Igneous and the girl walked down the mountain for a couple more hours. It was getting dark, so they decided to camp in a cave. The jaguar leader used his powers to start a fire. He was still wearing the coal armor with which he defeated the machines.
The girl sat as far away from Igneous as possible, without straying too far from the heat of the campfire.
"So… what's your name?" The boy asked.
"No talking," the stranger girl growled.
"I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
Awkward silence.
"Who is Breeze?" She asked.
"Ah, no talking," Igneous replied.
The girl rolled her eyes.
'Don't you like being given your own medicine?'
Awkward silence, again.
Igneous couldn't believe how much that girl looked like Breeze. It was like seeing her alive again. Only grumpier and with a face of few friends.
"Don't look at me like that," the stranger requested, looking away from the boy.
"Like what?"
"Like... Mm... forget it."
"Don't you want me to look at you either?" The boy complained, "How difficult you are!"
Third awkward silence.
She took out some cereal bars from her pocket and started eating them. Igneous' stomach growled. The girl looked at him out of the corner of her eye, while she chewed.
The stranger looked at a cereal bar, then she looked at the boy, whose stomach growled louder. She hesitated.
"Don't let my belly fool you," he stated proudly, "I'm not that hungry."
"Are you sure you don't want some?"
"Mm…"
Igneous' mouth watered. He wanted to jump in and devour all the cereal bars that the stranger had.
She huffed and threw a cereal bar at him, he caught it out of the air.
"It's the only one I give you," she assured.
"If you say so," Igneous replied, taking a good bite of the bar.
"Are you going to keep that on?" The stranger asked, pointing to the coal armor.
"Honestly, I don't know how to get it off," the boy admitted, gulping down the last bit of cereal bar.
"A mind command?" Igneous asked, not quite sure what the system was referring to.
"Hmm, but I would lose all my powers, wouldn't I?"
"I see," the boy said, scratching his chin, "but I'd like to keep it on."
"Why?" the girl asked.
"It's just that I don't trust you."
"I don't trust you either."
"Good thing it's mutual."
"Good."
"Fine."
How many awkward silences could there be in one night?
"What thing?"
"What? And how do I recharge the stamina?
Igneous sighed deeply.
'Off armor,' he thought. His body was wrapped in a red flash and he found himself wearing the same clothes with which he arrived in that mysterious world.
Minutes passed. She and he in silence. Neither wanted to fall asleep first.
"Will you not sleep?" The girl asked.
"That's what I ask you," Igneous retorted.
"I don't understand, if you don't trust me, why did you ask to travel with me?"
"It's not like I have a lot of options. I don't know this world. Right now you are my best option to survive. But that doesn't mean I'm going to stop watching you or that I'm going to let my guard down."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever," she rolled her eyes.
His eyes weighed heavily.
'No, no, don't fall asleep.'
He had a hard time keeping his eyes focused.
Poof! He slapped himself.
"Auch!" He complained.
"Are you stupid? Why do you hit yourself?"
"I don't want to fall asleep before you do."
"Fine, whatever."
It was hard for him to trust other people. He was the last to fall asleep in his gang and he got used to being a light sleeper, so he could wake up at any noise.
"You can go further into the cavern," the girl suggested, "perhaps you will feel safer there."
"No thanks, I prefer to have you in my field of vision."
"Good."
"Good."
His eyelids weighed him down again.
'Damn, wearing the armor exhausts too much.'
He tried to slap himself, but his arms were heavy. It was as if his body didn't have an ounce of energy left. Everything went dark and he fell asleep.
… … …
"Hey, fire boy," he heard a voice calling him, "wake up!"
He opened his eyes and scratched them. He flinched at the sight of the unknown girl so close to him and jumped back, away from her.
"Not so close!"
"Don't yell, idiot," the girl protested, lowering her voice, almost to a whisper.
"Why?"
Igneous heard sounds of metallic footsteps against the ground. Machines? They seemed to be close.
"Let's go deeper into the cave," the stranger suggested.
Go with her? In the dark? He doubted. Maybe he could fight again. He would easily defeat them.
"I know you're thinking of fighting them again," the girl said, "but I'm warning you, it's not a good idea. Those you destroyed aren't the only machines. There are other models, larger and more powerful. Avoiding combat is the smart thing to do."
He hesitated.
"There's no time to waste," she hurried, "we have to hide."
The metallic footsteps felt stronger and closer.
He nodded and they both walked into the darkness of the cavern. The footsteps were heard so close that Igneous thought that at any moment he would see them pass through the entrance of the cave. That's how it went.
There were several of them, the same ones he defeated the day before, no less than ten.
'Could I destroy them all? Perhaps…'
The machines emitted a vertical beam from their crystal 'eye' in the direction of the cave's interior as if scanning the place. Igneous and the girl ducked behind a rock. They were too close to each other, so close that they could hear each other's breathing.
The scanning beam didn't touch them. The machines went on their way. Their footsteps faded in the distance.
Igneous and the girl breathed easy and left the hiding place behind the rock.
Her stomach growled.
"You're hungry," the boy pointed out.
She blushed.
"I'm out of cereal bars," the girl confessed, embarrassed.
