Today was not Ronaldo's day.
Red Bay's only crane operator, who worked the port's only functioning loading crane, was currently unconscious inside the cab as fire and smoke raged all around it. Everyone below was sprinting to and fro, either fleeing from the fires are rushing to the scene with pumps in hopes of putting out the fire with seawater. While everybody was rightfully fixating on containing and extinguishing the flames that had already nearly engulfed the building right next to Ronaldo's crane, I couldn't help but feel drawn to him.
My telepathy detected faint but waning thought waves up in the cab of the scorched cab. He was moments away from suffocating and it seemed unlikely anyone could climb fast enough to rescue him. Putting Ronaldo's life first, I bolted straight for the crane's ladder and climbed as quickly as I could, which thankfully wasn't a long ascent given the crane's four-story height.
If the smoke coming from the neighbouring building wasn't bad enough, the crane's rear engine itself was also smoking, releasing plumes of lethal black smoke into the air. It was torturous trying to withstand it as I climbed, though I was quick to keep most of it at bay with a magical blast of wind once I reached the platform. I was able to break open the cab and pull an unconscious Ronaldo out before much of the smoke returned.
I was now left with the problem of getting him down to the ground safely. I regretfully did not come up with a real plan when I rushed onto the scene, but one is not stranded without an idea or two when you play with magic as long as I had. Making up for my lack of physical strength, I resorted to my wits once more as I absorbed the remaining power left from the crane into my staff and hoisted a limp Ronaldo into the air by the shirt and safely through a stream of particles uncanny to that of the Combine's confiscation field. Staggeringly, I set him down on the ground where a crowd of initially confused people quickly took him away. It was an extremely good thing that I was able to figure out my staff's newly learned abilities.
Without any time to pat myself on the back, I felt the platform beneath my feet start to groan and buckle, making me lose my balance and grabbing fiercely to the handrail. My centre of gravity drastically began to shift as I noticed the horizon beginning to slowly tilt downward as the crane continued to groan. I put two and two together as quickly as I leapt over the rail before landing on my hands and feet on the ground.
The crane's foundations, weakened and warped by the explosion, began to give way as the whole thing started to lean away from the water and towards the scrambling people. Without sparing a second, and without thinking if my staff even had enough syphoned power to pull it off properly, I stood cleared from the falling crane and unleashed a stream of energy to catch it mid-fall. It was initially ineffective, so I put every last volt I had in reserve into strengthening my imitative confiscation beam, and the crane's fall slowed considerably as soft trails of blue particles waded over the descending crane like it fell into a vat of jam.
The effort was so great and taxing keeping the crane from crashing, forcing me on my knee as I struggled and shouted to slow the crane's fall, but once I knew that enough people had successfully cleared the area, I let go when the crane was only ten feet off the ground, resulting in thunderous, though pleasingly less-destructive crash that it would have been.
I nearly passed out myself having spent so much of my own energy when my staff depleted its syphoned reserves, holding my head and feeling tempted to crawl up in the grass for a little nap, but a fire was still raging close by. Those were naturally hard to ignore. I managed to regather myself quickly and soon joined the people in putting out the fire. There was thankfully still some syphoned power left in my staff, which amplified its freezing capabilities to a favourably high degree when I rushed over to help put it out.
The building that had been consumed by flames was soon coated in frost moments after, and all around who had witnessed the spectacle were left to gaze on in amazement―including myself―as the last plumes of sooty smoke rose into the sky. The whole yard was silent apart from a few people coughing and a few more in the process of reviving others. I too was left at a loss for words when I realized that the building that was on fire was one of the storage houses that kept more than half of the town's remaining bulk rations, and all of it had now been reduced to charred waste.
An emergency meeting between the governing bodies of Red Bay had commenced not even fifteen minutes after the accident.
Sabrine Grace, Doctor Mofuni, and another fellow who was primarily in charge of security, Matthew Bridger, met in the old harbour master's building, which now served as the town's municipal edifice. There was a small lobby on the first floor, which was where they all met and they congregated around a coffee table. I had not been called to this meeting, but I nevertheless thought it important if I followed to listen firsthand to what would be discussed.
I had found my way through the back entrance of the building (the door was propped open) and lingered out in the narrow hall to watch and listen while partially obscured by the lobby's front desk. Sabrine looked like she had aged ten years in five minutes as she had her reclined back into the cushions of her old sofa with her hands covering her eyes in dread.
"This is a God-damned disaster, gentlemen," she expressed honestly without any sugar-coating. "I'm not one to give up on anything, but I just don't see how we can make it out of this."
"We've still got enough rations to last until the end of the month," the sinewy Matthew stated, sounding more optimistic, though it was about as frail as his face looked. "We'll figure out a long-term strategy by then. Our potato houses are still coming along nicely, and we've got more fish in three days than in the last few weeks thanks to that fox girl's help. We'll last."
"But not forever, I'm afraid," Doctor Mofuni said gravely, thankfully looking and sounding profoundly more sober and on his game during this disastrous hour of revelation. "As convenient as it would be to make Krystal into alluring fish bait indefinitely, I'm pretty sure that well will also dry up eventually. We need to get the supply line free and running again, but I don't know what it will take."
