Yuki didn't answer K and got off of the conveyor belt with a sigh. He had a feeling things were going downhill fast wherever Tohma and Shuichi were; he had heard Tohma's plan before Caspian was left to his own devices.
"Where are they holding the conference?" Yuki asked when he reached the door. Abandoning all his partially formulated plans of ending Tohma, Yuki decided to simply crash the party and call Tohma out, hoping that Mika would take his word.
"How'd you know about that? I think it's just a faculty meeting or something. We'll wait outside." K replied.
"No. They're going to tell everyone that I'm dead, Shuichi will believe them. I'm not going to let Tohma get away with it again." Yuki said, opening the door and checking for the feather-clad vizier or his idiotic guard companions. "Move it."
"You have a plan, maestro? Or are you just going to barge in there looking like hell warmed over?" K asked, relishing any opportunity to screw with Yuki's head.
"We don't have time for a plan!" Yuki answered, frustrated with the hired help.
K raised his eyebrows and smiled at Yuki. It was nice to see him so concerned about someone other than himself.
"I don't need you, just stay here." Yuki said, his temper starting to flare.
"Hold your horses cowboy jack, I'm coming. But no one deserves that punishment…" K said, walking over to Yuki and rolling up his sleeves.
"What punishment?" Yuki asked, only half paying attention; a guard had just walked by the door.
"Seeing your hair like that." K responded, a huge smile in place. He snapped his fingers and a comb appeared; K picked it up and advanced on Yuki.
Yuki sighed and took a step away from the door, watching K getting closer, and wondered why he had gotten stuck with the demented genie.
"Where are the retainers?" Tohma hissed to the guard that had just escorted Shuichi into the throne room. "They're supposed to be here too!"
"I'm sorry, I couldn't find the shorter one, and the tall one..."
"Well?" Tohma asked, crossing his arms and tapping his foot impatiently.
"He's scary."
"You've got to be kidding me…" Tohma muttered. He shook his head and moved on, wanting to make sure that he got every detail of Caspian's plan right; he had to remove any witnesses. Mika would never think of asking these two any questions. "Just get out of here, go watch…the north tower for me."
The guard gave Tohma a big smile, inclined his head at Mika, grabbed his companion, and dashed out of the room.
"Tohma! I don't have all morning! Can we just get this over with already?" Mika called from her throne, clearly not happy about her morning being taken up with Tohma's so-called 'important' announcements.
"I'm sorry, milady, we're still missing a few-"
"I DON'T CARE!" Mika yelled. "I do NOT have time to spare for your stupidity!"
Beside her, Shuichi sniggered, enjoying any occasion on which Mika's screaming wasn't aimed at him.
"Don't make me start on you." Mika said, a tone of finality in her voice. "And Tohma, I'm serious, just say what you need to say."
"Can't we wait a bit longer?" Tohma asked, shuffling up to the throne room and giving Mika his saddest look.
"No."
"Please?"
"No."
"Pretty please?"
"Tohma."
"Some of us have lives…" Shuichi whispered, thinking about Yuki and hoping that K had been able to find him.
"Quiet!" Mika and Tohma said together. Shuichi took a step back, startled by the joint assault.
"Jeez…" Shuichi said, putting his hands up and continuing to back away from the throne.
"You stay out of this." Mika commanded, pointing at Shuichi. "And you..."
"Yes, milady?" Tohma asked, slightly worried about what would happen next; Mika didn't look too happy.
"You have ten minutes. And then we're starting…no matter who's here and who's not."
"Than-" Tohma started, but Mika cut him off.
"No talking."
The hall remained silent as requested for a few minutes. Tohma paced around the room, back and forth, nervously checking the door every couple of turns. Shuichi plopped down on the floor and watched Tohma, his mind focused on thoughts of Yuki and K.
He was slightly relieved to see that Tohma was accounted for and where he could keep an eye on him, but he couldn't shake the suspicion that he was missing something. He continued to watch the agitated vizier and tried to think of where Yuki could be. He had led K to Tohma's office. He was sure that K would've thought to check the dungeons; he had told him that Yuki and Ryuichi were thieves.
When he pictured all the things that could be happening to Yuki, he shuddered, and tried to think about something else. Instead, he started to wonder if Tohma had really done anything at all. What if Yuki had left, and just not told K? Or what if this was some kind of joke?
"But what if it's not one of those funny jokes and it's just a mean one...?" Shuichi said to himself, tears starting to well up.
"Quiet." Mika snapped from the throne, choosing to ignore Shuichi's obvious distress.
Shuichi cast a pained look at Mika and then turned his back to her, drawing his knees to his chest and wrapping his arms around them. He had thought last night had gone well, but then again, what did he know? He shook his head violently in an attempt to shake the bad thoughts out, but all he could do was picture Yuki leaving. He glanced over at Tohma again, hoping to catch a deviant expression or a dastardly twitch, but he couldn't detect anything.
A tear slipped out and ran down his cheek, splashing onto the marble floor of the throne room. He watched it dance in the morning light, and then the floodgates let loose.
"Oh come on…you're mopping that up later." Mika said, lifting her feet onto the throne to avoid the puddles from Shuichi's noisy tears. "Get a grip."
Shuichi was unable to respond, and instead rolled over, going into the fetal position. The wailing continued and got shriller, causing Mika to cover her ears and Tohma to snap out of his hypnotic pacing.
"Do something about him!" Mika shouted at Tohma, considering every negative thing that morning to be his fault. If it weren't for him, she'd still be sleeping.
"Yes, ma'am." Tohma answered, turning to face Shuichi. Tohma blinked a few times, a bit shocked by what he was seeing; Shuichi was practically liquefying in front of him. "It's the puddle form, we'd better get a mop."
