Chapter 2 -- This Tropic Port

[Lorpius Prime]

It had been a long time in coming. Preparation for the War was not a simple matter. One could not throw together such an army at a whim and in a moment. A mere lifetime was not enough for the task.

For millennia the furnaces had burned, mountains had been cut down and built back up. All of this was done because a man had called for it to be done, though it required labor many ages before his birth, before his consciousness.

Great and ancient beings, the intelligent constructs of the universe, paid little heed to this paradox but toiled in obedience to the call. So the spires of the Adamant Fortress were forged and rose in challenge to an even older, mightier city.

Now the first blow of the War had been dealt. Soon the armies would be summoned.


* * * * *


The Piper was dead. There was no hum from the engines, now ripped apart. The small vibrations of water along the hull was likewise absent. The steel fish had been taken from the water it breathed and had its heart cruelly smashed.

Inside the hold, dripping liquid and a few wet footsteps dominated the new silence. Grease and oil ran from the length of engine that had been forced into the compartment by some tremendous force. It mixed with blood and seeped along the surface of the ceiling, on which a handful of tiny figures lay.

Evan Burr stopped his limping walk and bent over. Cradling his left wrist under the shoulder of his right arm, he shook Will Winterbourne where the boy had landed in the crash.

"Kid... hey kid, get up..." His old voice croaked.

BEGIN CHAPTER 2

[Mlle Bienvenu]

All he knew at that moment was that he had a mouthful of a bitter, oily substance. His stomach clenched violently and he slumped over onto his side and wretched onto the ground beneath him. To his horror, he was not on the ground . . . he was on top of a tangle of limbs and bodies, some of them were trying to disentangle themselves, others, more horrifically still, weren't moving at all.

He would've screamed, but his stomach heaved violently then, so violently that he was sure he'd crack a rib. The bitter substance would not leave his mouth. He was glad he hadn't eaten anything recently, "nnngh. . . "

[sapphiredragon]

Kevin's teeth gritted at the beginning of the negative response he was about to receive from the only grown up in the entire room, but it was then his world turned literally upside down. And sideways, and spun around so violently, with children's screams sang in orchestra with the screeching mechanics as the hull was ripped apart.

Apparantly whoever was piloting this thing obviously wasn't very good at it in Kevin's point of view.

But he didn't get much chance to think this revelation deeply, as flailing to catch something and, upon impact with the tumultuous ground, curled up into a fetal position to protect himself from the bodies and weights of the other children. Some fell ontop of him, he wasn't sure who as his eyes were tightly shut. Not that it mattered. He didn't really know these people. They were just bodies to him, falling debris to protect himself from. Children also skidded and slammed into him from the side, slamming him into the wall. Pain shot through his back as the impact threatened to take his breath away.

Nevertheless, the boy managed to keep himself tightly curled, and for a child he had a strong body. Once the rocking and violence finally ceased, Kevin slowly uncurled as best he could with whatever was pinning him down. He opened one eye, watching as light filtered between the bodies and debris that laid ontop of him. With a grunt, he pushed himself up and shoved the weight off of him. But he recoiled as his hand touched something warm and wet. Blood?!

He jumped back with a sharp intake of breath as his blue eyes widened and stared at the children he had just shoved off. Some of them looked dead, although he had no intention, or the know-how, of checking for sure.

Kevin had intended to make demands, yell at the old man and curse the captain of this torn vessel for his bloody terrible driving...but the words dried to dust on his lips.

[Lorpius Prime]

The old sailor shook his head desperately, and kept rocking Will with his good hand.

"Come on kid, gonna need your help if we're to get out of here. If she's sinking upended..." He didn't think that was happening, though, something wasn't right about the feel of the ship. Even so, his seaman's instincts didn't like being caught here after a disaster like whatever had just befallen the Piper. Speed could mean the difference between life and death.

His head bolted up as a large boy stirred among a couple other still forms. He stopped shoving Will for a moment to point,

"Hey, you. See if any of others are still breathing, get 'em up fast if they are."

[sapphiredragon]

"Huh?" in his state of fear and confusion, as masked as he instictively tried to make them, Kevin didn't have the will or mentality to refuse the man's order just to be a spiteful brat. Instead, he just nodded numbly and hesitantly made his way towards the bodies.

