CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Glok leaned forward in his throne, narrowing his eyes coolly. “Are you certain of this?”

The BigBro Slig saluted him smartly. “Absolutely, sir. This assassin is the thing we want.”

The Glukkon leaned back. “Bring him in, then.”

“Right away, sir.”

Glok watched as the throne room doors swung open. He needed a talented assassin to perform this task, and if he got one of those worthless hunters like D. Caste Raider and his kind…

The being that walked through the door surprised him in a number of ways. First of all, the being was a Wolvark, and since Wolvarks were better known for their brutality than their stealth and speed, that meant this Wolvark was a freak among his own kind. The other thing that surprised him was that the assassin was dressed like a walking armory, sporting at least six blades on a bandolier down his chest and two pistols holstered on his hips. His hat was pulled down to shade his rough face.

The BigBro Slig pointed to the assassin. “My lord, this is Urchyn McAvi.”

“I see,” Glok murmured to himself. “Do you have something to say, McAvi? A sales pitch, perhaps?”

The Wolvark looked up, and a pair of red eyes gleamed under the brim of his hat. “I kill for pay. I kill anyone…I’d even kill you, if someone paid me enough.”

Glok smiled. “How are you at stealth missions?”

“I can do it…if I get paid enough.”

“The mission I have for you requires stealth,” the Glukkon said. “How much would I have to pay you for this mission?”

McAvi brushed at the brim of his hat. “Gimme the details first.”

“Very well.” The Glukkon narrowed his eyes. “I want you to track down and assassinate a Glukkon known as Lord Fragg. He is a threat to my empire, and I need him removed. He has a whole Slig army loosely loyal to him, and I don’t want anyone to see you, because they might trace you back to me. No traces.”

“Hmm…” The Wolvark scratched at his chin. “I’d say $15,000.”

Glok frowned. “$10,000.”

McAvi smiled darkly. “17,500.”

The Glukkon realized immediately where this was heading, and growled, “Done. Now go and assassinate Lord Fragg…if you think you can.”

The Wolvark nodded. “I can do it. I’ll take $5,000 now, the other $12,500 on completion.”

“Very well, assassin.” Glok turned to one of his attendants. “Go and bring him his $5,000…and then make sure he leaves.”

Urchyn McAvi turned to leave the room. “I won’t fail you. You can count on me to do things right.”

* * *

Old buddies return!

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

“No.”

Abe folded his arms across his chest. “No what?”

Alf copied his gesture. “No, we’re not going to go with you.”

Abe grinned. “Why not?”

“Because we don’t owe you anything,” Grunn spat from behind Alf. “We’ve paid up all the debts. Now beat it.”

Abe spread his hands wide, still grinning. “Is that any way to talk to a hero?”

“In this town, yeah,” Alf responded. “You may have saved everybody, a long time ago, but you’re practically worthless now.”

“That’s why I’m here,” Abe said.

Alf frowned. “What?”

“I didn’t just come to get you just to have you with me again,” the hero said. “I came to get you because I need your help.”

Lowrn raised the space just above his eye. “You—”

Alf said, “—need—”

Grunn said, “—our—”

Ferg said, “—help?”

Alf shook his head. “No way. I don’t believe I’m hearing this.”

“Well, you may as well believe it,” Abe growled. “’Cause I’m here, and I’m in need of your help.”

Alf spread his hands wide. “Okay. Suppose – just suppose – that we were listening to you. What kind of help could we give you?”

Abe winced mentally. This was the part he had been having trouble with. What was he going to do with his “friends” once he had the Marching Muds back together again?

“For one thing,” he said slowly, “you can make distractions.”

“Oh, that’s nice!” Grunn mocked. “We make noises, and get shot at!”

Abe sighed. “Yes. There’s a lot of Sligs guarding that slave line out there –”

“Slave line?” These words made Alf take notice of him again. “You didn’t mention a slave line before.”

“Yeah, all the slaves from MeechCo.” Abe unfolded his arms. “You know, the big factory down south that was grinding up the Meeches? The big one led by Lord Fragg?”

Alf nodded. “Yeah, we remember…what happened?”

“Brief summary: I went in. I set charges. I got delayed. Fragg escaped, and took all the slaves with him. I blew MeechCo to smithereens.”

Lowrn held up a hand. “So Fragg’s taken all the slaves away. Big deal. You can just go get them –”

“He’s taking them to Mantin City,” Abe expanded.

All the former Marching Mudokons and some of the bystanders gasped at the name of the Glukkon capital. Alf’s frown deepened. “Oh…you didn’t say it was that bad.”

“Yeah, it’s that bad.” Abe jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “The slaves are slowed down because of their chains, so if we hurry, we can probably cut them off before they get to Mantin City.”

Alf grinned, throwing an arm around Abe’s shoulders. “Hey, it’ll be just like old times.”

“Except now they have lasers,” Abe reminded sourly. “Lots of ’em. That’s why I need you to help.”

Grunn nodded. “I hear ya. I’m in.”

“And me!” Ferg put in cheerily. “I can’t wait to kick some Slig backside once again!”

Lowrn hesitated for a moment, then shrugged. “Looks like you have all of us with you again, Abe.”

Abe smiled, and pointed out toward Mantin City. “Well, let’s live up to our name: let’s march.”

* * *

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

Lord Fragg sat in his newly-pitched tent somewhere in the Mongo Wilds. His Slig army had covered good ground today; it would have been easier if there had been plenty of airships they could have used, but since most of the aircraft didn’t have guns and were only lightly armored, he didn’t want to risk the loss of so many vehicles.

He looked at the map laid across the table, tapping a finger on their current location. “We arere here,” he said, more for his own benefit than for the BigBro standing silently behind him. He traced a small line out of the Mongo Wilds and into the area labeled Free Mudokon Grant, and tapped a small area in a region called the Mudokon Valley. “Abe’s friends will be out this way…that’s where we need to go.”

“Yes, sir,” the BigBro said from behind him, and the Glukkon turned to look at the guard. “We’ll catch those Muds with their shorts down, mow them all to the dirt before they can say ‘Yo-yo-yo’!”

“Don’t be so certain,” Fragg growled. “These Mudokons aren’t to be taken at all lightly; they’ve caused more destruction than any other five beings in history…except, perhaps, creatures like Lord Vantoris, and the Steef, and the Ninth Chieftain.”

“Yes, sir.” The Slig saluted. “We’ll follow orders, sir!”

“Good.” The Glukkon returned his attention to the map, studying it with the eyes of a military commander and successful businessman at the same time.

The ground between their current position and the Mudokon Valley was an area known as No-Muds-Land, an area formerly occupied by such colossal industrial landmarks as Magog Motors, Splinterz Manufacturing, and Flub Fuels – all of which no longer existed, thanks to Abe. After the destruction of the factories, the lands were still desolate from the pollution the factories had originally produced, combined with the decaying metal hulks that had once been technological terrors.

No-Muds-Land, Fragg thought. Perhaps we will encounter Abe and his friends there…and when we do, that name will be especially appropriate, where the greatest Mudokon met his doom.

Lord Fragg smiled…and went on to bed to dream fantasies of an Oddworld without Abe the Mudokon. What a wonderful world they would be living on, he thought, when the industrialist Glukkons and Sligs reigned supreme, with every single Mudokon in existence under their heel, without an Abe to dread at night! Every industrialist to come would pray thanks to Lord Fragg, for his excellent deed of destroying Abe.

Fragg smiled in his sleep. He would be something of a god to every Glukkon to follow him for his great deed, as soon as he carried it out.

* * *

Wow, it was so rude of me I tuned out after chapter two but today I just read the entire thing, it's really good, being able to read it in one hit has given me a chance to see the development of the story. Although it's not entirely oddworld canon I still think i's the best story I've read for a long while. It must be with so many hits!

You make each character true to life though, the glukkon taking an armed caravan for his slaves for example, I can't wait to see how Abe get's through this.

My one question is what happened to humphrey? Did he get left behind?

Humphrey is...well, I can't reveal that. The last we saw of him, he gave away the location of the Meeches because he didn't want to die. But he will return...

And thanks for commenting! Comments are hard to come by these days.

Story is good, WANT MOAR!

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

The Bringer of Pain stood silently on a hill, thinking.

It had not been very long since he had inherited this grand title, one that he had engineered and given to himself; he had no real concept of time besides days and nights, but he guessed it had be at least a week since the incredible urge for blood had come over him, and he had begun his bloody reign of terror against the peoples of Oddworld.

He found it amusing the way that, for centuries, the continent of Mudos had been divided into three factions: the naturalists—Mudokons, Gabbits, and Grubbs; the industrialists—Glukkons, Sligs, Vykkers, Interns, Vamps, and Clakkerz; and the rogues—anyone who felt they didn’t belong in either faction and had decided to branch out from the rest on their own. All three of the factions had been at war since this unusual cycle had begun, and no one had really won. Both sides had their heroes; the Mudokons had Abe, while the industrialists had whoever was in charge.

The Bringer of Pain had no sides. He was his own side, and his own hero.

Why did he have any need of participation in this three-way war? He had enough power on his own to destroy everyone that got in his way, and then look back on the slaughtered bodies and laugh till his guts grew loose. That seemed like a nice way to spend his evening…and the next evening after that one…and all the evenings after that, until he finally met his end.

But that wouldn’t be for a long time. That was obvious. It had been so very simple to wipe out everyone in the Gabbit village; he’d barely had to exert himself to wipe out those pathetic pacifists.

The Bringer of Pain needed no aid to make him utterly powerful. He used the Dark, and the Dark used him. The two were one. He gained all the power that darkness could grant him, to further darkness’ cause. It was a fair exchange.

The Bringer of Pain sighed once. It was a pity that Abe had to be on the other side of the exchange. Even though he might have been a naturalist hero, working for the Mudokons against the industrialists in this war of nature versus machines, Abe had such Light power within him it was quite a pity that he would try to exterminate the Bringer of Pain when he found him.

The dark being knew he would catch up with Abe, or Abe would catch up with him. There was no other way Destiny could go about its course. And when they met…

The being smiled. When they met, there would be such a collision of Light and Dark as had never been seen on Oddworld before, not even when the ancient heroes had finally vanquished the Ninth Chieftain.

It was almost a pity that the outcome of this battle was inevitably in the Bringer of Pain’s favor. Light would always succumb to the Dark…and the Bringer of Pain was simply the embodiment of the Dark.

He turned and moved off into the daylight…a day that would be scarred by the murder of countless more innocent people.

