Chapter 9: Expanding The Arsenal
The hideout held its breath in the grey pre-dawn stillness. Fred’s eyes opened to the familiar geometry of pipes and rock above his bunk. No alarm, just the internal clock that came from a lifetime of early shifts. He moved with the silence of practiced habit, swinging his boots to the cold stone floor, avoiding the creaky plank. His gaze drifted upward to the sleeping nook carved into the wall above him.
Trixie was a vague shape under a blanket, one arm dangling over the edge, her fingers loose. The rise and fall of her chest was steady, deep. Good. Doc’s work was holding. Fred watched for a second longer than he should have, then turned away, the image of her broken on that table searing behind his eyes. He strapped on his bandoleer, the leather cold and stiff. Voltage, sensing motion, uncurled from a fold in the blanket and zipped to his shoulder in a blur of blue. Bulk thumped over from a pile of rags, his stone helmet nudging Fred’s hand.
Eli was already waiting, leaning against the rough wall by the exit, a shadow sharpened by anticipation. He gave a single, tight nod. No words. They slipped out into the muggy air of Wild Spore, the heavy door whispering shut behind them.
The cavern’s false dawn was a slow seep of cooler light from the high ceiling, pushing back the deeper blues of night. The air smelled of wet earth and sweet, rotting fungus. The chaotic chorus of waking slugs filled the space—clicks, chirps, distant rumbles, the skittering of countless tiny feet on stone. It was a sound Fred had learned to parse, a language of life and territory. It was nothing like the synthetic silence of Quiet Lawn.
They descended a winding path of knotted roots and slick stone to the forest floor. Giant mushrooms towered like silent sentinels, their caps glistening with moisture.
“We’re looking for utility,” Fred said, his voice low, cutting through the ambient noise. “We need brawlers. Area denial. Something for tight spaces.”
“We need power,” Eli countered, scanning the undergrowth. Burpy was already on his shoulder, a warm, pulsing ember in the gloom. “We’re going into a labyrinth of fire. We need slugs that can match that.”
“Fire’s only one problem. What about cave-ins? Narrow passes? We need a toolkit, not just a bigger hammer.”
Eli didn’t reply. He just started walking, his eyes tracking movements in the shadows. Fred followed, his own senses stretching out. He didn’t need to listen to the ground like earlier; he watched the environment. A flutter of wings near a dripping stalactite marked a colony of Hoverbugs. Useless for the fissure. A glint of metallic green hopping under a log was a Grenuke—potentially useful for combat, but not in close quarters.
They moved deeper, the canopy of giant caps blotting out most of the light. The sound of flowing water grew louder.
Then Fred saw it. A flash of vibrant orange and white, like a stray ember, perched on the broad cap of a crimson toadstool. A Flaringo. It was preening its feathery antennae, oblivious.
Fred held up a fist. Eli stopped. Fred approached slowly, not with a sling, but with empty hands. He dropped into a crouch a few feet away, bringing himself to the slug’s level. Voltage and Bulk stayed perfectly still on his shoulders.
The Flaringo stopped preening. Its large, intelligent eyes fixed on him. It didn’t flee.
“Hey there,” Fred said, his voice calm, even. He’d done this a hundred times in the training pits back home, coaxing skittish mechanical slugs from their housings. “Tough spot, sitting out here in the open. Lots of bigger things with sharp teeth in this forest.”
The slug chirped, a questioning sound.
“I’ve got a crew,” Fred continued, gesturing with his chin to Eli, to his own slugs. “We’re heading into a tight spot. A nasty one. Could use a slug who knows how to apply heat without burning the whole place down. Precise work. You look like you’ve got good control.”
He didn’t promise glory or adventure. He stated a problem and suggested a role. The Flaringo seemed to consider this. It looked at Voltage, at Bulk’s stony resolve. It looked past Fred to Eli, to the legendary Infernus glowing on his shoulder. Its gaze lingered there, and Fred saw a spark of challenge in its eyes. It didn’t want to be in Burpy’s shadow. It wanted its own lane.