He had touched many dirty things in the streets, but nothing as dirty as a dead body. And...he was afraid to touch them, so his hand merely hovered over the nearest pile to the one he had been in. The appendage shivered slightly as he stammered out, "C-c'mon.. anyone who's not dead.. get up, ok?"

Their faces..their bodies looked so cold and blue and dead. Of course, some of it may have been his imagination being fueled by horror at what he was witnessing, twisting the images into an illusion almost as grotesque as the real thing.

It was like a movie to him. Like a movie he vaguely remembered seeing with his mom and dad when he was really little. He couldn't remember seeing any dead children in it, or piles of dead children, and he wasn't sure what exactly linked this scene to any movie scene his young mind recalled. But nonetheless...this didn't feel real.

This felt like a movie, like they were extras and he was the main hero---no.. he wasn't the main hero. He wasn't cut out for that kinda thing. He wasn't good like that. Heroes were good boys. Maybe the anti-hero or that loner good guy who hangs out with the hero and seems like a bad guy but he's not.

That's what Kevin felt like at that moment...yet...he didn't remember any movie being this real.

[Demonic Neko]

It was hard to breathe. Why did the "Brat pack" have to dog pile on her like this? Millie opened her mouth to tell her siblings to get off when she became aware of a unpleasant coppery taste in her mouth. Then came the pain, a dull throbbing in her head and along her back. She opened her eyes but everything seemed blurry.

Wait.. What the hell was going on? Memory suddenly flooded back to her, with an almost physical force. She wasn't home she was in a ship.. and there was an explosion, she remembered, and the force of it sent her into the mass of other children. Her hands moved about quickly feeling the other bodies that were piled upon her. She felt a warm slickness coat her fingers as a panic gripped her.

Millie struggled like a wild thing, a keening whimper building up in the back of her throat, as she tried to get free from the bodies that pinned her. Oh god, oh God, oh GOD... She couldn't get out, they were too heavy. Finally after several minutes of futile struggling she stopped. It was no use, she was going to die. A small, slightly hysterical giggle built up in the back of her throat, as tears ran down her cheeks.

[Lolua]

((Kathleen Blair))

Having awoken, tangled in her woolen blanket, to the close, oppressive warmth of her own body in a confined space, Kathleen wriggled and turned until a draft of cooler though not entirely pleasant air struck her face. Faintly she could hear a boy calling for anyone who was not dead to get up.

What a strange alarm clock, Kathleen thought groggily, still stunned from the shock of the crash. But the boy's voice was far preferable to either the electronic buzz of her bedside timepiece at home or her mother's early morning shrieks, and so she felt she couldn't really complain, despite the vaguely disturbing nature of his message.

"I'm not dead," Kathleen said sensibly, sitting up and pushing the blanket off her as naturally as if she were in her own bed at home. But her eyes grew wide as she took in the unmoving bodies scattered around her like abandoned piles of laundry. There was a body under and behind her, she realized, which seemed to have cushioned her impact on what must be the handle-side of the giant lunchbox. The next body over had not been so lucky; the force of the crash had thrown the young girl violently against the hard metal surface, cracking her skull like a well-dried walnut. She had lived just long enough afterward to be sick all over herself, and the stench of it hung in the air along with other foul odors.

She developed an uncomfortable crawling sensation on her skin, like she had just woken from an exhausted sleep in a pile of sweaty gymsocks.

"Am I?" Kathleen asked, appealing to the older boy for confirmation, her head cocked to one side in a questioning pose.

[Mlle Bienvenu]

Will staggered to his feet and swallowed. the taste of bile and that bitter oil still in his mouth. This action made him gag, but he mastered it as best he could. He had other things to worry about.

The walls were closing in on him as the smell of death -of blood and of exposed intestines mixed with the ship's lifeblood - oil and the sharp, rotten egg smell of petrol- threatened to render him helpless once again.

"Gotta get out..." he mumbled and stumbled for what he thought was the exit, tripping over bodies, trying to block them out. This had to be some kind of horrific dream. Yes. It was a dream . He must've fallen asleep with the TV on and there was a late night scary movie on. Any minute his mum would be in to scold him and turn the TV off, and walk him groggily to his room. Will didn't notice the tears trailing paths in the oil and blood smeared across his face.

