Desperate to grab onto any hope, I start talking to Bodaka. "If you guys take control of Saiten, can you get me back to Earth?" I ask, willing to accept any positive answer he may give me.
"Ugh, what are you?" Bodaka asks and the four around him also seem bothered by me.
"I'm a human, I think I'm an FBW," I quickly respond as I want this guy to tell me what I want to hear and hope that it's believable.
"I've never seen an FBW that can act like a person," he responds with a smile on his face as if he's just discovered something exciting.
"It's a trick! Saiten probably has dozens of these to infiltrate new revolutions!" One of the four says, stepping up into my face. This guy has thin eyes, a furrowed brow, short black hair, and dark yellow skin. He's dressed in long, brown pants, a long-sleeved black shirt with a brown vest.
"Easy there, Kiruki. We can't go scaring off all our potential recruits," Bodaka says, stepping off his platform.
"Recruit? We can't trust this thing," Kiruki says, pointing his finger right in my face, but Bodaka wasn't referring to me as he walks right past me to Kuiga.
"Would you like to join the Doriano revolution? Don't worry, we accept anyone who wants to fight," Kuiga glances at me before answering.
"Only if Vayne can join too," she says and it feels nice having a friend here.
"Vayne? What's that?" Bodaka asks as he acts playfully with Kuiga.
"Right here, that's me. I'm the guy who asked if you can help me get back to Earth," talking to these creatures feels a bit strange, I'm worried how they're going to treat me.
"Hmm, I don't know. You are pretty weird and suspicious. What do you think, Terate?" Bodaka asks the dark orange-skinned krivadel with long silver hair, beard and mustache. Terate is wearing long tan pants with a tan jacket that's open and he's not wearing a shirt.
"This is one strange looking girl; I say we give her a chance," was that directed at me?
"I'm a guy," why would he think I'm a girl?
"Really? You have no horns and I assume you lost your tail in an accident," hearing him say that makes me realize that all the male krivadels have two horns coming out from the top of their foreheads. I notice the difference in sizes among them. Great, so everyone here is going to see me as a woman or the krivadel equivalent. I then look to Kuiga who I notice is staring at me.
"I thought the same and that your voice was just weird," Kuiga says, shocking me.
"No way! This thing had to have been made by Saiten! It could go berserk and kill us any moment!" One of the other two says. Both of these are female krivadels. This one has dark green skin, with long blonde hair. She has hooded eyes and a hard jawline. She has three gold-colored earrings in her left ear, a silver necklace, and a different-colored ring on each finger on her left hand. She's wearing a yellow tube top and a tight, black mini-skirt. Her accusation does make me concerned. Before I was freaking out about my body falling apart, but now will my mind lose it and force me to do crazy stuff?
"So, Gura, do you want these two to join us?" Bodaka asks her in a joking way since she already made her opinion pretty clear.
"No way. Just looking at the freaky thing's face makes me want to punch it," she sounds like she's perpetually angry.
"Well, I think both deserve a test," says the last member of their group. She has sky-blue skin, and short, faint, short pink hair. She has a bright green, asymmetric blouse on. I remember Cyn wore something like that once. She also has an a-line skirt, a white one. She has a slender face and almond-eyes. "You all know I think the darkness would be a good place to test them," she gave me a very sinister smirk.
"Oooh, Miga, that's a great idea," Bodaka says before turning his back to us and murmuring to his group before turning back to face us. "Okay, here's the deal. You two pass a test and you're in," he says and I can only hope this is the first step to getting home.
"That's nice, but what about getting me back to Earth, can you do it?"
"Once we overthrow Uruma and take control of Saiten we can do whatever we want, so of course, we'll get you back to Earth. We'll put you on any planet you want. Now, follow us," Bodaka says and the group leads us to the west side of town where there is a giant parking lot.
"This is our craft, the first of many," Bodaka says as we all get into this thing that looks like two trailers stuck together on the sides with a bunch of extra stuff like lights, panels, engines, but no wheels. Kuiga and I get on with everyone else and Terate sits in the driver's seat. Soon, this craft lifts up off the ground, about two feet and we drive away while floating! I saw those trucks do this, but riding in one is amazing, it feels so smooth!
"This is amazing!" I give a shout of excitement as this is so cool, but everyone awkwardly looks at me like I'm a child.
I just can't get over how we're actually hovering. My enjoyment is stopped when I feel Kuiga poking my arm with her claw. "They may try to kill us," Kuiga whispers to me.
"Why?" I whisper back.