"You know exactly what it will take, Caleb," Sabrine said in quite a bitter tone. "That fat bozo in the mines wants to meet with you. And as wrong as I know it is, I'm feeling almost tempted to make you march over there just so he can have his ransom demands met and finally let the food supply chain come in!"
"Have you gone mad, woman?!" Doctor Mofuni winced. "The only thing he and his band of brutes want is to skin me alive and hang said skin to dry! There is no way in Heaven I'm honouring that tyrant's audience; this town needs me if it wants to stay invisible to the Combine."
Sabrine sighed in frustration as she lit a cigarette. "None of that will do much good if the people go hungry," she lamented, clicking her lighter shut and taking a long inhale. The act did seem to quell her nerves a little as she exhaled. "This was a wake-up call, boys. We're gonna run out of time if we don't get the supply routes open again. Those assholes in the ground can't keep kicking us around for much longer. Something's gotta be done about this real soon."
I remained silent as I looked down at my bare feet, watching my clawed toes criss-crossing over each other. I knew of whom they were discussing in tension, though I still admittedly knew little about them. Along the main route that escapees took from City Three to Red Bay, the headquarters of another rebel group was situated in a series of old mines. They identified themselves as the Limpiadores, and I was told that they were a far more aggressive group of freedom fighters―ones that were at great odds with those who wore the Lambda.
What little I did know about the Limpiadores was that they were essentially holding the supply line to Red Bay hostage until the town agreed to surrender Doctor Mofuni to them. They apparently loathed the man, and it was safe to assume that they would not do nice things to him should they get what they demanded. While having lost his marbles in a few obvious fashions, Doctor Mofuni played a vital role in this town's safety and security. I did not wish to see him get handed over for his and the town's sake, but with food supplies having been slashed in half, a decision had to be made now.
"We'll have to negotiate with the Chief," Matthew concluded, not pleased with this one bit. "We can send a couple of envoys over there and hopefully get him to understand our dire situation. Hell, I'll go over there myself if I have to."
"You're staying here, Mat," Sabrine looked at him with reproach. "I'm not risking sending our best peacekeeper to grovel at that pig's feet."
"Well, I guess this means you could probably manage without your glorified mechanic, eh?" Doctor Mofuni retorted quite sassily, making me suspect that he may had a brief hiccup of a relapse, which was probably why Sabrine paid little mind to it.
"Zip it. It was a moment of weakness. I hadn't gotten my own dosage yet if you can sympathise," Sabrine said, making a good inhale, to which Mofuni shrugged with mutuality. "Still," Sabrine added, "hate it or hate it even more, the Chief plays an enormous role in our survival right now. I know he's just been waiting for something like this to happen. He'd sooner let us starve than see some humbleness sprout out from that shrivelled truffle he calls a heart."
Having heard enough, I made a surprise announcement. "I won't let that happen," I declared as I stepped into the lobby, catching everyone by surprise. "I will go meet with this chief of the Limpiadores and make him see reason."
My resolve seemed almost baffling to the three humans before me for a moment before Sabrine became the first to realise what I was saying. "Honey, don't be ridiculous. Those lunatics hate otherworlders of all kinds; they'll gun you down before you can even blink," she warned, apparently not at all miffed that I had been eavesdropping when I wasn't invited.
"I'm well prepared for any threat that may await," I reassured. "I reckon I have confronted fiercer audiences greater than these rebels. If the chief won't listen, then I will just have to make him understand what is truly at stake if he inhibits traffic any longer."
Doctor Mofuni was enthused by my willingness to volunteer, insinuated by the chance that he stayed absolved from involvement. "Welp, that's good enough for me. All in favour of throwing her to the ringworms say aye," he said, raising a hand, but Matthew made him put it back down.
"We appreciate the proposal, Krystal," Matthew said with concern, "but I fear you'll put all of us in danger on top of yourself. The Chief won't listen to anyone who isn't human, and he barely does it then. Even if you were to somehow make it to him, he would most certainly not hesitate to try and kill you. If anything should happen to the Chief, the men under his leadership will attribute it to us, and then the Combine may become the least of our worries at that point."
"She will not be without confidants…" a familiar, deep and growly voice said out by the partially-opened front door of the lobby, making me and everyone else turn our attention to the vortigaunt with healing sores around his wrists and neck. The sight of him made me grin widely.
"Ben!" I gasped with tempered joy, being that this was the first time that I had seen him in a week.
"Jeez, what's with everyone crashing the meeting?" Doctor Mofuni grumbled to himself as Ben helped himself inside, followed by another vortigaunt, who was a little more reddish in colour, and one of the three eyes above his large central eye was opaque, suggesting partial blindness.
"Release yourself of the weight of this particular burden, Sabrine Grace," Ben pleaded, closing all three of his hands together humbly with a lowered head. "The vortigaunt are no friends of the Limpiadores chief, but he has granted our kind amnesty. If the potentiality of alien tensions is what worries you, have faith in us that we may stave a future confrontation. The Krystal must go and obtain the Chief's council."
"For the great of Red Bay and the sanctity of comradery," the other vortigaunt added. His voice was a bit higher in pitch than Ben's, though much gruffer and less friendly-sounding to me. "The Krystal is needed; she is in this world for a purpose. The time draws ever-closer to fulfil it."