* * *

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

Dawn found Abe and his little band doing what they had always done best: moving across some barren wasteland on another epic crusade to save the Mudokon race from Glukkon enslavement. Except that, with the liberation of all the Glukkon establishments in the area, they were now able to use a few Elums as mounts, and were now crossing the beautiful terrain much faster than they would have done on foot.

Abe tried to breathe through his stitched-up lips as much as he could; the smell the Elums produced was totally appalling, to say the least. They were excellent at transporting the band of Mudokons around, but the smell was almost as bad as being shot at by BigBro Sligs.

As they rode, he told them what he had accomplished with the MeechCo mission – how he had infiltrated, set the bombs, and then had been forced to escape with the Mudokon slaves still in Fragg’s possession due to Fragg’s anti-possession settings in his video cameras. He continued the story all the way up to his return to the village.

He kept a frown on his face the whole way. The loss of Big Face was still fresh enough to cause him pain.

Alf wiped at his eyes with his enormous hands. “I…I never thought I’d hear the day…when Big Face died.”

“Neither did I,” Abe growled. “I just thought he’d live on forever…but then, no one can.”

“So neither will this Lord Fragg when we catch up to him,” Ferg said. “I’ve got a few things to say to him.”

Abe laughed coldly. “All I’ve got to say to him is in the barrel of this Snuzi pistol.”

He kept his mouth shut as they walked across the Mudokon territory. With the continual work of the Mudokons through the Storm Circles, the territory had sprouted up with beautiful green plants and was full of natural wildlife, including Elums, Paramites, Scrabs, Slurgs, Slegs, Fleeches, and yet other creatures that could either be mild-tempered and cute or mean and dangerous.

He knew the Sligs had to be this way. Fragg would doubtlessly be bringing his slaves to Mantin City to keep them safe from Abe’s prying fingers and chanting – because, outside of the now-destroyed MeechCo, there would be no video camera settings that would kill all the slaves. It would be safe for him to chant…at least, he hoped so.

Abe got so wrapped up in thinking that he forgot to breathe through his mouth, and he accidentally breathed in through his nose, and the scent of Elum poured in through his nasal glands. Immediately he felt a strong desire to puke over the side of his mount, but since Alf and Lowrn were flanking him within armreach, he didn’t think puking on them would boost their relationship much.

Alf suddenly posed the question he’d been dreading the whole journey: “How are we gonna free all the slaves?”

Abe gritted his teeth. “I don’t know.”

“We could…uh…cause a distraction,” Ferg said. “We lure some Sligs away, while you possess some others and get them all separated…maybe one of us could help the slaves get out.”

“Maybe.” Abe shook his head. “But Fragg has a lot of Sligs guarding his line. And he went to Mantin City by airship, so he got there before all the others did. He might have picked up some extra.”

Alf laughed. “Hey, we’re heroes! We can deal with it!”

“Maybe,” Abe said again. “But don’t count on it.”

“Optimism is good for things!” Grunn said. “If we’re all down in the dirt about it, we’re never going to get anything done.”

Abe decided to set his mind to planning a way to bust the slaves free. It was a dilemma he was going to have to figure out himself, because – quite frankly – Alf and the others weren’t going to be much help in that area. They just provided him with extra hands and feet and heads.

He scratched at his chin, dividing his mind between planning and breathing through his mouth to avoid tasting the foul Elum stench. Fragg and his Slig minions couldn’t be invincible…no one was invincible. Abe had managed to free all the other slaves he had set his mind to breaking free, so why did this have to be different?

A plan popped into his mind all of a sudden, and he grinned at the idea. He had this Snuzi pistol, after all.

Yeah. Yeah, that would work nicely.

He was still congratulating himself on his master planning when they heard the gunshots.

The Mudokons immediately whirled to face the east. Abe gritted his teeth; gunshots meant trouble, and trouble wasn’t something they wanted to run into before it was time to deal with it.

“Come on!” he said, turning his Elum. “Let’s go check it out.”

He spurred his not-so-trusty and oh-so-smelly steed toward the sound. He heard his friends confer for about ten seconds before riding after him, all trying – and failing – to keep quiet.

Abe hoped it wasn’t Fragg, not this close to him. If it was Fragg, this was a problem. The only way his new plan could be put to use would be if they got to the Slig camp by night, so they couldn’t be seen in this mostly-open terrain.

Still, he had to check it out. That was what he did, after all.

* * *

The mudokons are really becoming badass

Great chapters LS, nice work

I was thinking about doing a bit of fan art for this fic, just did some scale checks, Abe wielding a Snuzi is even more impressive than I thought :p
http://oddworldlibrary.net/archives/...=RAMO0158.jpg6

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Urchyn McAvi checked the power charge on his gun. Seven hundred and fifty laser bolts were ready to be blasted at whoever got in his way. Next he checked his supply of grenades. Three fragmentation and one poison gas. He did a quick checkup on his breathing mask, area scanner, radio, missile launcher, boot rockets, and stealth booster. All functional.

The bounty hunter nodded to himself as he crossed over the hill. It was his equipment that had served him well all these years, even if his clients had sometimes proved to be unworthy. His muscles had failed him occasionally and his mind had grown close to snapping from the mental exhaustion of the stupid beings he was constantly surrounded by, but his equipment had never failed him.

He figured Lord Fragg wouldn’t be that hard to catch up with. It was not so hard to find that the Glukkon was on his way to the Mudokon village to kill Abe, and McAvi knew that his boot rockets could propel him across the land much faster than Fragg’s Slig army could march. Even if his boots grew close to overheating quickly, the solar panels that powered his rockets would recharge faster than a Slig could sleep off his exhaustion.

He twirled his carbine in an almost idle fashion. He wasn’t an idle kind of Wolvark, but when he was walking around in the region known as No-Muds-Land, with nothing but rock and dirt and mud as far as the naked eye could see, he tended to get a little bored. He regaled himself with thoughts of collecting the $12,500 when he returned from killing Lord Fragg.

That was when he heard the gunshots from somewhere close nearby.

Urchyn McAvi was not at all scared at the thought of other people close by with guns. Instead, he figured there might be a bounty on a couple of these people, and since he was a bounty hunter by trade, he could make a little extra moolah along the way.

He turned and activated his boot jets, rocketing toward the source of the sound.

* * *

Lord Fragg felt a brand new surge of pride that he had mechanically enhanced the length of his natural legs, because it allowed him to cover a lot of ground at a decent speed, faster than any other Glukkon alive. With their mechanical strength added to his own, he was also able to keep himself on the march as long as any of the gruff Slig minions marching around him.

All the Sligs were splattered with mud and caked with dust from the long march across No-Muds-Land, but they managed to retain a sense of eagerness. The reason for that behavior probably stemmed out of a desire to kill the terrorist Abe, when no one else had been able to do that for the thirty years Abe had been a threat.

Fragg didn’t mind their enthusiasm; as long as it inspired them, he was all right with it. It helped his soldiers keep their minds on the task at hand, and soldiers who were happy about their task would always be much more willing to accept his orders, as long as they led toward the objective. Killing Abe seemed to be a popular undertaking for all the Sligs.

“Soon, Abe,” the Glukkon whispered. “You’ll be out of the way. I’ll have the political status I need to put Glok out of his place. I don’t have to us MeechCo to become emperor of Glukksonia.”

That was when he heard the gunshots.

He threw up one hand, shouting, “Halt!”

The huge Slig army came to a sudden stumbling stop, all turning toward the sound of the shots. They were four sharp notes, ringing over the sound of Slig legs squealing.

Fragg motioned toward one of the Slig commanders. “You, take a squad up and check out what’s going on.”

“Yes sir!” The Slig gestured to his troops. “Squads 4 and 6, move out. 4 will pacify the situation while 6 scouts out the lay and reports back to us.”

The Sligs threw hasty salutes and hustled off to do his bidding.

* * *

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

The Bringer of Pain smiled coldly to himself as he walked, hands folded behind his back in what he figured was an imperial manner. His unusual manner of walking – if walking it could be called – made it almost awkward to move with his hands behind his back, but he was a powerful being, and because of the way he went armed to his razor-sharp teeth no one would dare to laugh at him, or he would rip their guts out.

It was so simple, this plan of his. He simply had to draw all the opposing parties into a box from which they could not escape, and they would all get rid of each other.

He had seen them all: Abe and his Marching Mudokons – ironically, they were mounted on Elums – along with Urchyn McAvi the Wolvark hunter, and Lord Fragg with his Slig army. All were against all. The Bringer of Pain figured that if he brought them into close quarters with each other, he could get rid of a lot of them.

But not Abe. Abe was much too powerful to be exterminated by Lord Fragg and Urchyn McAvi. But this was too good of an opportunity to miss, to show just how powerful he was.

He moved into the box canyon…and saw his victim.

A Grubb was walking about, picking daisies and adding them to his growing pile of picked flowers, seemingly without a care in the world. He would make the perfect being to get rid of.

The Bringer of Pain drew his Blitz Packer and fired four shots. One went in the Grubb’s heat, the second and third through his eyes, and the fourth in and out of his forehead. The stupid naturalist creature crashed face-first to the ground without a sound.

The Bringer of Pain took great pleasure at the way the sound of the shots reverberated around the box canyon. It would bring the trapped beings to this place, where they would all die.

He knew the other beings would be very close now; he hurried forward and holstered his Blitz Packer, pulling out a cutting knife from his vast supply of weapons. He crouched down beside the dead Grubb and slit letters through the creature’s body.

the bringer of pain was here

He turned and left the scene at a pace that might have seemed frightened, if it had not been intentional. Fragg and the others would fall into the trap…and they would pay for it.

* * *

CHAPTER THIRTY

King Glok nodded his head. “Interesting…I never knew the Vykkers had so much technology.”

Beside him, the spindly form of Humphrey III nodded vigorously. “Yes, my lord. My grandfather, Humphrey the First, and his partner Irwin, made a host of achievements that could greatly advance the Glukkon bid for total power.”

The Glukkon considered all that he had heard. “The Babychow and Butt-Flo I don’t have any use for…but the Chill Pill sounds interesting. You say if it is magnified, it can be used as a cryo grenade?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s good…we need more efficient ways to make powerful grenades,” the Glukkon sighed.

It wasn’t as if they had a war on their hands, but if Fragg decided to use that Slig army and turn against Fragg and the rest of the empire, there very well could be a great civil war. Glok had many more BigBro Sligs on his side, but Fragg seemed to have a great confidence and a knack for strategy, and it could prove to be a problem when Fragg killed Abe.

Glok knew Fragg would kill Abe; with so many Sligs at his command, there was no way Abe could survive. No, it was Fragg he was much more worried about, if it was possible for an emperor to be worried.