"These people seem more like rogues than renegades," she leans in close to my hear, not wanting the others to hear her.
"What's the difference? And what are those?"
"Basically, there are three different types of people. Those who live in the cities with all the safety, but their lives are very controlled by a government and they can be punished if they don't comply. Then there are renegades who build their own cities and live out here in the wilds freely. They rely on each other to survive and have no protection from the weather, animals, aggressive government attacks, or rogues. Then the rogues are small groups who live in the wilds, stealing what they need to get by from renegades and killing anyone who gets in their way. These people seem like dangerous rogues looking to kill us for fun," she says that, but she doesn't seem very scared.
"We're not rogues, well not anymore," Bodaka says having heard all of our whispering. "Like I said we're revolutionaries, people who fight to take control of Saiten. It's the ultimate achievement in life to conquer Saiten. No one has managed it in the last thirty millenniums, but we revolutionaries know living any other way would be a waste. Even if we fail, and die. Trying to take the greatest power will be a life worth living," Bodaka says and he definitely sounds confident and his passion for this is inspiring.
I look through the windshield as one of the suns, Robian, starts to rise. I see a two-hundred-foot-tall ball of plants all intertwined together. It's huge, bigger than some buildings I saw back at that town. Terate drives around to where there is a tunnel and we drive through it into the giant ball.
We park in this clearing with light streaming in between the gaps of the intertwined branches, filled with the remains of other crafts that look like they've been picked clean. We get out and, just a few feet away is the edge of a steep hill. Someone has set up two giant lights connected to a large power source that are shining light down the hill.
"Go on, check it out," Bodaka says as Gura and Kiruki carry a big metal box down the hill, Miga and Terate carry another one down with them. I walk over and look down and I can't believe it! There is nothing but darkness down there! These lights do nothing! The four down there set the boxes on the ground at the edge of the darkness at the bottom of the hill. "What's going on here is that some other rogues blew open the ground while having fun in this forest-sphere and discovered some remains of the Igaraba nation, the predecessor of Lorita. They were on the route to be the greatest nation ever, until Saiten gained sio, and used it to erase them off the face of the planet," my chances of getting home now seem impossible.
"Where did they get this sio from?"
"No one knows. It's a powerful energy source, took them a while to develop it and make it further versatile. They actaully tracked down and killed anyone who knew knew the slightest bit about its development and then destroyed all records too to keep it secret," Saiten really is ruthless. "Now, the important thing here is we heard rumor that before this darkness appeared, someone saw an Igaraba relic in there. Who knows how valuable it is, but everyone who's gone into the darkness, never returned. You two go in there and get it, that's the test," Bodaka says with a big smile like this is no big deal.
"Hmm? Seriously? What if we don't come back?"
"Then you're not in our revolution," I take a moment to think. There were other revolutions back there to choose from and putting us on the spot makes this feel sort of like peer pressure. We could say no and walk back to that town. We should, this is suicide. "Here, take these," Bodaka hands Kuiga and I a flat disc that fits in the palm of our hands. "If something attacks you in there, stick these tracers on it and our missiles will blow them away," those two boxes they carried down, open up to reveal that their little missile launchers!
"Those will kill us!" I shout out, as I'm about to tell this guy I'm out of here.
"You'll have a few seconds to get away from whatever attacks you," that is not reassuring at all.
"Okay," Kuiga says before turning to the darkness.
"Wait, you want to do this? You want to join this revolution?"
"I've thought about joining a revolution for a while, it could help me. Besides, this looks easy," Kuiga walks into the dark and I can't leave her! I take a deep breath and follow her.
"Kuiga! Where are you?!" Silence. I wander through the dark, stretching out my hands, desperately feeling around for anything. All of a sudden, I'm punched in the gut! Someone hit me! "Kuiga! There's someone in here!" I shout and am kicked in the back, causing me to fall over.
"No, there's five people in here and some little metal thing," what?! Can she see in here?! How?!
"How is this possible?! You only have one desire?! How is that possible?! How do you function?!" I hear some shrill voice shout from the darkness.
"These animals around you won't protect you," I hear Kuiga say to whoever is in here, before the sounds of snarling and growling, right before I hear some crunching noises and then the sounds of something landing on the ground with a splat.
"I've had those creatures protecting me for five months, devouring any krivadels that came here! Now I'll need to find new ones!" the shrill voice angrily shrieks.
"Is that the relic? I'm taking it," Kuiga says and I don't understand how she can see anything.
"How can you with no desire to?! …No matter, you can have it, but none of you will leave here!" The voice shouts, but then I hear a metal clang on the stone floor. "Oww! Get off me!" The voice shouts out.