He tripped over someone and fell face down into a pile of children, blankets and pallets all tangled together like some sort of grotesque Gordian Knot. He tried to cushion his fall putting his arms out in front of himself, but his hand landed in a hole and his face came within inches of a pallet tangled in a blanket. With his added weight pushing on it's side, the whole pile shifted and a something (or someone) fell on his arm, twisting it sideways causing Will to have to twist in order for it to keep from breaking at the joint.

Frantically he tried to free himself, ripping at the pallet with his other arm, only to uncover more lifeless bodies. He shut his eyes tightly. It was so bad, he could barely breathe, it was as though all the oxygen in the room had been squeezed out, when the ship was upended. After a few seconds, trying to collect his wits, he tugged on his arm, but it was no use, it was stuck.

[sapphiredragon]

As Kevin watched the chaos around him, the younger and smaller children reacting worse than he was regarding the whole situation (and rightfully so), finally the boy willed his mind to wall out what his senses picked up. Steeling himself, he made his way to the quivering pile of bodies, hearing the familiar voice of the girl who had been talking to the old man previously. He growled and shoved the bodies off like a bulldozer.

Kevin then reached his large hand almost blindly until they wrapped around a warm arm - a warm arm was an arm that belonged to someone who was not yet dead. Wrenching the girl out of what remained of the pile and onto her feet roughly, he then immediately released her and went to the struggling boy.

Casting a glance at the young girl muttering something that sounded almost like a question for confirmation to whether or not she was dead, Kevin almost scoffed at the stupidity of it...

But, then...considering the circumstances...her question really wasn't that stupid, was it?

"No... you're quite alive for the moment..." he replied dryly as he made his way to the thrashing smaller boy and looked at what was pinning his arm. Another large child, but unlike Kevin, this one was not quite alive for the moment. No... with his bluish skin and bulbous eyes..he was quite dead. Quite grotesquely dead.

Taking a small breath, he forced himself to regard the cadaver as if it was a mere object, pinning the boy's arm in a painfully twisted manner. Kevin pressed his shoulder under the corpse's collar bone and pushed the body up at a slant. He then quickly grabbed Will's arm and pushed it out of the way, pretty much shoving Will out of the way in a forceful manner. Dropping the corpse down, Kevin cleared his throat.

"Alright you guys, quit panicking okay? We're going to bloody end up like them if we don't quit acting like a bunch of pansies, alright?!" Kevin declared, pointing dramatically at the bodies as if he had to present them to make his point. As if their existence wasn't already blatantly obvious.

"I'm gonna get us out of here, but you guys can't fall all over yourselves or cry or wet your pants like a bunch of preschoolers! Get it? Now.. uh.. you!" Kevin pointed at the girl he had pulled from the pile of bodies. She seemed spunky and take charge, having been the first one to go and talk to the only adult in the room. "Quit cryin', alright? You're my second in command now and I can't have my second in command crying on me. So what's your name?"

Glancing at the other two, Kevin tried to make a swift assessment of what he was dealing with. A very little girl who obviously wasn't old enough to quite make what was going on, and a boy who seemed smart but was probably injured. So the cute one and the nerd. And the spunky second command and, of course, the loner guy who has somehow, if only temporary, made himself the role into the hero. The role that he had been so sure a moment ago that was one he couldn't fill.

[Lorpius Prime]

Evan sighed. He had trouble enough without trying to deal with kids spacing out on him. At least the broad-shouldered little boy seemed to be getting the others under control, and Evan set aside whatever opinions he might have about the kid wanting to turn this into some kind of game.

He nodded to Kevin, his face even wearier than usual,

"Right, go check the rest, get 'em up."

Then he grabbed Will under the shoulder, wincing at the pressure on his wrist, but he turned the boy around and pushed a steel tube at him.

"Hold the torch, kid. I'll need both my hands for this." The sailor didn't look at all happy about that.

[Demonic Neko]

I'm gonna die I'm gonna die I'm gonna die I'm gonna--URK!

Millie felt herself yanked out from under the bodies and then roughly set upon her feet. She nearly crumbled, weak kneed, and reached an unsteady hand out to the ship wall to steady herself. She watched the larger boy with wide eyes, still in shock over the entire situation. It took a moment for his words to her to fully sink in.

"I'm not crying!" she growled, quickly wiping the wetness from her face. She took a deep breath and willed herself to calm down. She had lost it for a moment there but now wasn't the time to fall apart. "And my name is Ana Milagros, but everyone calls me Millie. What's your name?" She looked at the other surviving children and took a deep breath. "And how do we get out of here?"

