Heh, thanks you two. Just knowing one or two people bother reading it makes all the difference. ;)

-----

     Jan glanced back at Keff – the glukkon looked severely out of breath, slumped against the wall and sucking in great laboured draughts of air, his eyes dulled and half-lidded. It didn’t surprise him – glukkons weren’t exactly known for being prime examples of fitness at the best of times, cigarettes and alcohol and exotic food and lack of exercise all taking their toll on their health.
     “You all right?” Jan asked, in a whisper, although to his shame it was more out of concern the tall creature would slow them down than out of any particular concern for his health.
     Keff nodded, once, a single convulsive jerk of his almond-shaped head. “…gimme a second…” he wheezed. “…just gotta catch… my breath…”
     Lar glanced irritably at the two still talking, then hefted his rifle and shouldered the door open. There was a squeak of alarm from inside, an odd clicking chirp that Jan recognised as a slig contact call, but then there was the sharp retort of a single gunshot and a ripple of voices – one reedy and scared, a high mudokon voice, the other Lar’s rough drawl.
     “Oh for Odd’s sake…” Keff whispered. “I didn’ realise he was going to go shooting-… go on, get in there, we won’t have much time.” He gave Jan a light shove with one handfoot. “He’ll wake the whole Odd-damned place up.”
     There was one corpse on the floor inside the doorway, the pathetic pale olive shape of a young slig that lay twisted where it had fallen, and a sharply potent mixed metallic scent of blood and gunpowder. Aura didn’t react as they came in – perhaps hadn’t even noticed them, she looked fairly… dazed. She lay on her side on the over-laundered off-white sheets, unresponsive, and Jan felt a momentary clutch of fear she was already dead – but as he watched he noticed her chest still rose and fell, and her fingertips trembled, so in spite of her begrimed, bruised condition she was at least still alive. He wanted to go closer, but didn’t fancy getting in the way of Lar’s rifle.
     The one remaining previous occupant of the room – a yellowish-skinned mudokon – had retreated against the wall, whining excuses. Jan felt himself visibly blanch; it was a youngster, certainly no older than himself and probably younger, if truth be told. He swallowed, thickly, and tried not to feel too nauseated at the thought.
     Lar advanced on the youngster, a dark expression souring his features. In the low lighting he made a hideous vision, draped in carbon armour, his cybernetics hissing softly like a nest of serpents each time he moved.
     “Don’ hurt me, oh please don’ hurt me, I never done anythin’ wrong…” the mudokon stammered, looking like he was trying to push his back through the bricks, he was pressed so hard up against it. “You mistaken me for someone else, I ain’t never hurt no-one important…!”
     “Done nothing wrong?” Lar asked, darkly. “’cept that, huh?” he gestured behind himself.
     “That…” a frown flickered across the mudokon’s features, one that suggested he didn’t know what Lar was talking about. “But… it’s just… that’s nothing, it’s just a sli-”
     Lar scowled, and put a single bullet through the mudokon’s skull before he could say anything further; the youth jerked horribly at the impact, then gave a soft exhalation and slithered down the wall, leaving an unpleasant sanguine smear all the way down.
     “Was that really necessary?” Jan demanded, bitterly, as Lar turned away and went over to Aura.
     “Loose end,” the slig replied, callously. “He’d have squeaked the instant we was out.”
     “You don’t know that…!” Jan chased, angrily.
     “Not worth the risk,” Lar disagreed. “He might not have, sure, but then there’s the risk he might have, too. He don’ tell no-one, this way.”
     “That’s unf-” Jan started to protest, but the slig interrupted.
     “Listen, kid, don’t you go an’ rag on at me about unfair,” Lar hissed, waving his rifle. “There ain’t nothing in this world what’s fair, not no more. I don’ know if you still look at your cosy little world through yer rose-tinted fluffy-Native specs, but he ain’t been brung up in the wild like what you were,” he gestured to the mudokon corpse on the floor behind. “He was Industrial through an’ through, oil in his veins and smoke addlin’ his brain. If you think for jus’ one minute he’d have kept his word an’ kept hushie while we was making a run for it, instead of rattin’ on us to the Boss and snaggin’ a little extra moolah in his pay-packet for catchin’ runaways, then you gotta grow up and grow up fast, fer fcuk’s sake.”
     Jan didn’t argue; he glared hatefully at the harsh words but knew they were bitterly close to the truth. It just… hurt. To see his brothers – to see mudokons – behaving like sligs. To see them do exactly what the hell they wanted to do, and laugh about it. It wasn’t right – certainly not coming from his spiritual and essentially good family! At least… what he had once considered a spiritual and good family. So much was wrong here, it made both his head and his heart hurt.
     “This world is cold, hard, an’ cruel,” Lar said, more softly, settling next to Aura and briefly casting his eyes over her, checking if she was well enough to be moved. “You may think you got it hard, you muds, but a fair world wouldn’ see my brothers sold off like livestock soon as we was old enough to hold a gun neither. We ain’t so different. You’d do well to remember it.”