"Stop whatever you're doing or else I'll break you in half," what is Kuiga talking about?
"Fine! Fine!" The voice shrieks and then the darkness starts to fade away. This space we're in really was underground. There is a wall in front of me with carvings all over it and on the stone floor. In the middle is a pedestal with a vial the size of a gallon on it.
That's when I see what's around me. Several dead animals, I don't recognize, all torn up and dead in a bloody heap. I notice that the one in front of me is torn up too. How did Kuiga do all this?!
I look to Kuiga and there, under her foot is a small creature. The bottom of its body is a flat, round, one-foot long, one-inch-high piece of metal with a three-inch cylinder in the middle that leads to a thicker, seven-inch cylinder with a creepy face of two black eyes and a black, jagged mouth. At each end of the mouth is a thinner cylinder that curves upwards a few inches above the cylinder that's its head with two just like them on the back.
Kuiga takes her foot off it and I walk over to it. "What are you?"
"I am the superior one! I am what will control all krivadels and have them kill each other for my entertainment!" The little thing screeches while chuckling.
"What are you talking about? How is a little …metal thing like you taking over anything?" I ask, really curious as to how it plans to do any of that.
"I am Pewlator, the living metal! And I was born with the ability to reveal and manipulate all of your desires!"
"What?" I ask before I'm overcome with a strong urge I can't resist. I grab Kuiga by the arms and pull her close to me. I kiss her deeply for about ten seconds before the urge starts to lessen. I pull away from her and aside from her wide eyes, she's not reacting, instead she looks up, above my head. I look up to see a large, blue rectangle with a bar that's filled with a green line with red stripes that's slowly going down. The box says: Make out with Cyn, but Cyn is covered by Kuiga.
"Hehehe. See that?! I can alter your desires and strengthen them! I took away all their desires, so all they do is stand there!" I turn and see Bodaka and the rest just standing there, motionless and expressionless. "I took away the desires of everyone to see this space, so much that your brains refused to take in the information!" Pewlator shouts with glee.
"Ugh, you little creep," I say as I try to kick it, but stop. I look up to see another blue rectangle that says: Hurt Pewlator. The bar in the box is empty.
"I already control all of you, you idiot!" It chuckles as Kuiga takes the tracker out of my hand and drops both of them onto Pewlator's base. She then walks to the missile launchers and I follow her.
"Why do you only have one desire?!" Pewlator shouts and I see the blue rectangle above Kuiga. The words in it are written in the krivadel language. "It's too strong, will take too long to manipulate! But you on the other hand." Pewlator then turns his attention to me.
The: Hurt Pewlator rectangle appears above me again, but the green bar starts to fill with red stripes and the word Hurt is replaced with Save.
I grab Kuiga's arm, desperate to save Pewlator. I throw a punch at her face, but she avoids it, wraps her tail around my ankle and pull me to the ground. She then hits the buttons on the launchers and the missiles fly at Pewlator! The explosions aren't as big as I thought they'd be, but they do blow Pewlator down the corridor in the wall right before it crumbles.
"How dare you make a fool of me! I will pay you back for this, once I start taking control of cities!" I hear the little freak shriek as I hear him hoping away down the all.
Kuiga then takes the relic. The giant vial of some magenta liquid. "You did it!" Bodaka shouts as his and the other's desires return to normal. "Congratulations! You two are in!" Bodaka says, slapping us on the backs before taking the vial. "Here, Kiruki, put this away somewhere. We'll figure out what to do with it later," he doesn't sound all that interested in that find.
Kiruki takes it and walks back up the hill. I then look back to the caved in doorway, worried about Pewlator
"Are we just going to let that thing get away?" I ask, thinking something should be done about it.
"Nah, too dangerous. Even if it can't mess with her, it could make us fight her," Bodaka says and that does make sense. Still, it doesn't feel right to leave Pewlator alone like this, but what can I do? Kuiga doesn't seem to care and I'm not going to force her to do something she doesn't want.
We get back to the top of the hill. The others load the missiles launchers back on the craft. "Say, since Gura doesn't want to, and Kiruki is too much of a wimp, why not have these two fill in for the comeback contest?" Bodaka says and I don't know what that is.
"Oh, so when Gura says no it's fine, but when I say no, I'm a wimp," Kiruki says, sounding like a whiner.
"That's because you are a wimp," Bodaka says back. They all start talking about this contest, but all I can think about is how Kuiga only has one desire in her life. How can someone only desire one thing? And what is it?