It chirped again, a decisive, sharp sound, and gave a firm nod.
Fred slowly extended his left hand, palm up. The Flaringo hopped from the mushroom cap, landing with a slight warmth on his skin. He brought it to his bandoleer, to an empty tube beside Bulk’s. The slug inspected the opening, then slipped inside, curling up with a contented sigh. Bulk nudged the tube with his helmet in a solid welcome.
“Scorch,” Fred said. The name felt right. Dependable. Direct.
Eli had watched the whole exchange, his expression unreadable. “You ask them,” he stated.
“They’re not tools,” Fred said, standing and brushing damp moss from his knee. “They’re the crew. You don’t command a crew. You collaborate with it.”
“My father always said a slug chooses its slinger.”
“Same thing,” Fred said, and started walking again, following the sound of water. “Just different words.”
They found the stream, a ribbon of clear water cutting through black rock. This was a slug highway. They stayed there for an hour, a quiet, efficient team. Eli’s method was more kinetic, using Burpy’s flashes of light to herd curious slugs into advantageous positions. He caught a sturdy-looking Rammstone, its body a mix of red, blue and tan, useful for destroying obstructions.
Fred worked the edges. He spotted a Frostcrawler clinging to a shaded rock overhang, its pale blue body shimmering. A potential counter to the volcanic heat. It took patience, staying perfectly still as the slug eventually, out of sheer curiosity, inched down onto his outstretched, coolant-tipped glove.
Their bandoleers were filling, the comfortable weight of new potential settling against their chests. The tentative ceasefire between them held, forged in practical focus. The only words were tactical.
“Three o’clock, on the root. Dirt Irchin. You want it?”
“Absolutely.”
A comfortable silence returned. Then Voltage buzzed, a sudden, sharp warning pulse that crackled against Fred’s neck. Bulk let out a low, grinding growl.
Upstream, the gentle babble of the water was overtaken by a different sound—a low, grinding roar, followed by the distinct, piercing shriek of metal on rock.
Not a slug. Machinery.
Fred and Eli exchanged a glance, all rivalry instantly vaporized by shared alarm. They moved as one, ducking low and scrambling up a slick embankment toward the noise, using the thick fungus stems for cover.
They crested a rise and looked down into a small, rocky clearing.
Below, a hulking, treaded mecha-beast, painted in the familiar, grimy orange and black of Blakk’s goons, was parked at a jagged tear in the cavern wall. Two of Blakk’s thugs—one tall and wiry, the other built like a barrel—were wrestling a piece of rusted, ancient machinery from the crevice. It looked like the skeletal remains of a drill, adorned with corroded glyphs.
“—can’t believe we pulled the dawn shift for this scrap,” the barrel-shaped one grunted, heaving.
“The Doc wants every piece of the old deep-diggers he can find,” the taller one sneered, his voice reedy. “Says the answers are in the ancient tech. I say he’s lost his marbles since the kid punched his face in.”
Fred’s blood went cold. The kid. He felt Eli tense beside him.
“Just grab the core housing and let’s go,” Reedyman said. “This place gives me the creeps.”
They weren’t here for slugs. They were on an archaeological dig. Scavenging for Blakk’s research. Right on the doorstep of the Shane Hideout.
Eli’s hand went to his blaster. Fred’s did the same. Their eyes met again. No plan needed. The calculus was simple: two enemies, isolated, carrying something valuable to the man who wanted them dead.
Fred held up two fingers, then pointed to himself and to the tall, wiry thug. He pointed at Eli and the barrel-shaped one. Eli nodded.
They moved.
Fred went low, slipping through the ferns like a shadow. Eli went high, using the canopy of mushroom caps for a slingshot vantage. The thugs were oblivious, their backs turned, swearing at the stubborn machinery.
Fred broke cover, his boots crunching on gravel. The tall one spun, his eyes wide. “What the—”
“Voltage!” Fred snapped, his left arm already in motion. The blue slug launched, a streak of crackling light that morphed mid-air into the sleek, deadly Velocimorph. He didn’t aim for the man. He aimed for the mecha-beast’s control panel. Voltage struck it in a burst of sparks and arcing electricity. The machine’s lights died with a pathetic whine.
