[ Contents | 4. Trouble on the Waterfront | 5. Captives! | 6. Experimental Subject #12 ]

Yamucha's Student

By Dragoness Eclectic

Chapter 5. Captives!

Puar carefully peered into another dirty porthole and sighed in disappointment. Still no sign of Yamucha! Puar floated up to the cabin roof and sat, deep in thought. She'd watched Lunch and her henchmen carry Yamucha and Saisei to this ship, and to this deck, so they had to be here somewhere. Come to think of it, she hadn't seen Lunch or Haze, either; they must be in interior compartments. Haze had been hurt, so he was probably in the sickbay, but Lunch could be anywhere. If she could find Lunch and follow her, the blonde woman would lead her right to Yamucha. She'd have to be careful, though--Lunch knew what Puar looked like!

A mouse crept down the passageway of the ship, slipping into the first open door. At the moment, the room was unoccupied; Puar the Mouse looked around quickly; she was in the ship's radio room. Alerted by the sound of footsteps outside, Puar scurried under the radio operator's desk. Three people entered.

"Radio base and tell them we have two more prisoners... special prisoners," said Blonde Lunch to the radio operator. "Code it direct to Colonel Dark and copy to Soliere--the prisoners are for him, after all." Lunch chuckled evilly.

An equally unpleasant masculine laugh echoed with Lunch's. "I guess that means we have to keep 'em alive, huh? How much fun can we have with 'em in the meantime?" Haze said nastily. His arm was in a sling and there were several cuts on his face; Puar couldn't help feeling an unbecoming bit of glee at that.

"None, you idiot! Keep them sedated and strapped down, or we'll all regret it!" Lunch snapped, then turned to walk out. She paused and looked back over her shoulder. "And don't think you dump the guard duty on Mist just because your arm is broken, Haze. She had to stay here babysitting the little goddesses while we were having fun. Since you're going to be in sickbay for a while, you might as well do something useful there." Puar could hear her boots ringing on the steel deck all the way down the corridor.

"Bitch," Haze muttered under his breath. A moment of silence, and then, "Well, get to it!"

"Yes, sir," the radio operator answered in a bored tone, drumming his fingers while staring pointedly at the open door.

Haze snorted. "Oh, all right, I'll leave! You take this radio security crap too seriously, you know that?" Puar listened to Haze stomp down the passageway in the same direction Lunch had gone.

The radio operator was too busy encoding and transmitting his messages to notice the little mouse run out the door and down the passageway...

Puar woke up in the dark. Her ribs hurt, and her head ached; what had happened? She blinked, trying to clear the sleep out of her eyes as events came back to her....

She found them both strapped down in the ship's sickbay. Puar frowned, her small furry brow creased with worry. Yamucha was so still--too still. Puar floated up beside him; his eyes were closed, and only the rise and fall of his chest showed that Yamucha was alive.

"Yamucha?" she squeaked. Nothing; he did not move. Puar reached out and stroked his face with one soft, furry paw. Still nothing. "Yamucha! Wake up!" she whispered urgently in his ear... to no avail.

The blue and gray cat floated across to the other bed, where Saisei was strapped down. She patted his cheek with her soft paw--and he stirred! His head twitched slightly. Puar patted him again.

"Saisei! Wake up! Hurry!" she whispered loudly, pushing at him, trying to get him to move.

Saisei mumbled something incomprehensible, the words heavy and slurred as his tongue stumbled over itself. He tossed his head from side to side, and pulled weakly at the straps holding him. After a moment, he mumbled again, and settled down.

"Saisei! Yamucha! What am I going to do now? I need to wake one of you up to get us out of here!" Puar floated down to Saisei, and tried to unbuckle his straps. Intent on her task, she never heard the footsteps in the corridor outside; nor did she hear the footsteps stop, and step into the sickbay.

Pain shot through Puar's ribs as something hit her hard in the side. The impact sent her flying across the room to slam into the unyielding metal bulkhead headfirst....

"They caught me!" Puar squeaked, sitting bolt upright, only to wince at the violent throbbing in her head.

"Yes, they did," chorused two small voices next to her.

"Eeeeep!" Puar jumped into the air, only to strike her sore head painfully against a very low ceiling. "Wh-who are you?" her voice quavered.

A dim light appeared, held in the hand of a very small girl--about a foot tall, dressed in a traditional kimono. Standing next to her was another very small girl who appeared to be her twin. On closer look, Puar realized the very small girls were not little girls, but very small adult women.

"We are the twin kami of Kyojin-shima," they said, bowing together. "We are prisoners here. Who are you?"

Puar looked around; they seemed to be trapped in a small box, no more than two feet by three. At least there were air holes, she noted; she could escape if they weren't guarded. But what on earth was going on? And how could she rescue Yamucha?

"I'm Puar. My friend Yamucha is a prisoner, too; I tried to rescue him. I failed," she said, downcast.