“What else had they invented?” he asked.

Humphrey folded two of his arms behind his back, while the other two cracked their knuckles noisily. “Ah, let me see, then…oh, yes. The Snoozer was one of our greatest achievements.”

Glok frowned. “Snoozer?”

“The name is not, ah, to take first impressions from,” the Vykker advised.

“Oh, that’s better.” The king nodded. “Explain yourself.”

Humphrey cleared his throat noisily. “The Snoozer was originally designed to be a sort of anesthesia-administering device for some of the more volatile test subjects at Vykkers’ Labs. It was a robot twelve feet tall, three-legged, with a stun gun on the bottom that could quickly knock out an unarmored being. But…”

Glok nodded. “Go on; explain.”

“But it turned into something of a huge weapon,” the Vykker explained. “It was not only huge, but it was also fitted with a small laser rifle on top, and that made for more destructive use. Then they encased it in armor that could stand up to an eight-rifle barrage for a full minute.”

“And I take it that armor could be reinforced to make a much stronger enforcer,” the Glukkon said.

“Yes, my lord.”

The Glukkon narrowed his eyes thoughtfully. “Do you have diagrams for this…Snoozer?”

Humphrey smiled, revealing his repulsive needle teeth. “Not at this very moment, my lord, but if I am granted access to your computer systems, I could dig up some charts.”

Glok smiled in what he hoped was a patronizing fashion. “You have my permission to find these diagrams, and bring them to me.”

The Vykker turned to leave. “Thank you, my lord! I will –”

“You will also have a Donner Packer rifle at your head the whole time, to make sure you don’t dig too deep into my records,” the Glukkon king said, in a voice that he didn’t attempt to disguise his utter disgust for the Vykker minion. “Now go.”

Going very pale, Humphrey staggered out of the room, with a BigBro Slig forcing him out at gunpoint.

Glok smiled as minion and soldier exited the throne room. Humphrey was not subtle enough in his attempts to get into the Glukkon secrets; in order to do so, he had revealed many of his grandfather’s secrets from Vykkers’ Labs, and now was getting nothing in return.

It was almost amusing, being supreme ruler of Glukksonia and master of the industrial world, having an active hand in everyone else’s destinies, and making everyone miserable.

Once he had the plans for the Snoozer, he would suddenly have a far more formidable army to face the traitor Fragg. Even if the ambitious businessman didn’t openly make war against Glok, the king decided he was not going to let Fragg back into Mantin City without a couple laser holes through his traitorous body.

And now to business…

* * *

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

Abe rode down into the box canyon, with Alf, Lowrn, Grunn, and Ferg hot on his Elum’s heels. He could smell the stench of fresh blood in the air, and at the sight of the dead Grubb on the ground he felt a fresh surge of anger at the world for its cruelty.

It seemed his whole mission was doomed to be nothing but one catastrophe after another.

“It’s a dead Grubb!” Alf called out from behind him. “Who killed him?”

“I don’t know,” Abe called out, as his Elum picked his way down into the box canyon, “but whoever did it is going to pay.”

It was the work of thirty seconds to get down to the dead being’s body and dismount from his Elum. Abe crouched beside the body, and when he saw the words drawn in blood across the Grubb’s body, the fury that enveloped him transcended hot.

the bringer of pain was here

“Bringer of Pain!” he screamed at the sky. “Wherever you are, I’m going to find you and rip your guts out!”

Alf turned the Grubb over onto his stomach, covering the bloody letters. “Hey, Abe…that’s not very nice to –”

Abe whirled around, raising his clenching his fists. “I don’t care, Alf! This Pain Bringer is a murdering scum, and I’m going to kill him!”

Alf ducked back, cowering under what Abe judged to be righteous fury –

And suddenly Alf was pointing up the hilltop. “Abe! Sligs on the hilltop!”

Abe whirled around, his anger turning to surprise and fear as he saw that his companion was right. At least a dozen Sligs were appearing at the top of the box canyon opposite where he and his friends had entered, raising rifles to their shoulders.

“Get under cover!” he shouted.

He cast a glance around the area; there was not much cover to be found, but for the huge boulder under the cliff overhang. He ducked forward, racing at the huge rock.

Alf, Lowrn, Ferg, and Grunn charged after him.

Then the lasers started to fly.

Making loud buzzing noises, the concentrated beams of light blazed down from the Sligs’ Barrage rifles flying down the hill to burn at the Mudokons. Abe ducked and dodged madly, confident that his friends would copy him, hoping his random pattern would let their fiery shots hit nothing but the rocky ground of the canyon.

Holes burnt in the ground all around them from near-hits by the Sligs atop the ridge. Abe and his friends arrived behind the rock, but the laser barrage continued, chipping bits off the rock’s edge. He could hear and feel the shots that struck the rock, and could feel its temperature rising rapidly under his hands.

“This is bad,” he growled. “Stuck in a canyon with a Slig force.”

Ferg winced as a little bit of rock bounced off his forehead. “Do you think they’re part of Fragg’s slave gaurds?”

“It’s a good bet,” Abe grunted. “But I’d have thought they’d be farther north of here…”

A shiver ran down his spine that wasn’t caused by the impact of laser against his rock protection. “Unless Fragg’s brought Sligs along here to get me personally.”

At the sound of hissing flames from somewhere uncomfortably close, Abe whirled around, drawing his Snuzi pistol. He widened his huge orange eyes as he saw a Wolvark racing toward him, propelled by a pair of boot rockets that sent him flying across the box canyon at a frantic rate. What made the matter a problem was the laser carbine the Wolvark was holding, and that its trigger was depressed, spraying a long stream of laser bolts toward the Mudokons.

“Duck and roll!” Abe screamed. “We’re being flanked!”

* * *

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

Alf and the others didn’t take more than 0.001 seconds to respond to his yell; they threw themselves sideways, trying not to expose themselves to the Slig fire from above while trying to dodge the Wolvark’s laser fire from close ahead of them.

Abe performed his best shooting maneuver: throwing himself sideways, he went into a roll and came back up again firing. The Wolvark dodged with amazing agility, but for several seconds the attacker did not fire, and in that moment, Abe realized the Sligs above weren’t firing.

Apparently they had seen the Wolvark and figured they would wait to see how that ended up.

Awful nice of them to stop firing, Abe thought, as he fired at the Wolvark again.

The bounty hunter – at least, that’s what Abe figured he was – dodged to the side even before the trigger was fully depressed, neatly dodging the shot. The Wolvark then opened fire again, and Abe ducked and dodged as madly as he could, trying to fire at the attacker without getting killed.

Bullets flew from his Snuzi pistol, but he didn’t think he scored any hits. The lasers flew thick and fast; one of them scorched his foot, and another burned a gash in his upper shoulder.

Burning with pain and even more brightly with rage, hardly able to see with blinking at the light of the laser bolts, he struggled to see where the agile Wolvark had moved to, tracking him with his gun. He decided to let his new friend speak.

He fired one more time.

Blood spurted from the Wolvark’s chest, then the bounty hunter fell to the ground, his boot rockets still activated, plowing him forward through the rocky ground. Abe watched the bounty hunter slide forward across the ground until he slammed headfirst into the canyon wall, and the boot rockets detached themselves from his ankles and propelled themselves down the length of the canyon.

“Nice work, Abe!” Grunn called out –

And the Sligs opened fire again. One shot grazed Abe’s forehead before he could scramble away toward the rock cover again. His whole body burning from the close hits from the enemies scattered around the canyon, he barely made it behind the rock before something else came flying down the canyon at them.

It looked suspiciously like a clenched fist, and it landed with a sharp thunk.

Someone screamed “Grenade –!”

And then it exploded, and there was a bright flash of light and pain, and Abe knew no more.

* * *

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Lord Fragg waited expectantly as Squad 6 came running back, eagerly waving their guns. “Abe, sir! We’ve got Abe pinned down in that canyon!”

The Glukkon felt an unexpected and uncharacteristic rise of enthusiasm. “Good, good! Mow him down!”

“We’re trying to, sir!” The Slig made a motion indicating the box canyon. “There was a Wolvark a minute ago that was trying to kill him from down there with him, but Abe shot him –”

“Abe shot him?!” Fragg thundered. He put a hand to his forehead. “Oh, this can’t be good.”

“We just knocked him out with a grenade, sir.”

Fragg whirled around, eyes going wide. “Go on, then! Finish the job! Kill Abe – that’s what we came here for!”

The Slig nodded. “Right away, sir!”

Fragg watched as Squad 6 hustled back the way they had come, all of them eagerly chattering something about blowing Abe’s brains out the back of his head, about being promoted to the top of the barracks and becoming Slig generals. Fragg thought about it for a moment, then he hurried down after them; with these Sligs Glok had given him, you could never tell how competent they were going to be.

He stopped to grab someone’s binoculars before following the Sligs to the top of the hill. His heart beating madly in his chest at the thought of finishing his mission already, he lifted the glass to his eyes and looked down to the canyon floor.

There he was: Abe. Lying stunned on the canyon floor, with two other Mudokons lying beside him. Another pair were crouched beside them, both trying frantically to revive the unconscious ones. Fragg took great notice of the blood trickling from the shrapnel wounds in Abe’s back – and wondered, not for the first time in his life, why the terrorist’s skin was blue instead of green like the others.

He motioned down toward the Mudokons. “Charge!” he yelled. “Kill them all, now!”

“Right away, boss!”

All twelve in Squad 4 and another twelve from Squad 6 charged down the hill, raising their weapons high above their heads and roaring war cries. Fragg smiled as they went down; this would be a day to remember.

The day Abe died.

* * *

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

“These plans…” Glok, unable to wave a hand at them, nodded his head at the papers. “…they’re magnificent!”

Humphrey stood nervously on one side, twisting all four of his hands. “I, ah, had hoped you’d think so, your majesty.”

Glok paced quickly around the Snoozer design, unable to walk slowly due to the matter of walking on his hands, which required him to move quickly if he moved anywhere. He stared intently down at the complicated blueprints laid on the floor, admiring the way the finished product would look.

He turned to Humphrey. “I take it you could take a team of Sligs and put one of these together?”

The Vykker – having no lips – licked the edges of his mouth. “If I had the proper materials.”

“Don’t worry about that,” Glok snorted airily. “I’m the Glukkon king; I can get all the metal and wires and guns in Glukksonia if I asked for them.”

“I, ah…was only concerned about your trust in me,” Humphrey said.

Glok stopped pacing, and seated himself on his throne. He raised his brow. “And are you worth trusting, Humphrey? Or are you just another one of the people who want to leech off me for as long as they can, and then try to make me look like an idiot because I don’t smoke cigars?”