[Lolua]

((Kathleen Blair))

Having been assured that she was, in fact, not dead, Kathleen rose and stretched and wandered over to where Mr. Sultana was trying to sort out the children and get them organized, though they seemed to have their own ideas about how to do that. Kathleen thought it must not be an easy thing for a sultana to get sandwich fillings to do his bidding.

It was not easy for her to wander; this was not the bare concrete floor of her parents' laundromat, which was physically easy to walk on but easier to imagine as a plush Persian carpet or a thin film of interwoven moonbeams. This short walk involved stepping on or over other bodies and puddles of blood, which Kathleen instantly imagined into oblivion as fallen logs in a mysterious bog. Certainly the lingering steam from the defunct and dislocated engine added to that far more pleasant mental picture.

By the time she had picked her way carefully through ten feet of the grisly obstacle course, Kathleen's picture was fading around the edges. Was she in a bog or a giant lunchbox? There were too many conflicting bits of sensory data that simply could not be reconciled... unless, of course, they were on an ill-fated picnic in that misty swamp...

[sapphiredragon]

Unaware of the small child's musings, Kevin fancied that for one so young she had an amazing backbone to be one of the youngest here - in his assessment, not that he actually knew anyone's age for sure - and not cry and freak out as the others had. But then, it was hard for someone like him to imagine the escape an imagination could bring him, as he had dispelled such things when he first set out into the real world.

Luring the others near the old guy, figuring by his words and mannerisms that he had some kind of plan, Kevin turned to face the other children again. "Alright, guys. Take a quick look around and make sure no one alive is left behind."

He glanced over at Millie and nodded as he followed Evan to see if his help was needed for whatever he planned to do. "Ana Milagros. I'm Kevin Schellden. We'll have to save the rest of the introductions for when we get out of here."

[Mlle Bienvenu]

When Will's arm was wrenched free of the pile of death, he felt relief and indignance wash over him in equal measures. He wanted to ask the younger boy where he got off ordering everyone around. .. but he held his tongue, both because he was still recovering and because suddenly the old sailor grabbed him under the arm and shoved an electric torch into his hands.

And still the other boy was calling the shots. He didn't know why it rankled him. He knew he should feel more grateful for having been set free, but instead it made him feel uncomfortable and ashamed. Will scowled.

Pushing all those competing thoughts out of his mind, Will switched the light on and swung the beam onto the old man, "Where do you need the light, sir?"

[Lorpius Prime]

Evan winced and shielded his eyes from the light with his hand. But at least the kid seemed to be getting it together.

He turned and pointed behind them where the steel hatch, the only exit from the compartment, was set into the wall a few feet over their heads.

"Up at the door, kid. I'll need to climb up and crank it open if we're to get out of here."

He looked at the protruding engine shaft and grimaced.

"Hopefully it won't be such a bloody mess on the other side." He didn't sound like he believed it.

[Mlle Bienvenu]

Will swung the torch around, searching for the door with the beam of light until he found it. He too was apprehensive, although his wits were begining to return to him .. he just hoped that whatever was behind that door wasn't worse than what was in front of it.

[Demonic Neko]

Millie nodded distractedly, as she made note of the other surviving children. She impulsively reached out to grab Kathleen's hand, since the other girl had the sort of dreamy look about her that Millie's younger brother, 'Nestor, had. She had a feeling that the girl probably wasn't all there, so she took it upon herself to watch out for her. It helped Millie focus and fight off the urge to curl up into a little ball and cry for her mami.

"You stay with me, ok?" she told the other girl in an authoritative tone, before scanning around for any more younger kids that had survived the wreck.

[sapphiredragon]

Kevin nodded approvingly as Millie guided Kathleen before giving one last glance around the room. Seeing no further signs of life within those grotesque piles, he made his way over towards the old man and the boy with the torch. The beam of light illuminating from the little object shined onto what appeared to be their only exit in the room.

But he could hear the worry in the old man's voice, although he dismissed it immediately. He couldn't let himself be afraid. Everyone else here was weak, if he was weak, too...

If there was anything on the other side of that door, Kevin could use his physical strength to push it away, or fight back, or whatever it took to clear the path, right? The boy wasn't the brightest bulb in the package, but these kids all looked like home children to him. They were weak, without any conditioning from the streets. Bloody hell, they'd probably wet themselves before doing anythig significant without any real guidance.