"Don't you live in a broom closet?!" Mika yelled back, wishing her vizier didn't appear to have the mind of a three year old.
"Yes, but-" Tohma tried to respond, but he was cut off by an extra-loud screech from Shuichi. Instead of traipsing back to the office, as he wasn't looking forward to the clean-up of Caspian's scheme, he calmly walked over to Shuichi and nudged him with his foot a couple of times. "You're going to stain the rug."
"Rug…?" Shuichi asked, rolling over and looking at Tohma. He wasn't used to being interrupted in such a manner; most people usually left, afraid of getting their shoes wet. He took a deep breath and stared at Tohma, thinking that something was missing. And then it hit him. "Where's Caspian?"
"Who?" Tohma asked innocently, giving Mika a big smile over his shoulder.
"Yeah, where's the bird Tohma?" Mika asked, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes. Tohma hardly ever ventured out of the closet without Caspian in tow, and she had never known the pesky parrot to miss any of Tohma's announcements.
"He's feeling under the weather." Tohma spat out, realizing that he couldn't play dumb this time.
"I'm surprised that he didn't order you to move the announcement." Mika said, her eyes still narrowed. Still on the floor, Shuichi was starting to panic; the bird was loose.
"He's not the boss of me!" Tohma said indignantly, not at all appreciating the slight.
"Sometimes I wonder." Mika responded curtly. "And your time's up Tohma, just say what you need to say."
"Fine…" Tohma said, realizing defeat and knowing when not to push it.
Mika straightened her legs and cleared her throat, attempting to ready herself for whatever Tohma was about to throw her way. Shuichi picked himself off of the floor, now extremely worried about Yuki's safety now that he knew Caspian was missing in action.
"I've called this meeting to discuss some important, and grave, matters." Tohma began, switching over to his professional mode. If he was going to do this, he was going to do it right. Sometimes he got tired of looking like a moron. "My news concerns Prince Eiri."
Shuichi tried not to let any emotion show in his face, as Tohma was staring right at him, but it was next to impossible for him; he gasped and Tohma smirked, clearly pleased with the response. Shuichi glared back at him and tried not to betray his feelings any more than he already had.
"As I was saying…" Tohma started again, a devilish smile in place.
"What's wrong? He didn't leave did he?" Mika asked Tohma, looking frantic. Shuichi whimpered softly and Mika turned her attention on him. "What did you do?!"
"I didn't do anything!" Shuichi croaked, beating back the bad thoughts that were threatening to strangle him.
"Maybe that's the problem." Mika said back, her tone laden with icy anger.
"I'm afraid that your guess is right, milady." Tohma said in a loud voice, heading off any further fighting between Mika and her stepson. "I went to his suite to introduce myself and he was gone."
"What do you mean, gone?" Mika asked, looking skeptically frantic.
"No one's seen him in the palace since early this morning." Tohma replied, trying hard to keep his voice steady and wishing that Mika would stop looking at him like that.
"Who told you this? Who saw him? How do you know he's gone?" Mika said quickly.
"A few guards, some servants, I asked around a bit." Tohma responded. "I guarantee you that he's not in this palace."
Mika was silent for a while, unwilling to believe that her golden goose had flown the coop. Shuichi had backed up a bit, trying to distance himself from the situation. Tohma had to be lying, Yuki wouldn't have left, he couldn't have.
"Not after last night…" Shuichi murmured to himself.
Shuichi looked over at Tohma, trying to see through his calm demeanor and steady eyes; all of the vizier's normal twitchiness was absent. Shuichi didn't know if this was a good sign or not, but usually Tohma was at his most dangerous whenever he wasn't clowning around for Mika's favor. But most importantly, the feather ball of doom was missing, and Shuichi was sure that he was up to no good, wherever he was.
He took a few deep breaths in an attempt to calm himself down and kept telling himself that Yuki was fine, that he would see him soon as he left the conference. He walked over to the nearest pillar and leaned against it, looking relaxed to fool Mika; he wasn't about to let her know how he felt about her new favorite.
"We need to send out a search party, Tohma." Mika said finally, her voice serious. "I want all the guards we can spare, and go tell his assistants that he's gone."
"I'll let them know immediately, milady, but the search party would be a fruitless waste of resources." Tohma responded, bowing his head looking grave.
"What do you mean?" Mika asked, staring directly at Tohma. By his pillar, Shuichi's head snapped up; all of his doubts came back and this time he was failing to fight them off. If Tohma was taking it this far, there had to be some truth to it. The man was nigh incapable of lying to Mika.
"I searched the city myself, and I found this." Tohma said severely, pulling a bloody silk shirt out of his pocket; it looked exactly like Yuki's. He was smiling on the inside, glad that he'd conjured it up earlier. He had always had a flare for the dramatic.
Shuichi gasped, completely taken aback. He had been telling himself that everything was fine, and now he had the evidence right in front of him. Mika stood up and practically ran over to Tohma, wrenching the shirt from his grasp.
"What the hell is this?" Mika questioned, shaking the bloodied shirt at Tohma. "Where's the Prince?"
"He's dead, Sultana." Tohma answered, his voice ringing through the room.
To be continued…
Uh oh, cliffhanger. I figured that the chapter was long enough and I didn't want the next one to be too short. I have a few scheduled chapter breaks coming up and I didn't want to mess myself up anymore than Caspian already has. :) Speaking of the bird man, he turned four a couple of weeks ago. Ah, they grow up so fast.
Caspian was in charge of the office/conveyor belt scene, it was his big moment to shine. He was way too excited…I hope you all enjoyed the chapter, I'd better finish up the next one instead of rambling around on this post…over and out peeps.
-Amaya