Humphrey laughed shrilly. “Oh, it’s not a problem, sir. You see, smoking has an extremely negative effect on our lungs…smoking is terrible for our health, so Vykkers don’t smoke.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Glok said under his breath, and then, louder, “I’ll see to it you have a proper work team and the materials. I’ll survey the finished Snoozer by tomorrow night, and I’ll see if it’s worth the price.”

The Vykker bowed. “Yes, your majesty.”

Glok turned to the same BigBro Slig who had done the honors a little while ago. “Guard? Escort him to the laboratory.”

As the guard moved off to do his bidding, Glok turned to one of his Intern attendants. “And you, get the materials I need. I’m going to smoke a cigar.”

The Intern blinked three times, but did not say anything on account of his lips being securely stitched up. The attendant nodded, produced a pad from his pocket, and began scribbling on it. Glok had picked that Intern for the job since his handwriting closely resembled Glok’s own, so now he did not have to even sign his name on legal documents. The Intern was paid by getting every new MP3 song that came out, free of charge, and if the Intern ever tried to do anything that Glok didn’t like, he could simply tap a button on his wrist and the Intern would die.

Glok turned and skittered down the steps of his throne, moving toward a big statue of his great-uncle-once-removed, Molluck the Great. He really had no intentions of smoking a cigar – disgusting lung-busters! – but it was his way of telling the Intern he didn’t want any attendants to come with him to his private chamber.

He banged his head on the stone Molluck’s face, and the statue slid aside for a brief moment, just enough time for him to duck inside the opening, and get inside his secret chamber. He smiled in the darkness within, and began to plot.

* * *

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Urchyn McAvi came back to his senses suddenly.

The world was still lit, so it was still daylight. He could feel the hot pain of the bullet that had gone deep in his side, but that didn’t prevent him from leaning back so he could look up.

Three of the Mudokons lay on the ground, bleeding from small wounds that indicated shrapnel damage, perhaps from a grenade. The other two were trying to awaken them, and failing right now.

McAvi felt a cold flash of fear. If the Sligs had killed Abe, there would be no reward to collect! He alone wanted to collect the excessive bounty on the terrorist Mudokon – no one else should be allowed to have that right! And if the Sligs were coming…

He pulled himself up to his knees, and then painfully onto his feet. The bullet seemed to add thirty pounds to his weight, but he managed to stand without falling, and started moving toward the Mudokons.

He raised his carbine toward them. “Hands up, Muds!”

The two Mudokons whirled around, eyes going wide. “What the Odd – I thought you were dead!” one of them screeched.

McAvi grinned wolfishly. “Good; I hoped I could prove how stupid you Muds are, and it looks like I’ve succeeded.” He switched the gun settings to stun. “Now put your hands on your heads.”

Both Muds folded their hands across their chests, shaking their heads in a stubborn fashion. “No.”

McAvi nodded, and fired two stun blasts, catching them both in the head. Both collapsed alongside their comrades.

But the Wolvark hardly had time to think about his victory before he heard the sound of roaring from somewhere up above. He whirled around to look up the canyon, and his eyes widened as he saw two dozen Sligs charging down the canyon at him, guns raised high above their heads as they ran at him. There were too many of them!

Or were there? McAvi certainly was more capable than Mudokons were…and Sligs tended to be incompetent.

He unclipped his single poison gas grenade from his belt and hurled it up the hill at where the Sligs would be in about five seconds. When the item hit the ground, it erupted in a large cloud of green gas, and almost before the Sligs knew what was happening, they had charged right into it.

Most Slig masks could breathe through gas…but not this kind. Its poison molecules were so small, they could slip right through the miniscule fans built into Slig masks. Thus, as soon as they charged into it, the Sligs came to a sudden halt, coughing and gagging for breath.

Grinning, McAvi switched his carbine back to kill settings and opened fire on the Sligs, aiming for their mainly-unprotected heads. The soldiers fell to the ground, either suffocating from the toxic gas or brain-burned from his laser fire.

It took less time than he had expected to get rid of all twenty-four of the Sligs. He only had to shoot about half of them; the others died of the gases within thirty seconds. He was careful to stay out of the way of the deadly green cloud that roiled and burned the air where the Sligs had stood.

He shook his head, switching his gun to stun. “Those soldiers could use a few years more training…if they were still alive.”

He started to turn –

And suddenly felt the cold barrel of a pistol being pressed to the back of his head, and heard the cock.

“Don’t move,” said a distinctly Mudokon voice. “Drop the gun.”

McAvi snarled as he dropped his gun to the ground. “And I thought you Mudokons were stupid and worthless.”

“Not if we can help it,” the Mudokon said, and stepped around the bounty hunter so he could see who it was, keeping the gun at uncomfortably close range.

McAvi clenched his teeth at the sight of the blue-skinned Mudokon. “Abe.”

The blue-skinned terrorist grinned broadly. “Yeah, that’s right.” He waved a hand up at the Sligs. “Why’d you kill them?”

The Wolvark laughed coldly. “Why? Were they friends of yours?”

Abe clicked the cock several times. “Don’t get stupid, Wolvark. Tell me, or I’ll shoot.”

“Fine. I didn’t want them to have the reward.”

Abe frowned. “Reward?”

McAvi smiled. “Yeah, there’s a huge reward out on your head, Abe. If I kill or capture you, I’d have enough to retire on.”

Abe’s frown deepened. “Look, bounty hunter. I owe you one for killing the Sligs up there –”

“Yeah, you’re welcome,” the Wolvark mocked.

“–but that doesn’t mean I’m going to let you have your gun back,” the blue-skinned guy went on. “Instead, I’m going to let you walk right out of this canyon. Go to the other Sligs if you want, but I don’t think they’ll like you much after what you did to those others. Get out the other side of the canyon if you want, and start running.”

McAvi gritted his teeth. “If I could kill you, I would.”

Abe smiled. “Now get running.”

Growling, the Wolvark turned and hurried away. How could he have been beaten by a stupid Mudokon? There was no conceivable way it could happen like that! He was the greatest bounty hunter on Oddworld – and he would return, one way or another.

Hopefully, he could return with a bigger gun.

* * *

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

Lord Fragg laid his head slowly into the palm of his hand. The Mudokon and all four of his fellows had just scrambled up the side of the canyon and disappeared away, and the Wolvark had done the same only a few minutes ago. Through his binoculars, the Glukkon had witnessed the whole scene of disaster: the Sligs had charged in with guns waving, as they should, but that Wolvark had somehow turned against them, deciding to take down all the Slig minions single-handedly.

How could things have gone so wrong? How could the Mudokons have gotten safely away from twenty-four Sligs? How could fate have twisted itself around in so many ways?

He turned and hurried back toward the remaining eighteen Slig squads. “The Mudokons are escaping!” he roared. “Get after them – ignore the Wolvark, kill Abe!”

Without even a word of acknowledgement, five squads rushed away toward the place where Abe and his pals had been standing a few seconds before. “Keep your guns at the waist!” Fragg shouted after them. “As soon as you see them, fire!”

The Sligs hurried off to do his bidding, following his instructions. Fragg felt his hope dying quickly in his chest; it had looked so certain that Abe would be dying down in that box canyon, but through some twist the Mudokons were getting away on Elums.

Fragg didn’t intend to let anything slip now, not when he had King Glok at his heels, biting at him to destroy Abe.

“I won’t fail Glok, because for now, his purposes suit mine,” he growled to himself. “But soon, he’ll see that his purposes aren’t the ones that will come to fruition.”

The Glukkon stormed off toward the center of his Slig forces, the only place he felt safe at the moment.

* * *

The Bringer of Pain stood at the top of a nearby hill, a contented smile on his face. Fragg had lost two dozen Sligs in the trap, while Urchyn McAvi had been wounded in the chest. Abe and his friends had escaped, wounded by a Slig grenade.

The dark one felt he had served the Dark well today. He turned and moved off into the wilderness, planning how he should get rid of Fragg and meet up with Abe at the same time.

In effect, planning how best he might bring pain to everyone.

* * *

CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

Night found the peaceful Mudokon camp out in the area ironically known as No-Muds-Land. Abe sat with his back against a rough rock, stirring at the coals of the fire they had lit, staring with orange eyes at the gray ashes. Thinking silently.

Thinking about how he had managed to escape.

He knew it wasn’t luck that had allowed him to get out of that trap. If luck had been all that had been on his side, he certainly would have been killed while he was unconscious from the grenade blast. But then that Wolvark had turned to strike down the Sligs before turning his attention to Abe, and that had given him time to get his pistol up to the bounty hunter’s head, and make his escape.

It was almost as if it were a story, the way things had worked out. But it was his real life as it happened to him.

On Elum-back, they had managed to get out of the Sligs’ range before any shots could be fired after them. They had ridden most of the afternoon, with occasional stops to rest their mounts, trying to get away from Fragg and his Slig army.

One thing Abe was certain of: the slaves were not in that army. They were still going to Mantin City.

“Tomorrow,” he said, “we continue for Mantin City. We will destroy those Sligs because we have to.”

And after that, he would destroy the Bringer of Pain – the one that had been responsible for the whole trap in the box canyon. That was the only way Abe could see that it had happened so theatrically: the gunshots had brought all the parties together, and from there everything had been close to destruction.

But whatever the Bringer of Pain had been planning, it hadn’t succeeded. He was still alive, the Wolvark had escaped, and the Sligs were still there.

At least, Abe hoped everything was going against the Bringer of Pain. Whoever or whatever that sick murderer was, he was a great threat to Oddworld as a whole – responsible for the destruction of an entire Gabbit village, and that trap had almost destroyed many people.

Abe sighed. It seemed as if his whole life had been devoted to destroying everything. RuptureFarms, SoulStorm Mining, Bonewerks, Slig Barracks, SoulStorm Brewery, Windmill Brewery, Meep Farms, Magog Motors, Splinterz Manyfacturing, FlubCo Fuels, Vykkers Labs, PulseCo, Scrabby-O, SlurgBurg, MeechCo, and so many other places. Hundreds of Sligs had been destroyed, either because of his possessions or otherwise; he had been responsible for the deaths of many Glukkon businessmen, Vykker doctors, Intern assistants, Clakker settlers, and other beings. Now he was after the Bringer of Pain.

But then, would he rather be back at RuptureFarms, worked to death or perhaps shot by a Slig? No. This was his path, and he would walk it as best he was able.

At the sound of approaching steps, slow and heavy, Abe whirled around, his hand going immediately to the Snuzi pistol. He briefly glanced at the shots; there were only 34 bullets left in the compartment.

