It had been a week since Amy had been captured, and she was still as silent as when they had first hogtied her in Xi’gorths shack. She was a tough cookie, as Rai had explained in their daily briefings.
The daily briefings were a new fixture in their daily lives that they decided to create. They, Mia and Arty, decided to stay in the plot of land given to them by Xi’gorth on the condition that at some point in the future they would leave. As a consequence daily meetings were to be had until that time may be said to come which they would leave. Or something. Arty didn’t really read the contract he just signed it.
However, the meetings had not been filled with talk of spaceships or food or money, but with Amy. The name of the dirty-clothed girl that tried to kill Mia.
She refused to speak. The only reason they had her name was that when they, Mia and Rai, stripped and cleaned her they found the name written on her clothes. Otherwise, they knew nothing about the girl. She ate in silence, slept in silence, and even talked to herself in silence. A rather strange act to the students but something that Amy had mastered for her long journeys alone.
Mia thought that she was a scout for a group of humans that had managed to keep themselves hidden from the greater beings. They would raid us and destroy everything, she warned. Arty thought she was a girl traveling the deserts in search of her family or tribe. She would go away once we let her go with some food and water, he said. Rai looked at them both. She has to stay here, she said.
“We need more breeders, if it's between having her leave, or having her stay, I choose stay.”
As such the girl was to remain indefinitely hogtied in Xi’gorths shack. “But we can’t keep her hogtied in the shack, what if Xi’gorth comes back?” Arty complained.
“Your right…” Mia replied.
“Let's untie her, she can be silent or whatever. It’s not like she can hurt any of us.” Rai added, “Let's go and exp-“
The door swung open with a roar. In came a brown-haired cat with a very tired cat face. It walked through the shocked faces of all the kids and up to the podium. It rested, back first, against the front of the podium, and ignored the students.
Seeing Xi’gorth come back they all ran to their seats. It's not like they weren’t expecting a 3rd or even 4th test from their teacher. The greater beings loved to test and quiz and talk about miscellaneous facts in newspapers they read yesterday, so it was no surprise at all that the teacher had come back to test them. What was surprising was that Xi’gorth didn’t say anything. He rested on the podium, his butt towards them.
The students were unaware that Xi’gorth was suffering from what greater beings called “complete mental breakdown” (CMB for short). It was a common reaction to complete and utter failure among the greater beings. Thankfully greater beings who suffered from this during a battle were often killed before their weakness could be found so it remained a secret from humans.
And it was true. Xi’gorth had failed miserably. He traveled for 3 days into the wasteland that surrounded this shelter only to find wandering gangs, mutants, and plenty of mating cats. It was all too much. It didn’t take long for him to understand that he would either be eaten by apocalyptic human gangs or raped by horny mutant animals before he could ever find a warp gate. He trekked back with only bad thoughts in his head.
Now, as he looked at the board, his head was filled with nothing but the overwhelming feeling of failure accompanied by a CMB. He wasn’t even aware the students were behind him until Arty started playing with his tail.
“Stop it young one, I am not in the mood for your antics.”
“But teacher, didn’t we pass? We managed to stay on this land without being tricked by your great tests.”
“Oh, helkoth off. I’m going to my staying place.”
“Ah wait, sir!” All three of them yelled in unison as the cat ran out.
Before Arty could grab him the cat run out of the schoolhouse to the small shack at the far end of a small paved road. The students all jabbered and argued with each other about whose idea it was to put the girl in the shack until they all realized the impending doom and ran after their teacher to stop him from opening the door.
Without any worry Xi’gorth swiped open the door to the smell of sweat and piss and a human girl tied up on his bed. His cat brain began to run through the millions of possibilities. ‘Have they already found another human to take over my place? Oh no. Did I not even have a place to return to…I did threaten to torture them all until they went mad….’
“Sir!” Arty bit his tongue, ready for the worst to happen. XI’gorth had already seen the shack. Now…they didn’t know what was going to happen. All three of them went to their knees as the cat looked onward to the girl that now occupied the shack.
“I see.” The cat said, in a very low human tone. “So I am gone for hours and you all find a human to take my spot. This is how you repay me? Your master? Your teacher?”
“No, we would never!” Mia yelled “We were keeping her here because she tried to kill me, since, you know, we thought you were leaving. But that doesn’t matter anymore! We have passed your test! Now, what other teachings will you pass unto us, great master!” Mia had to try her hardest. As far as she was concerned she had been the main instigator to go against the greater beings' plan, and she knew that the other two would rat her out, so she might as well start kissing ass now.