“Hey!” the thug yelled, fumbling for his own blaster.
Across the clearing, Eli dropped from above, landing in a crouch. “Burpy! Flare!” A controlled sunburst erupted, not to burn, but to blind. The barrel-shaped thug stumbled back, hands over his face.
It was over in ten seconds of brutal, coordinated efficiency. Fred closed the distance with the tall thug, his right hand lashing out not with a punch, but with a sharp, disabling strike to the wrist that sent the blaster skittering away. He followed up with a heavy shove that sent the man sprawling onto his backside, breathless.
Eli had the other one pinned against the dead mecha-beast, Burpy hovering inches from his nose, heat washing over his face.
Fred stood over his target, his own breath steady. Voltage zipped back to his shoulder, buzzing with satisfaction. He looked at the ancient drill component, then at the terrified man on the ground.
“You,” Fred said, his voice quiet and devoid of all mercy. “You’re going to tell your Doctor something for us.”
The tall thug on the ground sneered, wiping blood from his lip. “Or what, mullet? You’ll give me a bad haircut?”
His barrel-shaped friend, still pinned by Eli, managed a shaky laugh. “Yeah, tell the Doctor yourself. We’re not your messengers.”
Fred didn’t blink. His movement was economical, practiced. He reached to his bandoleer, his fingers finding the tube that held his newest recruit. He pulled the Flaringo free, its warm body resting in his palm. He didn’t look at the slug. He kept his eyes locked on the thug’s face as he slid Scorch into the open chamber of his blaster with a smooth, metallic click.
The sound was definitive in the quiet clearing.
He leveled the barrel at the thug’s chest. The orange and white protoform pulsed gently in the glass chamber, a captive star. “This is a Flaringo,” Fred said, his voice flat. “At a hundred miles an hour, it becomes a six-foot-long stream of focused plasma. You’re about three feet away.”
The thug’s bravado evaporated. His eyes darted from the blaster to Fred’s impassive face. He swallowed hard.
“We accept!” the barrel-thug squeaked, his body pressing harder against the dead mecha-beast.
Fred kept the blaster steady for a three-count, then lowered it. He ejected Scorch gently back into his hand and returned him to the bandoleer. The entire display had taken less than ten seconds.
Eli stepped back from his prisoner, his own fury barely contained. It wasn’t the hot rage from the hideout; this was colder, sharper. He looked from one thug to the other, his gaze carving into them. “You tell Blakk,” Eli said, each word a chip of ice. “You tell him I know what he did to my father.”
The thugs stared, confused and terrified.
“He was the last to see him,” Eli continued, the truth giving his voice a terrible weight. “That doesn’t make him a witness. It makes him the cause.” He took a step forward, and the air around him seemed to heat. “Tell him I’m coming. I’m coming, and I’m going to take everything he’s digging for. And then I’m going to take him.”
He leaned in close, his final whisper carrying like a shout in the silence. “He’s going to pay. I don’t care if he’s in custody or in the ground when it’s over. Do you understand?”
The thugs nodded, their necks jerky with frantic motion.
Eli jerked his head toward their crippled mecha. “Get out.”
They scrambled upright, stumbling over each other in their rush to flee. They didn’t look back, vanishing into the fungus forest, the sounds of their panicked flight fading into the cavern’s hum.
Eli watched them go, his shoulders rigid. He took a deep, shuddering breath, the cold fire in his eyes dimming to embers. He walked over to the ancient drill component, hefting the surprisingly light metal. “I’m taking this back to Kord,” he said, his voice drained. “See what you can find out here. Don’t take all day.”
Fred just nodded. No argument, no commentary. He watched Eli walk away, the weight of his father’s letter and his own proclamation hanging on him like a physical burden.
Alone now, Fred turned back to the stream. The violence had scattered the nearby slugs, but the forest was vast. He moved with a hunter’s patience, his senses attuned to the subtle signs Voltage whispered into his ear with tiny buzzes and clicks.