“Who’s there?” he snapped roughly. “Identify yourself or be shot!”

“Abe!” a voice called, a voice he hadn’t heard in many years. “Abe, it’s me!”

Abe’s eyes widened, and he slowly lowered the gun to his side. “Jake?” he asked. “Is that you?”

“Yeah!” A Mudokon figure shuffled out into the pale glow of the fire coals. Abe grinned broadly at the sight of his old friend.

He had known Jake for years and years. The Mudokon had somehow been attracted to Abe’s needs – every time there was a spirit ring Abe needed, or a healing power recharge – Jake had teleported there. The shaman could not teleport on command; only when Abe needed something.

“I guess you needed my help,” Jake said. “’Cause I’m here.”

Abe nodded, grinning. “We need all the help we can get.”

Jake pointed north. “I’ve seen the slave line; they’re up that way, only about five miles away. They’re bedded down for the night.”

Abe laughed. “Good! I’ll get my friends awake –”

“No,” Jake said coldly. “These guards have deadman interlocks on many of the Mudokons; if the Sligs are killed, whatever Mudokon they’re attached to will die as well.”

Abe snarled. “Oh, that’s great. That’s what Fragg had back at MeechCo. Is there any way to disable the interlocks?”

“Lord Fragg would know.”

Abe slowly smiled again. “I have an idea.”

Jake smiled. “Now it’s safe to wake your fellows. I’ll help you.”

Abe nodded, and set about his work.

* * *

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

Lord Fragg woke from sleep at the sound of a gun being cocked all too close to his head.

Immediately the Glukkon whirled around in his fold-up cot, ignoring his brief flash of fear as he grabbed at the place where he kept his last-ditch Burnout laser pistol.

Only to have that flash of fear transform into full-out fear. The pistol wasn’t where he’d left it.

“You don’t think I’d be as careless as all that,” said a voice that was certainly a Mudokon.

Fragg rolled over and looked up. It was a blue-skinned Mudokon, with an old-model Snuzi pistol with its barrel so close that Fragg could look right up to the firing chamber, and the bullet inside it.

“Abe,” Fragg whispered. “How?”

“Oh, just some of my personal brilliance,” Abe chuckled quietly. “I bet you thought I couldn’t do anything with just four Mudokons as my companions, but I’ve defeated your whole army.”

Fragg narrowed his eyes. “You couldn’t have beaten my whole army.”

As he spoke, he began inching his arm down toward the comlink at his side. If he could get to it, and find a way to get the gun out of his face…

“This will probably sound like gloating,” Abe chuckled, “but it was brilliant. All I had to do was use Grunn to distract the south guards, while Lowrn and Ferg took care of the east. I just had to knock out your tent guards and get in here.”

Fragg licked the edges of his mouth, as he moved his hand slowly toward the device. “My soldiers could use more training.”

“Yes, they could.” Abe reached down and picked up the comlink, tossing it idly in his free hand. Fragg swore under his breath at the loss of his hope. “Oh, don’t think this would have done you any good,” the Mudokon said, as he tossed it away. “I’ve already taken the precaution of turning it off.”

Fragg clenched his fists. “What do you want from me, Mudokon?”

“I want you to turn off the deadman interlocks on the Mudokon slaves on their way to Mantin City,” Abe spat. “Now.”

“Why would I do that?” Fragg growled. He cast his gaze madly around the room, but there didn’t appear to be anything useful around.

Abe smiled, holding the gun back up to Fragg’s head. “I don’t think you want to die yet.”

“No…” Fragg bowed his head. “Bring me an Information Pad, and –”

“You can tell me the code now,” Abe interrupted. “I don’t trust you; that’s why I have this gun.”

“Right.” Fragg suddenly had an idea, and realized that, even if he told the hero the interlock’s deactivation codes, it wouldn’t matter, because Abe would be dead. “The code…the code is 89102.”

Abe smiled. “Thanks for telling me.”

The Mudokon closed his eyes for a moment. “89102…”

And in that moment, Fragg rolled forward, swinging out one mechanically-enhanced leg to kick the Mudokon terrorist in the stomach. Abe buckled, finger depressing the trigger to blow a hole through the tent wall. Fragg got to his feet, delivering a sharp punch to Abe’s face as he shouted, “Guards! Get in here now!”

* * *

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Cloud the Slig didn’t like his job much. It wasn’t just the fact that, as a Slig, he was almost certainly going to meet his end by being possessed and then blown to bits by some sociopath Mudokon terrorist, but the way that their Glukkon overseers were the only ones who profited from the deals the Slig chieftains made with them. True, beating up the Mudokon slaves provided them with some fun, but Abe didn’t like it when they did that, and Abe was somewhere around here now.

The Slig flexed his gun, and glanced around Lord Fragg’s camp. Guard duty was such a boring task. Stationed at a point inside the camp, only a few feet from Lord Fragg’s tent, he was more privileged because he was closer to the fires his fellow soldiers had lit to keep warm. The guards at the south and east posts had been alerted by Mudokons, but here, in the middle of camp, he hadn’t seen anything but sleeping Sligs.

Which was not, in itself, a bad thing. Cloud recognized that boring was usually better than bad, because a bored Slig was better off than a dying Slig, even if boring wasn’t very exciting. Being in the army wasn’t exciting, but, as a slug with mechanical pants and a room-temperature IQ and itchy trigger finger, what better life was he suited for than that of a soldier, just the same as all his soldier brothers and sisters? Why should he be better off than the rest of them? Why should he stay in the city, where Abe would be less likely to strike at them?

Cloud sighed to himself. It was so boring in this army. Abe was supposedly in this area, but –

Zzang!

Cloud looked between his feet at the sudden hole a bullet had plowed into the dirt, his eyes going wide with shock. The Slig traced the bullet’s path to the hole in Lord Fragg’s tent, where he could hear sounds of a Glukkon and Mudokon grunting.

“Attack!” Cloud shouted half-heartedly. “Lord Fragg’s under attack!”

He hurried toward the door of the tent, holding his Barrage laser rifle like a club, knowing he couldn’t shoot in such close proximity to Lord Fragg and all the other Slig soldiers in the army. Maybe it wasn’t so bad being in the army after all, if it involved attacks on their commanding officer’s tent in the middle of the night.

He pushed his way through the tent door, raising his rifle above his head –

And a Mudokon came leaping through the air at him, raising a Snuzi pistol above his head and screaming a war cry. Cloud only had time for one clichéd “Oh, boy…” before the Mudokon brought the butt of that pistol over his head. The Slig suddenly saw nothing but blackness.

* * *

Really really good! MOAR! :D

CHAPTER FORTY

Abe broke and ran for his life. He could hear the Sligs all around the camp shouting suddenly, as they saw him racing toward the boundaries and the shelter of the surrounding rocky wilderness. Abe went into three duck-and-rolls, each time getting close and closer to the edge of the camp.

Behind him, he could hear Lord Fragg shouting, “After him! Set for stun and bring him to me!”

All around the camp, Sligs charged after Abe.

The Mudokon spun around, raising his Snuzi pistol and firing at the first Slig he saw. The soldier screamed hoarsely, grabbing at his neck as he fell on the ground.

Immediately Abe’s single shot was joined with dozens of stun blasts, flying from the barrels of dozens of Slig rifles. They whizzed through the air with unusual blatt-blatt noises.

The good news was that, because the stun energy was simply a very low-powered laser with a bit of stun gas packed inside, the energy spray was wider and thus much more subject to bad accuracy, so the stun blasts were mostly bad shots. The bad news was that, since there were dozens of Sligs in the camp, all shooting at him, there were more than enough shots to fill up the whole spectrum, leaving Abe no room to dodge.

That meant that, even though he ducked to the ground and began crawling away from them, clinging desperately to the hope he wouldn’t be hit, a stun blast came out of nowhere – actually, it came from a Barrage 32-A Slig rifle – and struck him in the palm of his foot. Instantly, his foot went numb, and made it impossible to crawl.

Instead of bemoaning his fate, Abe rolled over onto his back, raising the Snuzi gun and pumping shots at anything that moved, even if it wasn’t a Slig. “Blast you!” he screamed, pulling the trigger and sending harsh vibrations up his arms. He knew his bullets were running low, but he didn’t care. “To blazes with you all!”

The stun bolts stopped flying, and as his Snuzi made a dry click, Abe’s bullets stopped flying as well. Instead of lowering his gun, he hurled it at the nearest Slig, who was too stupid to duck and was leveled by the empty pistol. Abe felt a brief flash of regret at abandoning the weapon that served him so well against Vastor, the Wolvark, and Fragg, but with the hundreds of Sligs coming toward him, he didn’t have so much regret as fear.

He had failed them; failed all those slaves still trapped in Lord Fragg’s slave line, on their way to more work in the dreaded Mantin City. He had failed his friends – he’d brought them back into the fight for nature, and now he was lying here, about to be pacified.

It was almost funny, how life could twist so.

“Sir, we’ve got Abe now!” one of the Sligs shouted out, and Abe bowed his head. It was true.

They had beaten him.

* * *

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

The Slig in the front of the group moved forward –

And a rock sailed through the air.

With inSligane reflexes, several of the soldiers raised their weapons up to their shoulders to point at the airborne missile; some even managed to open fire, but with little result. Abe clutched at the ground and tried to pull himself backward with the strength of his arms, in the moment when they were distracted.

The rock struck the leading Slig on the arm, bending his arm backward, and the carbine, still spraying shots, managed to burn dents and holes in several of the Sligs behind him, before he let up on the trigger.

“Hey!” Sligs screamed. “Cease fire – friendly fire!”

Abe tried to scrabble backwards, but the other Sligs were already coming forward, half of them holding their weapons high while the other half came toward Abe, weapons held out menacingly.

The Mudokon stopped moving. Instead of snarling at the evil soldiers, he smiled brightly. “You soldiers are so stupid. Why don’t you just stun me, before I escape?”

The Slig laughed coldly. “Because I want to gloat, of course! What’s the point of winning if you can’t gloat over your worst enemy for a couple of seconds, and then knock him out?”

“Because it exposes you to enemy fire,” Abe pointed out.

The Slig scratched his chin with one finger. “Uh, yeah…”

Another rock flew out of the blackness and struck the Slig between his eyes with a meaty smack, and the soldier groaned once and fell down without a theatrical stagger. Instantly all the other Sligs raised their guns and opened fire on the night sky, even though there was nothing there.

But as something real stepped out of the shadows, folding his arms across his chest, all the Sligs whirled around, ceasing fire with surprise.

Abe looked at the being beside him in surprise.

It was Alf.