"We have to go out and get food and water," the boy said.
"No, no, we have to stay hidden," the stranger refuted.
"We are going to die of hunger and thirst if we stay here."
"I… I can hold on a little longer."
Igneous snorted.
"Okay," he reluctantly agreed, "I'll look for food in here."
"Here? inside?" The girl was confused.
Igneous knew what to do to survive. There were days when he had to eat rats. This was life on the street: having eyes in the back, rationing food, changing hideouts regularly, and attacking an enemy gang before they attacked you.
Inside the cave, the boy managed to catch a couple of spiders.
"Do not! I will not eat spiders!" The girl exclaimed, in disgust.
"Do you have a better option? starve?"
She didn't answer.
"If you cook them they don't taste so bad," Igneous assured.
He rubbed a wooden stick over the dead fire and rekindled a flame. Next, he stuck one of the dead spiders on the same wooden stick and put the insect on the fire.
The smell of cooked insects was felt throughout the cave.
The girl made the feint to vomit.
"I don't advise you to throw up what little you've eaten," the boy warned.
When the spider was 'ready', Igneous took a couple of bites that sounded crunchy.
"Wow," he said, "it doesn't taste too bad."
The girl screwed up her face.
"Are you sure you don't want to?" He insisted.
"I'm sure."
Igneous shrugged.
"Your lost," he replied, chewing.
The boy cooked the second spider.
"I'm going to have it cooked for you," he said.
For the rest of the day, the girl's stomach did not stop growling. Igneous looked at her from the corner of his eye.
"Those spiders don't look so bad anymore, do they?" He said with a mocking tone.
She walked over to one of the dead spiders. She shook her head and looked away from it.
"Come on," he said, "you know you're hungry."
The girl hesitated.
He knew better than anyone what it was like to spend days hungry. Living on the street, in the middle of a war. That prepared you for the worst. Eating spiders was nothing compared to what he had lived through.
The girl's hands were trembling, she timidly grabbed a leg of the spider's corpse. Her breathing was rapid as if she was exerting great physical effort.
"Come on…," Igneous encouraged her, "I left it cooked for you."
She brought it within inches of her mouth, and closed her eyes.
"Come on…"
She swallowed hard, opened her mouth and…
Crush.
Crispy bite.
"Very well!" Igneous clapped, "Not so bad, right? Also, insects are an important source of protein."
She screwed up her face as he chewed.
'After this first time, it will be easier,' thought the boy.
They were hidden until the next day. Eating spiders and making sure the machines were no longer around.
"I think it's time to leave," Igneous announced.
When they came out of the cave, they were careful that there were no machines nearby. They ran into the thick forest.
Igneous looked up, looking for fruit in the branches of the trees.
"What are you doing?" the girl asked.
"Looking for fruit, obviously."
"Obviously… are you stupid?"
"Hey what's your problem!" The boy exploded.
"You're my problem, disgusting marked one!" She answered with a louder cry.
"You keep saying that and I don't know what it means!"
"IGNORANT FOOL!"
"RUDE JERK!"
They both raised their voice. Serious mistake...
Metallic footsteps… Tremor on the ground…
'Oh-oh…'
Some nearby bushes split in two, and from between them emerged a metal sphere, with four mechanical legs, like a crab, and a glass eye in the center. On top of the machine, there was a young woman, with blue hair, gathered in two-sided wavy pigtails and wearing black leather clothes, with a pronounced neckline in which two large… 'melons' could be seen.
'What the hell?'
The woman threw some pieces of charred metal on the ground, in front of Igneous and the girl. It appeared to be debris from the machines the boy destroyed.
"Did you do this?" the woman asked, indignant.
The girl pointed to Igneous.
"That was him."
"Hey!" The boy complained.
"How could you be so cruel?" The woman seemed to be on the verge of tears, "How could you do that to my baby?"
"Your baby?" Igneous spoke up, "You call those things babies?"
The woman's eyes widened, and one of them twitched as if it was a nervous tic of suppressed rage.
"What… what did you say?" the woman asked.
"How silly to call them babies," the boy said, not realizing that he was goading the woman.
"Nonsense…," the tic was more evident.
"Hey, you better shut up," the girl whispered.
"Why? Those things nearly killed us!" Igneous approached the machine that was carrying the woman, he didn't seem to be afraid "What's your problem? Why do you attack us like this? If you keep attacking us I'm going to have to beat you up."
The woman gave him a crooked smile.
"I don't know if you are too brave or too stupid."
"It's the second!" the girl yelled.
The blue-haired woman placed a gauntlet on her right arm. Embedded in each joint were crystals that glowed a pale blue light, like miniature versions of machine eyes.
"I'm going to teach you a lesson, you cheeky little boy," the woman threatened.
She stepped down from the metal sphere, and raised the gauntlet, which was enveloped in a blue glow.
The ground shook and several of those machines appeared. One joined another, and those two joined others as if they were forming a chain of metallic spheres. At least a dozen of them linked together to rise into what could be described as a giant metal centipede.
"Well done, ignorant jester," the girl said.
Igneous swallowed and pulled out the red sphere.
"I'll have to kick your ass."