He found the AquaBeek in a still pool downstream, its blue-and-teal body shimmering just below the surface. It watched him with round, curious eyes as he knelt. He didn’t speak of crews or purpose this time. He simply placed a dehydrated protein pellet from his pack on a flat stone at the water’s edge and waited. The slug considered the offering, then flowed onto the rock with a soft ploop, claiming the food before hopping onto his waiting glove. “Splash,” Fred murmured, slotting him home.
The Hop Rock was next, found perched on a jagged outcropping of quartz, its bumpy yellow hide almost camouflaged. It watched Fred approach with a defensive, territorial stance. Fred didn’t reach out. He took a small, dense wrench from his belt and tapped it gently against the rock near the slug. The clear, crystalline sound rang out. The Hop Rock tilted its head, intrigued by the vibration. Fred tapped a rhythm. After a moment, the slug tapped back with a smaller foot, mimicking the pattern. It then hopped onto the offered wrench, and then into his hand. “Shrapnel.”
The Arachnet required stillness. Fred sat against a giant root for twenty minutes, unmoving, until the deep purple slug emerged from a crevice, its many eyes assessing him. He held up a finger, and Voltage, understanding, released a tiny, harmless arc of static between Fred’s fingertips. The Arachnet’s spinneret twitched with professional interest. It hopped forward, touched Fred’s knuckle with a delicate leg, then hopped up his arm to claim a tube. “Webs.”
The Vinedrill was nestled in a patch of glowing moss, its green form nearly indistinguishable from the foliage. Fred didn’t try to coax it. He simply took out his canteen and poured a tiny trickle of water onto the roots of the moss. The Vinedrill stirred, extending a tiny tendril to taste the moisture. It then climbed the tendril up to the canteen, exploring the metal, before finally transferring to Fred’s bandoleer of its own accord. “Thorn.”
Ten slugs now lined his chest and waist. The weight was substantial, a comfortable press of potential. He made his way back as the cavern’s false light began its slow shift toward evening.
When he pushed through the hidden entrance, the hideout was a hive of controlled activity. Kord was hunched over the drill component, his large fingers tracing glyphs. Pronto was fussing with a pile of heat-resistant gear. Trixie was at the table, maps spread before her, color high in her cheeks from either fever or focus.
All activity stopped when he entered.
“Whoa,” Kord breathed, his eyes wide. “You clean out the whole forest?”
Pronto scurried over, his mustache twitching. “Let Pronto see! Such variety! Such strategic choices!”
Trixie just smiled, a real one that reached her eyes. “Told you he had a way with them.”
Eli looked up from cleaning his blaster. He surveyed the new occupants of Fred’s bandoleer—the vibrant blue of Splash, the rugged yellow of Shrapnel, the deep purple of Webs, the vibrant green of Thorn. A flicker of something passed over his face—respect, maybe, or the quiet understanding that Fred’s methodical gathering was its own form of power. He gave a single, acknowledging nod.
“Couldn’t have chosen better,” Eli said, his voice low.
Fred unclipped the bandoleer, laying it on the table with a soft thump. The slugs, sensing safety, peeked from their tubes, inspecting their new home. “They chose too,” he said simply. He walked over to Trixie, his eyes scanning her face. “How’s the breathing?”
“Less like a bag of broken kindling,” she said, meeting his gaze. She tapped a spot on a map—a treacherous, winding path labeled The Volcanic Labyrinth. “Thanks to you. And Doc. We leave at first light. Ready to break a new trail?”
Fred looked at the map, then at his slugs, then at the team around him—the gifted leader, the steadfast giant, the pompous tracker, the brilliant strategist with pain still shadowing her eyes. He felt the collective weight of their mission, of Eli’s vow, of the threat waiting in the fire.
“Born ready,” Fred said, and for the first time since Quiet Lawn, he almost believed it.
Dinner was a quiet, fuel-oriented affair—reconstituted protein packs and stale wafers swallowed without tasting. The weight of the coming dawn pressed down on the hideout, turning conversation to logistics, gear checks, and worried glances at the maps. Fred felt the new slugs shifting in their tubes against his chest, a constant, reassuring reminder of preparedness.