The green-skinned Mudokon was standing there, fully exposed to any Slig who would pull his trigger, looking as defiant as anything despite the great danger. Abe had never known Alf to be the bravest of Mudokons – on the contrary, Alf had always been one to leech off the success of others, and was always bragging about how he was Abe’s friend and companion on so many adventures. Never had Abe known him to take a stand when his life was so much in risk. But now, looking up at him now, he felt a flash of pride for his friend and companion.

That’s telling ’em, Abe thought with a grin.

“Abe’s never alone,” Alf said coldly, and turned to Abe, tossing him a small, heavy metal object. Abe caught it, surprised that the Sligs had not yet opened fire on them, and his eyes grew wide.

A Barrage 32-A laser carbine, just like the ones the Sligs used! That meant the Mudokons had actually killed one of the guards!

Only then did the Sligs open fire with a barrage of stun bolts, filling the air with their forced-slumber missiles. Alf threw himself flat on the ground in an attempt to dodge the bolts, as Abe pressed himself lower.

“You might want to think of the deadman interlock,” Alf whispered in his ear. “And be quick about it.”

Abe knew immediately what he meant. He held the tip of the gun up to his head. “Cease fire, or I’ll pull this trigger!”

One of the Sligs in front shouted, “Cease fire!”

Abe grinned, and nodded at Alf. He sat up as best he could, keeping the gun up to his forehead.

“Why should we care if you pull that trigger?” the Slig captain snorted. “It rids us of your scum –”

“There’s a big reward on me,” Abe said. “Substantial enough that all of you could buy martinis for a month without having to scrounge.”

He crossed his fingers; he really had no idea whether there was a bounty on his head, but judging from the way that Wolvark had attacked him back in the box canyon, that seemed a pretty good guess. The Glukkons hated him so much anyway…

“Martinis?” one Slig repeated, and Abe could hear the anticipation dripping from his voice. “Really?”

One of the tougher old veterans smacked him across the head. “No, you fool! He’s just trying to trick you!”

“There is a reward,” Abe said firmly. “But if you want to get it, you have to bring me back to Mantin City…alive. If I’m dead, the reward is cut in half.”

The Slig in the front of the party slowly lowered his gun, and even in the dark of the night, Abe could see the eagerness in his eyes. “All right, Abe! We’re letting you go now…but as soon as dawn breaks, we’ll be after you!”

Abe motioned to Alf, who grabbed him by the shoulders and began dragging him back into the night. “I know you’ll come after me,” Abe said, “but not now. Give Lord Fragg my regards, you know?”

He made sure he had a fierce grin on his face, as Alf took him off the scene.

* * *

CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

Lord Fragg just stared in horror as the Mudokon disappeared. How could his Sligs be such fools as to want the reward more than they wanted to be loyal servants of their Glukkon masters? If this Abe had ever turned his big hands to politics, he would either have been assassinated immediately, or gone on to be president of all Mudokons living!

Fragg sighed. Another day, another two failed attempts to kill Abe. But he would not give up. He would –

He would have to warn the Sligs in the slave line about Abe’s knowledge of the interlock release codes! Abe could probably be upon them within a day, and, with his blasted otherworldly luck, could probably manage to rescue a few of the slaves and kill several guards!

Fragg rushed back into his tent, ignoring the bullethole and the Slig who’d been conked on the head during Abe’s escape. He scrabbled around his bed and under it, trying to find the familiar metal shape of his Info Pad, intent upon warning his other minions.

Five minutes later, he was on the verge of screaming. There was a small note under his cot:

Lord Fragg,

Since you are a Glukkon, and I am a Mudokon, and your enemy, it was a small matter of brilliance on my part to relieve you of your Info Pad. I am to blame for any inconveniences you might experience without it.

Sincerely,
Abe

Fragg clenched his fist, shredding the note into multiple pieces, and then cast those pieces outside the tent. At least he still had his comlink…

He grabbed the device and switched it on, setting the signal to the remote frequency of his slave drivers. “This is Lord Fragg –” he began, but was interrupted by a loud electronic squeal from the comlink that made him jump back in surprise.

Fragg groaned, and threw the comlink onto his cot. Abe was using his Info Pad to jam the comlink transmissions! No signal could get out, not even a message to send rude noises at Abe!

How brilliantly evil could that one Mudokon terrorist be?!

* * *

Abe tapped a button on the stolen Info Pad, grinning broadly. “Looks like Fragg just tried to send a transmission.”

Lowrn grunted under Abe’s weight; he and Grunn, the biggest of the band, had been picked to serve as Abe’s carriers until his stunned foot came back to its senses. “I bet…I bet he’s real upset now,” Lowrn said.

“Yeah.” Abe waved the Info Pad. “We have the interlock release codes. Now we need to catch up to the Sligs.”

“Hopefully not right now!” Grunn strained. “You’re really heavy!”

“Why don’t you just put in the interlock codes right now?” Alf said. “Then we could get rid of this Info Pad.”

Abe shook his head. “You don’t understand how the interlocks work. The Sligs can feel it when their deadman interlocks deactivate, and if we did it right now, they would just turn it back on and change the codes, and then we’d never get those slaves freed.”

Alf sighed. “Oh. I didn’t know that.”

Abe nodded. “I know. That’s what I’m here for.”

* * *

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

Cloud the Slig sat on one side of the fire, eagerly entertaining anyone who would listen to him – which was, by this time, almost a dozen other Sligs. He gestured frantically, trying to best convey his story. “Yeah, then I run inside the tent and there’s this Abe guy right there, so I whack him right across the gut with my gun stock.”

Enthusiastic and awed gasps came around the fire. Cloud basked in them, grinning under his face-tentacles.

“Abe fell on the ground, so I pulled up my gun and told him, You surrender or I’ll shoot ya! And would you guess what – he gave up!” Cloud slapped his hand on his knee. “Yeah, boys, I was herdin’ him back across the camp when he broke free, but I was right there in the front lines tryin’ to get him back!”

More gasps and oohs and ahs rose from the Sligs –

And then lord Fragg walked up from the other side of the fire, right behind the crowd. Cloud froze with terror; the Glukkon’s face was twisted with a demonic smile.

“Enjoying yourself?” the Glukkon sneered.

Cloud hopped immediately to his feet, as did all the others. “Yes, si – uh, I mean, no – er, did you have a job for me, sir?”

“Yes, I did,” Fragg whispered.

Cloud laced his fingers together, biting his lips. He hoped Fragg wouldn’t be too angry with him for greatly embellishing the story, because Cloud had done nothing more than get knocked out…

The Glukkon roared, “SIT DOWN AND SHUT UP!”

Cloud immediately did as he was ordered, hurling himself onto the ground so hard that his mechanical pants squealed in protest.

Fragg whirled around, waving his hand at all the other Sligs camped out around the fire. “And that goes for you, too! Shut up and go to sleep, all of you! We’re packing out of here at dawn!”

The Glukkon turned and stormed away, waving his arms angrily.

Cloud watched him go, lying down beside the fire. The Glukkon’s tirade had not been the best thing for his storytelling session, but at least he hadn’t had to ask the dreaded “Any questions?,” because any embellished story had problems when other people were the ones asking the questions, and he had to think of new answers.

Cloud sighed, and rolled over onto his stomach. Maybe now people would respect him, even though he had really done nothing…maybe he could even inspire himself to greater things in this army. But he highly doubted his own talents, especially after tonight.

With a sigh, Cloud went to sleep.

* * *

CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

Some miles to the north, the moon shone down on a small ring of stones, like a campfire circle of giants. The scene would have been one of calm night beauty, until Urchyn McAvi stepped out into that moonlight, hands resting on the butt of his new Barrage 32-A laser carbine. He glanced once around the area, scanning it for the being that had agreed to meet him here, but he didn’t see anyone.

He had to resort to a glance at his short-range area scanner. It showed him there was a being standing within fifty feet of his current position, and that the being was holding some kind of old-fashioned crossbow weapon. The Wolvark nodded to himself; that fitted the description of the being he had arranged to meet.

McAvi folded his arms across his chest. “You can come out now.”

The shape that moved out of the darkness was quite an impressive one; at a height of seven Oddworld feet, a Steef was not a being people saw regularly, nor wished to. The huge Steef bounty hunter wore a suit of armor complete with silver streaks down the breastplate and a pair of twisted horns growing out the sides of the helmet. A small goatee edged his chin, and his dark eyes made him look grim.

“You called this…meeting,” the Steef said. “Now tell me…whaddaya want?”

“I want what we all want,” McAvi said with a shrug. “Moolah. And I’ve got a deal that lets both of us get a lot of moolah.”

Those dark eyes narrowed. “Well, let’s…hear it, then.”

The Wolvark waved a hand. “I’m sure you’ve heard of Abe.”

“The…Mudokon?”

“Yeah, that’s him.” McAvi grinned wide. “He’s got a bounty on his head: $15,000 dead, $30,000 alive, to be brought to Mantin City.”

“That’s…quite a lot of moolah,” the Steef said.

“It is,” McAvi agreed. “And that’s why I figured you might want a share in it. Say…fifty-fifty? All we have to do is catch the blue creep and bring him to the Glukkon rulers, and we live like kings for a couple weeks.”

The Steef folded his huge arms across his chest. “What makes you think I’d be…interested?”

The Wolvark laughed. “I know you, Stranger. You’re a bounty hunter, just like the rest of us.”

Stranger stood taller than before. “What if I’m…not a bounty hunter?”

“I know you better than you know yourself. You’re the one that captured guys like Blisterz Booty, Packrat Palooka, Meagly McGraw, and more. And if you joined up with the Grubbs, well, you had a personal vendetta going against Sekto anyway.” McAvi raised one brow. “Well?”

The Steef licked his lips, a gesture that McAvi found somewhat chilling. “I’m not the…bounty hunter I used to be. I’m something of a…people’s guy now.”

McAvi frowned. “People’s guy?”

“Yeah.” Stranger leaned forward. “You got a…problem with that?”

“No, not at all,” McAvi assured him.

“Well…” Stranger scratched his chin with a finger. “Gimme a day…to think about your offer. To…get acquainted with the idea of…partnering up.”

McAvi nodded. “Very well; one day. But tomorrow at midnight, I’ll expect your answer.”

The Steef nodded. “I’ll be here.”

* * *

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

King Glok walked slowly around the shape of the newly-built Snoozer, nodding slowly in approval. He admired the way the machine looked – its sleek cylindrical body, its three backward-bent legs, the rapid-fire stun gun hanging from its underside, the rotating laser rifle mounted atop the huge robot. It stood a full twelve feet high, much taller than any Glukkon or even BigBro Sligs, who were dwarfed by the huge machine.