Cool, an update! I'm off now to read 'Dark', and as soon as I've finished that I' moving onto this! Oh and I was wondering, are you going to put these updated chapters on your site? Anyway, off to the prequel I go!
EDIT: Just finished reading Dark, all I can say is...wow. A great fi, sinister, cliffhanging (is that a word?) and quite touching. I'll say nothing more as I don't want to spoil it for any who haven't read it but, it is one of your best fics I've read, Teal. I now begin reading this fic. :)

Just after catching up (well... just before your last little bit).

I can remember some of the older characters, but I only remember "Fall From Grace"... possibly a little bit after. I missed the stories with hte Dark Energy/Force thing... and why everyone's in a coma or dead. I only remember Aalu as a kid!

Any place I can catch up on the missing tales?

Try her site, Windchaser's, i the oddworld section. Here's the link:

http://www.windchaser.co.uk/wa/odd/odd_index.html

Some of the fics are iunfinished, but they're still good. There's my cheap plugging for her site. :D But nah, there's good stuff on there. Just use the 'home' link at the bottom and check What's New every so often to see if there's been an update.
EDIT: I've just got up to date with this fic so far, great stuff! Poor Aura, that suffering she was put through despitebeing so young, I hope they kill Yax! But will they ever get the 'Healing', as they've been in this gladiatorial place for some time now. I want more!

Fantastic! Very good update, the last bit, "we're not so different." Was fantastic, a very powerful 4 and a half words!
Keep it up, can't wait for more, I hope Aura's ok :fuzwink:

I can't believe how LONG ago I started to write this. I think it was in the first year I joined OWF, which is fairly scary... *eeks*

Anyway. Just tying off loose ends on this chapter - every now and then I manage to elbow the Kiravai and Nyen and Vuls out of the way and write a little more of it, and maybe things will get moving again soon. :P