So Kevin had appointed it his task to guide them, even if it was the blind leading the blind.

Walking briskly over to Evan and the door, Kevin gauged how far up the door was before raising his hands to the old man in offering. "I can lift you towards the door and you can open it. Or you can lift me to the door and I can open it."

Being a child, even if he was large for a child, Kevin was still a few years away before reaching the size of an adult. Nonetheless, he was too big to be lifted easily, and wasn't sure which would be easier for the old geezer.

[Lorpius Prime]

The sailor gave Kevin a funny look as he sized up the kid.

"Ah, don't worry about it. Once the hatch is open, you can scramble up there and help me lift the rest out." He surveyed the tiny handful of surviving children and grimaced.

"What a way..." but he shook his head, cursing under his breath. There was still work to be done.

Propping a foot against a protruding seam in the metal walls, Evan found that his years hadn't eroded his seaman's strength too much; and he hoisted himself up to grasp the wheel sealing the hatchway shut.

He bit his lip and turned. It spun easily, and the door didn't burst open. So there probably wasn't water on the other side. Much water. Yet.

Evan pulled the rounded steel door inward with a grunt and managed not to lose his footing. Taking just a short glance beyond to make sure the way was clear of obstacles, he held out a hand to Kevin.

"Ahright, think you can climb up? Lower ceiling in the hall, you should be able to get down okay."

[sapphiredragon]

Kevin nodded, surprised and impressed by how strong the old man still seemed to be. He always had the conception that once someone reaches a senior citizen age, they were automatically frail and nursing home bound. Taking his hand, he climbed up to the ledge and crouched down.

"Alright!" Kevin said, extending his hands down to reach for any of the children Evan would lift up. "Ready."

[Mlle Bienvenu]

An irrational anger welled up inside Will's chest, constricting his already fear-clenched heart, a sudden blaze of jealousy for the larger yet younger boy. He shouldn't have cowered in the corner like a five-year-old. He was 12, he wasn't a child anymore.

He furrowed his eyebrows and the corner of his mouth twitched down until his face was set into a look of determination.

'Just forget it Will, focus.' He said in his mind as he turned to the nearest kid. She was a young girl with strawberry blond hair and a vacant sort of expression that made Will think that she might've been stunned during the crash.

"Come'on then, you next. . . " Tucking the torch underneath an arm, he held out his hands to her, ready to help her climb the distance between cieling and floor.

[Lolua]

((Kathleen Blair))

Kathleen started at the interruption to her own musings, and she turned to the new face with a vaguely surprised look. Her eyes slid over the splatters of blood, bile and oil on the other girl's clothes, seeing only the pattern of red, green and black made by the Spanish olives and cracked pepper in a slice of pimento loaf.

"All right," Kathleen said dreamily while squeezing the stranger's hand and finding it comfortable in her grip. She thought it might not be a bad idea to stick close to this girl. "If they really do want to eat us, then it's lucky that pimento loaf doesn't taste very nice," she added in a matter-of-fact way, as though it had been perfectly obvious to everyone why she was saying that.

They were coming up to a wall and a cross-looking dark-haired boy who barked instructions at her. Kathleen was used to taking harshly voiced instructions, but she didn't always follow them right away. As with everything, she came to it in her own time and her own way.

"You want me to climb up there?" Kathleen asked with a hint of trepidation that made her sound almost lucid, which was not a tone one often associated with the little girl. However, her active imagination kicked in defensively, immediately recreating the climb as a whimsical journey up the spout of an oversized teapot. Kathleen had wondered quite frequently what such an adventure might be like, and she had once imagined it to be akin to climbing the wrong way up the bumpy plastic slide at the playpark near her school.

The damp, steaming heat of the cargo hold helped Kathleen's mind make the short hop from sandwiches to tea things, and her dreamy smile returned as she offered her free hand to the dark-haired boy who had called her forward. "I suppose tea would make sandwiches a bit soggy," she said cheerfully before turning to the wall to look for a way up its smooth surface.

That tall boy had climbed so easily, but Kathleen was no athlete. In stories, Rapunzel's hair or magic spiderwebs or rope ladders or hidden staircases had appeared from nowhere to help people climb up unscalable walls. Now the arms of the sultana and the tall boy were extended down toward her like friendly tree branches, and the dark-haired boy's hand felt like a railing.