“This looks good,” he remarked to Humphrey, who was standing nervously to one side. “Have you run tests on it?”

“The armor is excellent,” the Vykker stated. “We fired ten laser bolts at one point on the armor, and we hardly got a dent.”

“Its accuracy?”

Humphrey licked the edges of his mouth. “It, ah, uses an enhanced targeting system and personal scanner to aim for the, er, weakest point on a being’s body, and pacifying it quicker.”

Glok raised both brows. “That sounds interesting…but, of course, I’ll need a demonstration.”

He turned to one of his BigBro attendants. “You, bring me three Mudokon slaves.”

“Right away, sir!”

The Glukkon turned to Humphrey again. “From everything I’ve seen so far, this Snoozer looks as if it could be a good guard for my palace.”

Humphrey smiled – a disgusting expression on his thin face. “I’m sure it will be, my lord.”

Glok waited impatiently for the Slig to arrive with their test subjects. He was all too eager to get the Snoozer into action with this one simple field test. He had thousands of slaves, and Lord Fragg’s line from MeechCo were coming right into his grasp sometime today; why couldn’t he spare a few slaves from work duty and send them straight to their Nature’s Paradise?

He smiled as he saw the BigBro and three uneasy slaves returning down one of the laboratory’s side passages. Glok nodded his head toward the wall. “Line them up over there.”

As the Slig rapped out the orders to the slaves, Glok turned to the short Vykker at his side. “I assume this Snoozer will take orders from me alone?”

Humphrey frowned, but he nodded. “Yes, my lord.”

Glok smiled wider, and turned to the Snoozer. “Laser turret, fire on those Mudokons.”

Immediately the laser gun atop the Snoozer’s trash-can frame opened up in a blaze of laser energy. As Humphrey had said, its combat algorithms were targeting the Mudokons’ weakest points, their heads. It only took a single shot through the brain for each of the slaves to fall to the ground, and then the turret silenced.

Glok nodded, his smile growing wider still. “Excellent! Attendant, take this down: I want these mass-produced for the palace guard. Send all my BigBro Sligs to the barracks; they can rest or smoke or do whatever it is they do in their off-time.”

Humphrey said, “I take it you like the Snoozer.”

“It’s a good killing machine,” Glok said simply. “And we need more killing machines these days.”

* * *

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

Abe fell on his knees. “No…”

He bent his face into his hands, fingers clawing at his face as if he wanted to rip out his own eyes, a desire he felt more than ever, as if he hoped it would erase the image from his mind that was spread across Oddworld’s planty landscape – an image of pain and death that he knew he could not simply erase with pain.

“No. No. No…” He repeated the word over and over again, as if it could save him pain.

Behind him, he could hear one of the Mudokons – probably Ferg – trying valiantly not to be sick.

Footsteps moved up beside Abe, and he felt a hand on his shoulder. “This is not an easy thing for anyone to bear,” Jake said, even his voice trembling. “I don’t know how this was done.”

Abe opened his eyes again, but the scene was the same.

The entire Mudokon slave line lay dead on the ground, still with their hands tied behind their backs. Hundreds of Slig guards lay piled around them, guns still in their hands. Dried blood was all over the bodies, red and ugly. It looked as if someone had just come in and stabbed every single person repeatedly.

Abe knew there was only one being who could have done this so efficiently: the Bringer of Pain.

A wave of despair rolled up his body from his heart. He had failed again. All in a few days, he had failed his people again and again, resulting in the deaths of dozens of innocent beings. And this pain could be traced back through the Bringer of Pain to the one who had started this whole blasted thing: the Glukkon businessman Lord Fragg.

He closed his eyes again. “No, this can’t be happening.”

He almost expected to hear a voice saying “Abe, wake up, you’ve had a bad dream…” but all he got was Jake.

The old shaman sighed. “Abe, this is real. You can’t change what happened here; you can only avenge it.”

“Yeah.” Abe stood up again, clenching his fists. “You can count on me; I’m going to avenge their deaths.”

“By destroying Lord Fragg?” Jake guessed accurately.

Abe didn’t feel a need to answer. Instead, he turned in the direction from which they’d come, toward Fragg and his Slig army. He’d had the chance to kill Fragg earlier, but he’d passed up in favor of freeing the slaves first, and despite his best efforts, they’d been killed.

Now it was time to pay back that rotten Glukkon, in full.

“Abe – there’s a note over here!” Grunn called out.

Abe growled under his breath, but he turned and hurried toward his friend, pretending to be concerned about the stupid note. “What is it?”

Grunn held out the note, and Abe took it. He recognized the handwriting instantly, because it was again written in blood.

The Bringer of Pain will stop these killings if Abe kills the Glukkon leader, King Glok. Then I will reveal myself, and we can fight head-to-head.

Abe lowered the note, and his eyes narrowed. “He wants me to kill King Glok?” he spat. “Then I’ll kill King Glok!”

“Isn’t that a stupid idea?” Alf remarked, and Abe whirled around to face him.

“Say that again,” Abe growled.

Alf cowered behind Jake, covering his head with his hands. “Hey-hey-hey! Don’t hit me! I was just thinking, Why should we trust our enemy’s word? You’re playing right into his hands!”

“We don’t have much of a choice,” Abe said. “We have to trust him, and we get rid of a nuisance.”

Jake put that restraining hand on his shoulder again. “I understand, Abe. We set out for Mantin City immediately.”

* * *

I have a cetain amount of sympathy for fragg, I'm thinking humphrey wrote the note? u dont hav 2 answer

and oh noes for the mudokons

This is actually a note from the Bringer of Pain. Humphrey doesn't know about the murderer, he's too busy in Mantin City. New chapters coming soon...

CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

Urchyn McAvi was awakened from slumber by the ringing of his comlink. Coming to his senses immediately, he unhooked the device from his belt and spoke into it. “What?”

The voice on the other end was thick and deep: Stranger’s voice. “This is the Steef. I’m in.”

McAvi smiled. “Good. I’ll meet you at the clearing immediately.”

* * *

Cloud stumbled along in the wilderness of No-Muds-Land, alone and tired from his daring escape.

Escape, he called it? No, it was more a desertion from duty than escape. Or was he really being loyal to the higher authorities by what he was doing? No, that didn’t sound quite right.

But what sounded better – that he was a coward, running away from the perils of Lord Fragg’s camp, which was what he really was? That didn’t make him feel any better, and he needed to be in high spirits to complete the mission with which he had tasked himself.

“How…could Lord Fragg…even think of doing…such a thing?” he wheezed. “Murdering the king?”

He had a hard time convincing himself that was what he had really heard. He’d been wandering up to the Glukkon’s tent earlier that morning, trying to work up his courage to apologize for his exaggerated fireside stories, but before being allowed entrance, he’d accidentally overheard Fragg talking to one of the Sligs about overthrowing King Glok, and being the heads of the Glukkon nation.

How could Fragg do that? Why? Cloud didn’t know these answers, but his little Slig brain had figured out this was not only his best chance to get away from Abe’s maniac attacks, but also a way to win favor with King Glok when he warned the Glukkon king of Fragg’s treachery.

The Slig shook his head, and kept running. He had to warn Glok in time…or he’d probably get caught, either by Fragg or Abe, and destroyed either way.

* * *

I hate that nasty "Bringer of Pain", and how the hell would he be able to kill the whole without a scratch!? I hope he dies the most painful death there is because of all those murdered natives!

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

“A deserter in the ranks?” Fragg shook his head, folding his hands behind his back. “That’s not good. Have you sent out search parties?”

The Slig nodded. “We followed his tracks for about a mile before they disappeared; we have three parties scanning the area, but we haven’t been able to find him.”

Fragg narrowed his eyes. “And your area scanners pick up nothing?”

“Nothing but nearby Sleg nests, sir.”

The Glukkon growled angrily. “We can’t have deserters running away every night.”

“Yes, sir.”

Fragg narrowed his eyes. “I didn’t ask for your opinion.”

“No, sir.”

He raised one arm, as if to strike his rather dull minion. “Then shut up and leave, idiot!”

“Yes, sir!” The Slig hurried away to join some of his comrades nearby.

Fragg turned so he could see most of the Sligs in his army, raising both hands to the sky. “Continue the march – we make for Mantin City!”

The Sligs glanced at one another and muttered quietly to each other, but they began walking northeast, back toward the Glukkon capital where they had started from at the beginning of their quest for Abe, a quest which had seemingly come to nothing in the end. Fragg headed in the same direction, a scowl fixed on his face, and a useless comlink on his belt. He had tried to send more transmissions, but Abe’s signal-jamming site was still close enough to deny him any calls.

He had no idea how a Mudokon – beings who were usually not smart enough to get out of the path of an oncoming meat saw – could deal out so much death and destruction to so many people, in protection of nature. To Fragg, nature was just resources growing out of the ground, things he could use to further his path to power, things to make more and more moolah. But to all those idiotic Mudokons, nature actually seemed to be something worth protecting.

Fragg didn’t really understand why they loved nature so much. Mudokons were constantly trying to activate their ancient Storm Circles to clean the polluted water, grow more spooce, trees, and grass, make more natural habitats for the creatures of Oddworld to live in. It seemed like a waste of their time, because the Mudokons were fairly stupid and hardly knew what to do with all the ravenous carnivores they thought were worth protecting, and were more often than not killed in animal attacks.

This ridiculous war had been going on for untold centuries, even millennia, as far back as the Mudokons’ Ninth Chieftain and the Old Kingdom. Even in those days, Glukkons and their Slig attendants had fought to enslave the idiotic nature-loving Mudokons, and bring pollution all across Oddworld in the pursuit of moolah. Fragg doubted he would ever understand why this always happened.

But now, it was time he actually did something that would promote the great cause of industry.

He had something in mind: killing King Glok. The anti-cigar Glukkon was the worst thing that had ever happened to the lungbuster industry – besides the time Abe and his Marching Mudokons had taken the entire tobacco fields hostage – and Fragg didn’t intend to be one to drive any kind of industry into the ground.

Instead, he would be one who built up the industries, gave more tax dollars to the cigar companies, the animal processors, and all the other Glukkons who were dominating the public market. It was also apparent he needed to donate to whoever trained Sligs for a living.

The only problem with his plan would be that he was no real warrior, or an expert murderer. He wouldn’t be able to do the dastardly deed himself, but hiring an assassin wouldn’t be so hard to do; there seemed to be an endless amount of Wolvarks and Outlaws who wanted to be bounty hunters, even a few Sligs who had gone rogue. He would have to get rid of King Glok, so he could become king of Glukksonia and take over from the unlucky Margaret line.