"Oh, no!" the kami chorused, and ran over to pat Puar comfortingly. "We were kidnapped from our island by a strange blonde woman with green eyes and a dark-haired girl with a sword who also had green eyes--green eyes are magic, you know. They put in this box; they feed us, but they don't want us to know where we are or who they are."

"You're on a ship," Puar said, "but I don't know where you are going. Why don't they want you to know where you are?"

"If we knew where we were, we could summon Mothra to rescue us. He is the guardian of Kyojin-shima, and he carries us where we need to go," the twins chorused in their sing-song voices. Everything they said, they said in chorus.

"MOTHRA!" Puar squeaked in alarm. "Mothra, the moth-monster? I thought he was killed years ago?"

"He was, but his twin children grew up to take his place. We were captured once before, by a man who did not believe we were kami; he tried to make us a circus attraction!" The tiny twins crossed their arms in indignation. "There was much trouble before we were returned to Kyojin-shima, for without our songs, the kyojin become wild and wander away from the island."

"Kyojin? Who are the kyojin?" Puar's eyes were wide; they widened still further at the answer.

"The great monsters--Gojira, Gamera, Giran, Angilas, Rodan, Barugon, Mothra, the giant spiders and mantises, and many others. The giant insects do not wander, but the dinosaur-kyojin do." The kami nodded together, "You can see that there could be much trouble."

"Oh, dear!" squeaked Puar yet again. "Why have they captured you?"

The twins looked at each other. "We think they are doing something with the kyojin--many of them have been missing lately--and they do not want us using our songs to interfere."

Puar sat down and thought. "We all need to escape! Will you help me rescue my friends, if we manage to get out of this box?"

The doll-like twins nodded eagerly. "Of course! If we get outside, we can call friends to help with our songs. But we don't know how to get out--we are not very strong ourselves, and we are usually guarded." The tiny black-haired women pointed out the airholes.

Puar started washing herself, starting behind the ears. "Can you tell if anyone is close by? I can't hear anyone, but they could be very quiet."

The twins looked at each other, and consulted each other in whispers. Then they cautiously began to sing very softly--and stopped abruptly as something banged the side of the box.

"No singing! I told you that before, sisters," came a rebuke in a woman's soft voice from somewhere near the box. "I would not like to hurt you, but I will not let you use your magic to threaten our mission!"

The twins looked at each other and Puar anxiously. "You see? They have a guard on us all the time!"

Puar sighed. "Well, sooner or later they have to ease up, or they'll make a mistake, and we'll take the chance when it comes."

The chance still hadn't come days later, when the deep throbbing of the ship's engines slowed down to idle and then finally halted. Shortly after that, Puar heard heavy footsteps and voices.

"You'll get your liberty after the prisoners are secure!" snapped Lunch's voice. "The little goddesses are dangerous--the most dangerous of all, you dolt! All the prisoners must be safely locked down, on base, before you and the boys go riot ashore--or do you want to explain to the Colonel that his most valuable prisoners escaped because you were too busy racing to the Cantina?"

There was a muttered reply, and Puar felt their box lifted and carried. They were carried for several minutes, turning this way and that, up and down before being set down on something that vibrated. Puar listened intently; the noise and the smells told her that they were on a truck.

The truck promptly revved up and drove somewhere, bouncing and jarring the occupants of the small box. Just as Puar was getting ready to try her escape, the truck stopped, and loud voices greeted the driver. Once again, their small box was lifted and carried somewhere; the harsh glare of fluorescent lights leaked through the airholes. The box was set down with a hard thump; something creaked and strained, and one end of the box came off. Light flooded in.

Puar blinked and peered out; their prison now opened into another box, this one of transparent plexiglas and much larger. Blonde Lunch stood nearby, frowning down at them. Beside and slightly behind her stood another woman, a green-eyed, dark-haired girl of serious mien dressed in thigh-length tunic and trousers. Puar could see a sword slung over her shoulder.

"You can get in there on your own, or we can just dump you out," Lunch snarled, green eyes flashing.

Puar gulped and hurried into small plastic chamber; the twin kami timidly followed. Puar stopped and looked up at Lunch.

"Lunch, why are you doing this?" Distress filled the magical cat's high voice. "You were never this mean before."

Lunch scowled, and slammed the metal gate of the plastic cage shut. She leaned close to the cage and hissed, "That was then, cat!" Lunch straightened up, her face tight with some turbulent emotion. As she turned away, Puar wondered: were those tears in Lunch's eyes?

Across the room, a tall, lean figure stood and watched. Puar's fur stood on end; there was something disturbingly familiar about the man in the strange metal mask. She was sure she'd seen him before, without the mask.

[ Contents | 4. Trouble on the Waterfront | 5. Captives! | 6. Experimental Subject #12 ]

Disclaimer: See Credits.

Copyright 2001 by Dragoness Eclectic