Brutoin knew now what he was after. He was after the intelligent little bird who had protected its companions. He needed a way to subdue it, to collect it. After talking around and around the predicament, one of his followers finally had an idea worth exploring.
“What about the zoo? They must have some way to incapacitate animals?” Yu suggests, lacking confidence in his own idea.
“No. That’s stupid,” Mara answered Yu. “But I I had a friend that worked at a zoo in town. Sometimes they use pepper spray to get an animal down. That seems doable.”
“That sounds promising,” Brutoin said.
“Will pepper spray kill that small bird?” Tristan suggested uncertainly.
“Yeah, I think so,” Lilah agreed. “If we can’t think of a better way though...” she supported Brutoin.
“Ok. Pepper spray should be easy enough to get. Let’s get to it.” Brutoin announce to his team.
Brutoin and his people purchased pepper spray. While they were out, they decided to go to a pet store and look at the birds. They were curious what they were up against.
In the pet store, Lilah talked to one of the workers and asked about birds and pepper spray. The worker misunderstood her and thought that someone had sprayed Lilah’s pet bird with bird repelling spray. The employee was offering tips on how to treat Lilah’s pet bird. Lilah accepted that interpretation and went with it, obtaining much sympathy for her poor attacked pet.
Brutoin and team learned that pepper spray was unlikely to kill a bird. It would certainly annoy them though. They also learned that the spray wouldn’t be enough to catch the bird. A net would also be needed. They bought the appropriate net from the pet shop.
On their way out of the shopping plaza, Brutoin spotted a frople boy standing on the pavement, looking interestedly around him. He was standing near a circular pickup lane at the entrance of the downtown. It was a normal place for people to stand. The down town area was pretty, nice to look around. Also, he was obviously waiting for friends or family to pick him at at the pickup lane.
The boy was being glanced at by many shoppers. His people, frople, so rarely traveled outside their own country. Also, he was unaccompanied. Though he wasn’t a little child, being a solitary youth still drew some attention.
Brutoin thought of something. “Get the car and pick me up. I’ll wait here. – Lilah, you stay with me.”
Brutoin grabbed Lilah’s shopping bag from her and carried it himself. He directed her attention towards the frople young man. In an undertone, he expressed his perspective to Lilah. “He’s alone. Abandoned.”
“Abandoned?” she asked him in confusion. She couldn’t see why he would assume that. Her friends had just left her there for a minute to get the vehicle. Why shouldn’t this kids’ friends have done the same thing?
“If he is abandoned, we could help him,” Brutoin suggested.
Lilah highly doubted that he was abandoned. He looked quite comfortable. He looked like a young man who wanted to spend a little extra time at an interesting place, looking around for a few more minutes while his parents went and did an errand. She could see that Brutoin was buying into his own story though, and it didn’t displease her. She answered him. “Ok. If he is abandoned. How long has be been standing there?”
“Long enough, maybe,” he answered. “You can make it seem like you know him, right? Walk up to him? I don’t think I could.”
“I can. For sure.” She was confident.
“When our car is here, maybe he’ll come with us,” he suggested, as if it made sense that a perfect stranger, from an isolated culture, halfway across the world, would love to abandon his family and join their troop, right now.
“Seems right,” Lilah agreed, somewhat ironically.
In the end, the boy did end up being in their vehicle when they left the premises.
The boy ended up being difficult to travel with. He didn’t fight or cry, but he was determined that he didn’t want to be there. He was determined to get in contact with a rescuer. They’d had to keep a very close watch on him.
The boy wasn’t their only difficulty. There was a new problem at Molil. It was now occupied every day. A little troop of weirdos was staying there, camping or something. Their grounds were up on the west hill, right in the place Brutoin needed to search.
His plans frustrated again, Brutoin let himself be led into different activities. He and the crew stole an ancient scroll, case and all, as it was being moved from one location to another. They attended cultural events and brought out their booth, collecting more contacts and legends. Notably, they collected another travel companion, a very small man. After one of their events, he had accompanied them home. Brutoin was the only person who seemed to believe that the man had wanted to come with them, but Brutoin’s followers were in the habit of not disagreeing with him. Besides, what did it hurt having an angry little man locked up on the bottom level of their boat?
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
In time, Brutoin realized that the campers weren’t going to leave their campgrounds. They were a permanent obstacle.
“Look. Why don’t we begin traveling properly? Go on the road, or on the seas? Like a tour. Make the cultural change we were hoping for?” Mara suggested, as an alternative to returning to the quest for the pixies.
Brutoin had had enough of this cowardice. “It’s not a tour!” he shouted, terrifying all but Lilah. “It’s a quest. We’re not entertaining the masses. We’re not a show. We are a force of nature. Or at least I am going to be. The balance is waiting to be restored. It’s taken too long already. TOMORROW. I’m going tomorrow. WE’RE going tomorrow.”