He cleaned his blaster methodically, the ritual of disassembly and oiling smoothing the ragged edges in his mind. The others eventually drifted to their bunks, the cavern’s ambient glow softening into a pervasive night. Finally, with a last nod to Eli who was polishing Burpy’s shell by the low lantern, Fred stood and headed for the ladder up to the sleeping nooks.
Their shared room was a small, carved space, dominated by the stacked bunks and the soft hum of the cavern’s air circulation. He placed his bandoleer carefully on a hook, the slugs already dozing inside. He sat on the edge of the lower bunk, the worn canvas sagging under his weight, and just looked at them. Scorch, Zero, Hammer, Grime, Splash, Shrapnel, Webs, Thorn—a full arsenal he’d built from the wild. A crew. A strange pride warmed his chest, cold and quiet like banked forge-coals.
The door creaked open.
Trixie slipped in, stretching with a groan that was part fatigue, part residual ache. She ran a hand through her vibrant red hair, yawning. Without ceremony or self-consciousness, she began to undress. Her back was to him as she peeled off her tank top, then shimmied out of her cargo pants. The lantern light from the main cavern spilled in, painting her skin in gold and shadow. He saw the pale, lingering marks on her ribs where Doc’s healing had sealed the fractures, a map of recent violence. Remembering what she’d said about not minding, he let himself watch, the mechanics of his own breathing slowing.
She bent, rummaging in a small footlocker, and pulled out a soft, grey sleep shirt. She pulled it on, the fabric draping over her shoulders, hiding the marks. Then she turned.
Her eyes found him sitting in the dimness. They traveled over him—the broad planes of his shoulders straining his threadbare undershirt, the definition of his abdomen visible even as he sat, the oil still caught in the lines of his hands. She didn’t smile. Her expression was unreadable, intense.
Instead of climbing the ladder to her bunk above, she walked over and sat beside him on the lower berth. The canvas dipped under her slight weight. The sweet, clean scent of her perfume—something like crushed herbs and cold water—cut through the room’s smells of damp stone and gun oil. Her shoulder almost touched his.
“Eli told me,” she said, her voice low. “What really happened back at Scorched Sparks. How you didn’t just hold Blakk off. You took him down. Hard.” She looked down at her own hands, clasped in her lap. “He told me how you got to me the second I was hit. How you… you kept me together on that ride back.”
Fred stared straight ahead at the opposite stone wall. “It was the job,” he said, the words sounding hollow even to him. “Any of us would have.”
“Stop,” she said, the word sharp but not unkind. She turned her head to look at him fully. “Just fucking stop, Fred. It wasn’t just the job. You saw me go down, and you… you ended your fight to start mine. Eli was still playing the hero. You were just saving the person.” She took a breath. “It’s a big deal to me. So let me say thank you.”
He opened his mouth to protest again, to bury it under more practicality, but no sound came out. She saw the movement and moved first.
She leaned in and kissed him.
Her lips were softer than he could have imagined, and they tasted faintly of the herbal tea she’d drank after dinner. The shock of it, the pure, warm sweetness, short-circuited every thought in his head. He was lost in it instantly, a man falling into a warm, dark well.
His hand came up almost of its own volition, his fingers sliding into the hair at the nape of her neck, holding her there. Her hand cupped his jaw, her thumb brushing the stubble on his cheek. The kiss deepened, became something urgent and searching. They broke apart, gasping for air in the quiet room, their foreheads touching.
Then they came together again, harder.
This time there was no hesitation. His tongue met hers, and she welcomed it with a low sound in her throat. Her other hand fisted in the material of his shirt, pulling him closer. He could feel the heat of her through the thin sleep shirt, the press of her small, firm breasts against his chest. He leaned into her, lowering her back onto the bunk, his body following, covering hers.