And then…

A smile crossed his face. Once he was king, Glukksonia would be the biggest and most powerful nation on the face of Oddworld. He would have factories bigger than RuptureFarms, dams bigger than Sekto Springs, towns bigger than Mantin City, more slaves than anyone knew what to do with…

But that would all come after he killed Glok. Resuming his frown, Fragg set his mind to marching.

* * *

cool, i'm going ot have ot set aside half an hour on friday to get completley up t odate

I love how you'd wrote it! You're really great writer.
"No-Muds-Land" :)

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

The Bringer of Pain looked curiously at the gates of Mantin City, his eyes narrowed as he stared about him.

The decorations were certainly different than the last time he had seen the industrialist capital. Instead of the usual arrays of BigBro Sligs standing at all the corners, wielding their fearsome Donner Packer rifles, there were a lot of Snoozers patrolling around, their bent tripod legs lurching them around, their machine gun swiveling around nastily.

Snoozers brought back painful memories to the Bringer of Pain – what an ironic thing, pain to the one who brought it – but he did not find pain as an annoyance. He reveled in pain, particularly in others.

Still, Snoozers could be a problem. Sligs were easy to slip past because they were normally dull – despite their enhanced audio receptors – while robots were always attentive and could not be bribed or distracted from their tasks, and their sophistocated combat algorithms could be sporadically updated whenever a new strategy was implemented, and they could learn from their previous mistakes – if they ever made any.

The Bringer of Pain shook his head, and crept toward the doors.

* * *

Urchyn McAvi kept a close eye on the Stranger as they walked along. He had heard many rumors about the huge Steef – most of them good – and there had been enough bad rumors to make him wonder about Stranger’s goals. He didn’t doubt the Steef’s power; there was nothing to doubt about the huge muscles and the armed double-barreled crossbow the Steef held, but motives were something else.

According to rumor, the bounty hunter had been betrayed and had almost been killed by a client, apparently the great Sekto of Sekto Springs, and in a daring escape Stranger had changed his outlook on life. Apparently, the Steef had then helped Sekto’s enemies, leading a raid on the dam that had resulted in the complete devastation of the dam and several Clakker towns in the canyons. Stranger himself had killed the great water company leader in a fit of rage.

That was more than enough to make McAvi doubtful. A bounty hunter who would help his client’s enemies, just to get revenge, and end up causing so much damage, was very dangerous.

The Wolvark folded his arms across his chest as they walked across No Muds Land. “What are you going to do with it?”

Stranger turned, giving him a glance that would freeze any being with a conscience – which did not include McAvi. “Do…with what?”

“With the moolah.” McAvi shrugged. “Once we’ve captured Abe and collected the reward.”

“Well, let’s…keep quiet for now,” Stranger said. “After all, we have to…actually catch the guy…before we start thinking…that far ahead.”

“True.” McAvi turned his face away and kept walking.

* * *

CHAPTER FIFTY

Abe kept all the Mudokons’ comments at a minimum as they crossed the industrialist land known as Glukksonia. The land was immediately known to belong to the Glukkons because of the pollution in the air, the taint in the water, the dry ground. It was such a pitiful sight when compared with the beauty of the Mudokons’ land.

Imagine what we could do if we had a few Storm Circles here, Abe thought grimly.

The landscape was so bleak and barren, he might almost have kept his eyes closed the whole time, if he had not been on the constant lookout for Sigs or Glukkons patrolling near the many towns and factories. Since they were in the heart of industrialist territory, probably only another day’s march from the capital, they would always have to be alert for any enemies that could be a threat…namely, all of them.

He glanced at the power pack on his Barrage 32-A laser carbine. Though not as impressive as the Snuzi, it had much more ammo and was probably even more powerful. It actually felt good to wield a weapon, after so many years of just going in with possession and his slow thinking.

Alf walked up beside him, a concerned expression on his face. “Abe…”

The hero rounded on him. “What?”

“Uh…” Alf chewed at his lip anxiously. “Ferg’s gone.”

Abe’s eyes widened. “Gone? Gone where?”

“I don’t know.” Alf sighed. “Someone must have done something very recently.”

Abe turned and glanced around the land, but he couldn’t see anything at first look. “There aren’t many places anyone can hide – someone must have dropped him.”

Alf cocked his head. “You mean, like…knocked him out?”

Abe grabbed Alf’s shoulder and hurled him roughly to the ground. Before the other Mudokon could even finish saying “What the –” Abe had joined him on the ground, and a charged Zappfly pinged off the ground only two feet above their bowed heads.

Abe let go of Alf and rolled sideways, raising his laser weapon toward the direction the Zappfly had come from. At the sight of the creature standing right there – even in the split second that he was allowed – he felt a quick flash of shock.

It was a Steef.

Then the other barrel of the huge crossbow fired, and Abe didn’t have time to duck the black-and-white striped critter that came flying out the end of the weapon. A Stunk! he realized, instants before said creature raised its fluffy tail and released a green cloud of gas into the air.

The smell was even worse than Elums’ stench, and he didn’t even have time to clutch at his bowels before he was puking wildly. His stomach wrenched and heaved from the extremely potent Stunk odor percolating through the air –

And then a second charged Zappfly caught him in the head, and everything turned to blackness…

* * *

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

The Slig Army was definitely not as happy as it had been when it marched out of Mantin City, that was for sure. Fragg could not see one happy gleam in any eye as he led his mechanical-pants-equipped legions across the dirt and mud of No Muds Land, his fists methodically clenching and opening with one purpose.

He hated Abe. In that one thought, he could sum up all he had thought for the whole morning.

Lord Fragg felt a quick flash of hope as he saw the indicator light on his comlink go from red to green – that meant Abe’s signal-jamming had gone offline! Now he could call for help if he ever felt the need!

His hope turned to surprise, when the device in his hand bleeped with the sound of an incoming call. Irritably he flicked it on. “This is Lord Fragg.”

“And this is Urchyn McAvi, the Wolvark bounty hunter you saw back at the canyon a few days ago.”

Fragg remembered the Wolvark with a flash of annoyance. Why had his Sligs not opened fire and mowed down McAvi and Abe at the same time? “I remember you,” he said. “What do you want?”

“I want you to stay away from me.”

Fragg frowned down at his comlink. “What?’

“I’ve done something that you and your idiotic Sligs could never hope to do: I’ve captured Abe.”

Fragg’s eyes grew wide. “What?”

“I know you can hear me, Fragg. And I’m not lying; I’ve got the blue-headed guy right here. He’s holding a Slig-model Barrage 32-A laser carbine…couple scars on his face…”

“I get the point,” the Glukkon snapped. “And why do you think I would just let you walk away with my prize?”

A chuckle floated up out of the comlink. “It’s not your prize any longer, Glukkon. Wait till King Glok finds out you’re so incompetent.”

The message ended with a sharp CLICK.

Fragg swore, loud enough that several of the Sligs chuckled. But those chuckles ceased when the Glukkon shouted, “Come on! Doubletime! We have to get to Mantin City, now!”

* * *

I liek the name Mantin don't know why, it's a good name!

I just thought it up on the spot. I never thought, when I was writing this book, that I'd get reviews on the name of a town I invented...

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

“And why should I believe you?” King Glok snorted.

The Bringer of Pain laughed aloud. How could this high-pitched Glukkon ruler be so foolish as to think that he, the embodiment and great servant of Darkness, could be spoken to in such an insolent manner? It would take a demonstration…

“I’m sure you don’t want any of your Snoozers destroyed,” he said.

Glok snorted airily. “Oh? And who’s going to destroy them? Certainly not you.”

The Bringer of Pain shrugged his thin shoulders. “You might be surprised at what I can pull off.”

“There aren’t many things that can surprise me.”

“I am one of those happy few, then,” the Bringer of Pain said with a smile. “Do you require a demonstration of my power?”

Glok leaned forward menacingly in his throne. “You try to pull anything,” he hissed between his teeth, “and I’ll order my Snoozers to open fire.”

“Once I’ve ‘pulled something,’ as you say, you won’t even have Snoozers.”

His words seemed to have some effect on the Glukkon king. Glok’s frown changed to an expression of curiosity. “Tell me why you’re here, then.”

The Bringer of Pain’s smile grew wider; finally he was getting somewhere. “I came to warn you of an attack on your life.”

“An attack?” Glok’s eyes went quite wide. Glukkons were notorious for being paranoid about attacks on their life – the Bringer of Pain had made a few attempts on them himself. “What kind of attack?”

“The kind that involves killing.”

The Glukkon narrowed his beady eyes. “And how would you know of such an attack?”

“I know Abe a lot better than most do; he’s going to kill you.”

“Kill me?” One of Glok’s brows twisted in what the Bringer of Pain knew to be a gesture of disbelief. “And how, pray tell, do you expect a Mudokon to get through my Snoozer army?”

“He will find a way.” The Bringer of Pain chuckled flatly. “And if you don’t believe me…”

He turned and raised one hand, as if in benediction. The Glukkon instinctively shouted “Snoozer units! Open fire!” but before he could even finish shouting that, three lightning bolts blasted out of the Bringer of Pain’s palm, each flying toward separate Snoozers set up in the corners of the room. Before the robotic units could complete their manual turret swivel toward him, those lightning bolts had struck at maximum velocity, and turned the fearsome machines to nothing but piles of smoking scrap.

The Bringer of Pain lowered his hand, still smiling. “That could have been you. But because I have some genuine concern for you, believe me. Abe is coming.”

He turned and moved out of the room, leaving the Glukkon king open-mouthed and gaping at the Snoozer scraps.

As he was “escorted” out of the throne room by a pair of Worker-class Sligs, he kept his dark smile on his face the whole while. That meeting had gone fairly well – not only had he planted a false assumption in Glok’s paranoid Glukkon mind, he had also showed off just how powerful he could be even when he wasn’t upset.

Sometimes he surprised even himself at his own displays of power.

But he knew the Dark wasn’t surprised by anything he did, because it was the Dark that controlled him. Nothing could come as a surprise to the Dark because the Dark was the way of everything.

He shook his head. How could Abe be so foolish?

In fact, how could all Mudokons be so foolish? All of them chose to remain in the lie that the goodness of nature could be perfect, believing that some Hand of Odd guided everything?

The Bringer of Pain knew better. The Dark was everything, and everything was the Dark. The two were one.

He could hardly wait until the final showdown with Abe; then he could prove to all Oddworld that the Dark was everything. That there was no light to be found anywhere.

That he was the Dark, and the Dark was the master.

His chuckle turned to a triumphant laugh of dark glee.

* * *