He looked dangerous. Lilah enjoyed it. “Yes. Tomorrow,” she agreed. She was feeding off the danger and chaos. The other crew members were silent, stricken.
The next day they locked their two captives in two of the three small rooms on the bottom level of their boat. They collected their resources for subduing the bird pixie. Brutoin concocted a plan: They would bring the boat up close to Molil Island. He and Yu would take the canoe over and hide it well. Tristan would drop Lilah and Mara off at Molil’s dock. They would go onto the island and cause some kind of commotion. With that distraction, Brutoin and Yu would incapacitate the pixie and take it with them, back on the canoe. The canoe would meet Tristan on the pirate vessel. Lilah and Mara would find a way back to the boat without getting caught, and they would all flee.
Brutoin waited with Yu, in the canoe, hidden behind tall rocks. They waited for Lilah’s distraction. They’d know it, whenever it happened.
It happened. He saw tiny figures up on the north cliff of Molil, rushing toward the edge of the cliff, looking over the cliff as if expecting to see something dangerous there. Then, the figures ran away from their camp grounds and east, towards the cabins. He and Yu began their trip up to the birds. By the time they got there, the area would hopefully be cleared.
Approaching quietly and carefully – Yu sounded more like two snakes than one man, which was an advantage for being ignored – they saw that the area wasn’t quite cleared. A little gazebo of sorts had been constructed, and a couple people were standing guard there. Deciding in the moment, Brutoin handed the bird capturing gear to Yu and nodded meaningfully. Then he rushed out at the sentinels. He was busy with the scuffle, but he heard Yu’s slithering behind him. Having faith in his follower’s ability to collect the pixie, he stayed focused on keeping the two combatants busy. He was bigger and stronger than them. He was fierce enough to keep them at bay for a long time, if needed. None the less, he would get tired eventually, and others were destined to come back and make this battle more challenging.
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Yu slithered toward the tree where the bird had been spotted before. He knew how to be very quiet, so he approached the area making almost no noise. The he stopped, hidden by trees, and looked into the trees, trying to spot the pixie bird. It only took him a moment to spot many blue birds spread throughout a few trees. Then, he spotted what was probably THE bird. It was smaller than the rest and a slightly different color. He couldn’t afford the time it would take to have to chase the bird around, so he walked into the area with the pepper spray pointed at the animals and started spraying as soon as he was near them. He tried to keep his eyes shielded but he knew they would sting too. They did. He suffered through and went for the bird. The bird and the few who were sitting near it in the tree were stunned but not mortally wounded. They fluttered awkwardly, trying to get away. Yu swung his net at the bird a few times, trying at least to prevent it from flying higher. After a few swings he was able to pin the bird between his net and the bark of the tree. Surprisingly he had caught a couple extra birds in the net. That didn’t matter.
Yu had the bird cage attached to his clothes, dangling. He had to detach it and get it ready to put the birds in. It was a challenge, but it was done. Quickly then, he rushed to where Brutoin was.
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Brutoin’s unequal fight with two opponents was somewhat of a challenge. The more time he stayed there fighting, the more he was concerned that the fort people would rush back. Then he would be caught and all would be lost. Brutoin was therefore very pleased when Yu rushed past him holding a cage with a few birds stunned at the bottom of it. Brutoin had to get away now, without being followed. He knocked the first combatant hard on the leg so that they dropped, and then the second on the head so that they passed out. He and Yu got quickly to their canoe and began rowing to their boat, which had been brought closer to the island, for a quick exit.
When they returned to their pirate vessel they waited around for Lilah and Mara to return. The waiting was agony. Brutoin even considered leaving them. Not Lilah though; he couldn’t leave her behind. Not too long later, they spotted Lilah and Mara approaching in a canoe. They were being followed by other canoes and kayaks. Brutoin also noticed that a vessel, a yacht of some sort, had been brought around to the beach. Fort people were boarding it. In fact, the canoes following Lilah had redirected and were going for the yacht instead. They were already very close to it. Now was the time that Brutoin needed to get out of there. Lilah and Mara were brought aboard.
Brutoin was somehow pleased about the people at the beach, who were clearly planning on fighting back, even though he was frustrated about having to engage in the fight that was clearly coming for him. Were these people fanatics? Was the pixie really so much worth rescuing? If so, it must be really special.
“Time to go!” Brutoin told his crew. “Yu, get that downstairs. Lock it up.”
They started their engine up and began to flee. The yacht behind them took an extra moment for people to finish boarding, and then to follow them. It was far behind. Unfortunately though, it was a vehicle made more for speed than The Defender. It would catch up.
Brutoin looked to his people. What should they do? Just keep going? If they could get to another island, maybe they could get authorities to intervene on their side, or use water traffic to keep the others away.
Lilah spoke, “Either we get boarded or we don’t. Let’s just keep going.”