“Oh,” Xi’gorth had not thought about that. “Well…in that case it's fine. I will stay in the house then.”
Amy was surprised by the entire exchange, but only partially surprised. Although she had never seen an animal mimic human speech she had seen one grow two meters tall and spit out fire, so it wasn’t out of the realm of possibility that one could talk. What was surprising was how much deference the humans gave to the cat.
As Amy pondered the significance of the cat's leadership in the group a locating device started beeping in Amy's left thigh. It was loud enough for everybody to stop and look at her.
Then Amy started maniacally laughing.
You see on the first day of Amy's imprisonment she had cursed them for taking her clothes away and cleaning her, but then they put her clothes back on and she realized how stupid these people were. They didn’t even get rid of what she had in her pockets. With a click, she activated it. Now the only issue was that they had great skill in tying knots and no matter how hard Amy tried she couldn’t scratch her back.
As her imprisonment elongated they tried to communicate with her. But Amy never broke. They would never get anything out of her. She knew that they would never hurt her too, they were soft, weak, spoiled children with no experience of the real world.
So she waited for her group to come. They would take over this nice parcel of land and establish this as a base for future generations. Hopefully, there wouldn't be too much bloodshed in the fight.
Amy laughed even harder. Then she spoke. “You will all die, we will eat your flesh and make a nice broth out of your blood!”
“Oh no.” Arty reacted.
Mia responded with a victory cry that was etched in humanity's soul. “I told you so! She was part of a tribe that was going to invade us! Now you have to clean the bathrooms for a month and I don't want any complaints!”
“Dammit…” Arty kicked the dirt under his shoes like a sullen schoolboy.
Amy was surprised by their relaxed reaction to her threats, so she continued in the hopes that she could convey well the destruction and cruelty her group would inflict. “There will be many of us, they will all descend on your colony like a plague of mutant locusts! We will conquer you all, strip your skin inch by inch, and dance to your agony-filled screams as we wear your skin suits!”
Beep! Beep! Beep! The beeping got louder and louder. With a paw against his temple, Xi’gorths eyes turned a pale blue. “There are thirty people approaching the facility, they are all coming from the northwest! Come on!” The cat sprinted away from the shack and the three humans followed them.
Amy was satisfied with her threats. If they had taken a single thing she had said to heart they would be utterly demoralized, unable to even fight against the horde that was her tribe, they would quickly surrender. With everything set to place Amy relaxed her tied-up muscles. It was only a matter of time now.
A cool breeze came through the open door and hit her face, for some reason the breeze excited her imagination. What would she do with her prize? As she had led the tribe to such a bountiful harvest she was sure to gain some favor, and reward, from the chieftain. Maybe she would take Arty? He seemed to be a strong slave, she could use him to carry around her luggage as they traveled around the world. But no. He would be coveted by the chieftain himself. She would have to be satisfied with one of the girls.
Too busy in her daydream she failed to notice the chieftain himself come in front of her. “Ah! Amy! That's where you were. I see that you were tied up.” There was a silence. “Get it?”
“Yes, sir, now please untie me.”
“I can’t untie you, but let me explain first.” He sat next to Amy. “Man, that's a nice breeze coming through the door.” There was a strange silence that Amy didn’t understand, but the chieftain knew the secret ways of communication and he knew when to use a good dramatic break. “You see, that guy, arty? He’s one tough dude. Took out twenty of us, I’m telling you none of us could get past him. It was amazing. He did this one move, flipped one guy into another, and took out three of us. It made my heart pound like a thirty-year-old mother having her first night. We had to surrender.”
“Huh?”
“We put our weapons down and we got to talking. You know Artys a chill dude. He offered to let us stay here as long as we gave him some food and stuff, like our loyalty or whatever, in exchange we wouldn’t attack them again.”
“That's great news! So we finally have a place to stay, we finally have a home?!”
“Yea, right! Well, everything was going well at that point, but then this girl, real bored-looking, I think her name was Raichu? Or something. She barged in and said it wasn’t right that we were going to come to kill all of them and steal their land and blah blah blah. You know how some of these womenfolk are, right?” he gave Amy a look. “You should know! you’re a woman! Anyway, as a token of forgiveness, we agreed that you would be their sex slave.”