The world narrowed to the feel of her under him, the taste of her mouth, the sound of her breathing quickening. Her hands left his face and his hair, sliding down his back, under his shirt. Her nails dragged lightly over the muscle there, and he shuddered. He kissed her jaw, her neck, finding the pulse point and feeling it hammer against his lips.
“Fred,” she breathed, his name a gasp.
He pulled back just enough to look at her. Her eyes were dark, her lips swollen from his. “Your ribs,” he said, his voice rough.
“They’re fine,” she whispered, and she pulled his shirt up over his head. Her hands explored his chest, his stomach, mapping the hard-won muscle. “Don’t stop.”
He kissed her again, a kiss that was all possession and need. His hands slid down her sides, over the sleep shirt, and he tugged it upward. She lifted her hips, helping him, and then she was bare beneath him. Her skin was pale in the dim light, her breasts small and perfect, her nipples already hard. He lowered his head and took one into his mouth, sucking gently, then harder.
She arched off the bunk, a sharp cry escaping her that she bit back, turning it into a moan. Her fingers tangled in his mullet, holding him to her. He worshipped her breasts with his mouth and hands, learning what made her gasp, what made her hips shift under his.
Her own hands were busy, unbuckling his belt, fumbling with the button of his pants. He helped her, kicking them off along with his boots. When he was as naked as she was, she reached for him, her hand wrapping around his cock. He was fully hard, thick and heavy in her grip. She stroked him once, twice, her touch confident, and he saw stars behind his eyelids.
“Trixie,” he growled, the last shred of his control fraying.
“I need you,” she said, her voice raw with want. “Now. Please.”
He didn’t need telling twice. He positioned himself between her thighs, which fell open for him willingly. He used his hand to guide himself, the head of his cock nudging against her entrance. She was wet, slick and hot. He looked into her eyes, a final, silent question.
She answered by wrapping her legs around his waist and pulling him into her.
He pushed inside, a slow, inexorable slide that made them both cry out. She was incredibly tight, a hot, velvet fist clenching around him. He buried his face in her neck, breathing in her scent, as he sank all the way to the hilt. She held him there, her inner muscles fluttering around him, her breath coming in short, sharp pants against his ear.
“Fuck,” he whispered, the word full of awe.
“Move,” she begged, her heels digging into his back. “Please, Fred, move.”
He pulled back almost all the way, then drove into her again. The sound was obscenely wet, perfectly filthy. He set a rhythm, deep and steady, each thrust rocking the bunk frame against the stone wall. She met him stroke for stroke, her hips rising to meet his, her moans growing louder, less restrained.
One of his hands found its way between their bodies, his fingers seeking the slick bundle of nerves at her core. He rubbed circles there in time with his thrusts, and her whole body went rigid. Her head thrown back, a string of curses and pleas spilled from her lips, a vocabulary he never would have guessed she possessed.
“Right there, oh god, don’t stop, right fucking there!”
Her climax hit her suddenly, violently. Her back arched off the bunk, her channel clamping down on him in rhythmic, milking pulses. The sight of her coming undone, the feel of it, tore the last of his control to shreds. He drove into her twice more, deep, hard strokes that bruised his pelvis against hers, and then his own release ripped through him. He spilled into her with a guttural shout, his body locking as heat flooded his veins.
He collapsed on top of her, careful to keep his weight on his elbows, mindful of her ribs. They lay like that for a long while, slick with sweat, breathing in ragged unison. The only sounds were their slowing breaths and the distant drip of water somewhere in the caverns.
Finally, he shifted, rolling to the side but keeping an arm around her, pulling her against him. She nestled into the crook of his arm, her head on his chest. Her fingers traced idle patterns on his skin.
“That,” she said after a long silence, her voice husky, “was a better thank you than words.”
He huffed a quiet laugh, the vibration rumbling in his chest. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “Just doing my job,” he murmured into her hair.
She pinched his side, hard. He yelped.
They lay in the comfortable quiet, the reality of the morning and the labyrinth of fire waiting for them just hours away. But for now, in the dimness, there was only this: the heat of skin, the beat of a heart under his ear, and a peace he hadn't known since leaving home.