-----

     Keff turned to Jan; “Go see if there’s anything in the bathroom we could use,” he said, softly.
     “What am I looking for-?”
     “Use yer imagination,” Keff growled, softly. “Odd blessed yer with a brain, didn’ he?”
     Mildly chagrined, Jan scuttled obediently away, through the small door to the latrine facilities. He still wasn’t sure what it was that Keff was meaning, but guessed – hoped – he wanted something to clean up the scratches and bruises on Aura’s skinny body. It hadn’t escaped any of their notice that in spite of the fact Management were feeding her and looking after her fairly reasonably, she was growing skinny, gaunt-looking. Jan wasn’t sure if emotional stress did the same to sligs as it could do to mudokons, but she certainly looked smaller than last time he’d seen her. Hell, not just smaller, she looked broken since he’d last seen her, all those weeks ago; he’d kept her as uppermost in his mind as he’d been able to, and from the vibrant, vigorous, argumentative youth he’d accompanied away from Khufa she’d become a husk. Shrunken, battered, skinny, aged prematurely by abuse and bad food.
     There wasn’t much through here that was steal-able, Jan found; most was at best bolted down and at worst far too heavy, but then the room was sparse anyway, little more than the bath, the latrine, a wall-mounted heater and a tiny cupboard close to the ground. He snatched up everything that was loose and looked like it’d do – soap, painkillers, antiseptic, a reel of old bandages and a tin of plasters, and hoped it’d do. The only other cupboard was locked – it looked like a medicine cabinet, but there was something written on it in unintelligible Vykker handwriting and he doubted any contents would be helpful. He just hoped it wasn’t something they were using on Aura, because she wouldn’t be getting it shortly if it was…
     While Jan gathered supplies, Lar tended to Aura.
     Keff leaned closer to his underling, and asked, softly; “well?”
     “Alive,” Lar confirmed, quietly. “But not looking too good., ‘specially not after what she used to look like. Her mind’s probably took the worst of it.”
     “Like the last one?”
     “Yeah, boss. Mind you - least she ain’t dead.”
     Keff watched as Lar took Aura’s small hand, and checked her pulse; reedy and shocked, but it was there. “Do you think she’s, eh…”
     “No, boss, she ain’t pregnant,” Lar intuited Keff’s question. “They probably got her on hormones to keep her that way. Don’t want no unsuitable males causin’ problems before they got the breeding program up an’ runnin’, right?” He carefully eased Aurora up off the mattress, into his arms. “Hey… hey there… can you hear me, sweetheart?”
     Aura just lay there in his arms, unresisting, her head slumped backwards and her hands trailing by her sides. “Just get on with it,” she told Lar, faintly. “The sooner you get your fun, the sooner I can get some kip…” her eyelids fluttered, and her eyes closed. “Some nice sleep, all for me..”
     “Hey, c’mon, kid…” he gave her a gentle shake and her eyes reopened, briefly. “We’re here to get you out. And away. Like you wanted.”
     She managed a tired smile. “That’s what the last one what shot his rival said, an’ all… Seemed to think it was fun, seeing me get all hopeful, like that…”
     Over by the door, Keff turned his attention to Jan. “Got much?”
     The young mudokon shook his head, tightly, a bundle of tied towel slung over his shoulder. “Soap, painkillers. That’s about all there was.”
     “It’ll do. Lar?”
     “She’s okay to move,” Lar agreed, curtly, rounding the bed with her in his arms. “Here, you best take her, kid…”
     “I can’t carry her, I’ve already got-” Jan complained, briefly, but Lar had already pushed her closer and he took her anyway. “I feel like the pack-elum.”
     Lar took the bundle of towel off his shoulder, as an exchange, with a tired glare. “Happier?” he asked, darkly. “I got to be the advance guard too, remember? Can’t very well carry heavy arms and her too.”
     “All right, all right,” Keff growled and gestured toward the door. “Let’s get on. There could be any number of guards comin’ chasing after Lar’s gunshots.”
     Lar had already gone to the door. “Coast’s clear, boss,” he pointed out.
     Keff gave Jan a gentle push from one broad handfoot, toward the door. “Then let’s go.”

*Faints with shok and ahppiness*
*Wakes up half an hour later*
Wow! An update! thank you so so so so so so much. :D The best bit is, I discover the update here on my birthday. :spin: Great chapter Teal, I've forgotten so much since I last read it, but I backread a bit and I've picked it up. Any chance of updating sooner if possible? Cause its been over 8 months, nearly 9, since you last updated Still, great job on updating your fic.
*Faints again*

Arg, I never caught up on all the odd-fic you wrote... and I had to revise this one before reading the update.

Still, great to see you're updating them still.

Huzzah! Lovin it! Oddly enough I was just thinking "I wish Teal would update her story" and the next day I found it! About a week later I remembered to post here!

So yay!

DOn't keep us waiting so long for the next, bit! please? Not for me, but for the fuzzle. :fuzblink: Do it for the fuzzle...

I dunno why i'm posting here, because this is roughly four years after the last post, soo, yeah, if Teal's still on the Forums, do it for the Fuzzles! Odd dammit! do it for the Odd damned Fuzzles!:fuzzle::fuzwink: :fuzcool: :fuzgrin: :fuzvamp: :fuzmad: :fuzconf: :fuzsad: :fuzblink: :fuzsmile: :fuzemb:

Scrabino...

1. Don't post in topics you think are four years old unless you have something realy usefull to say (this topic happens to be active, but you apparently didn't know that).

2. Easy on the smilies, don't spam.