[Lord Stanley]

I'm not making up species. The Vamps and the Fangus were both species invented for the "Oddworld game that never was," the Brutal Ballad of Fangus Klot. You should go to the Oddworld Encyclopaedia and look up some of the concept art. The Zyxlag is my own invention, however, and Abe is hanging out with Sligs because they're uniting for the same cause: to kill the Keuja.

Sorry it's been so long!

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

“You know,” Oner said wryly, “I’m starting to enjoy prison life.”

Abe glanced around, and shrugged. “We won’t be out for a long time, so you’d better get used to it.”

He looked at the large storage compartment into which he and the three Sligs had been roughly shoved several hours ago. It was dark, totally so except for a thin slit that provided them with enough fresh air to live and a thin sliver of light. The compartment was solid metal, thin but strong, and every part of Abe’s body was sore from sitting, lying, and kneeling in here for so long.

They were moving, too. Apparently the Vamps had attached the container to a vehicle, because some hours ago, there had been a revving noise, and then their metal box was moving alone, bouncing slightly as if on wheels. It only added to the discomfort provided by their location, but Abe had not been one to complain about his discomfort; he took it like a real Mudokon.

Suddenly their journey came to a jerking halt, throwing Abe forward. Oner, Crak, and Cloud fell flat on their faces with grunts of surprise, but Abe’s reflexes were good enough that he caught himself on his hands prior to slamming his head into the metal floor.

“I think…we’ve stopped!” Oner grunted, rolling over and rubbing at his face-tentacles.

“Understatement of the century!” Cloud snapped.

Abe tried to tune them out, concentrating his audio receptors on the noises from outside. He could hear metallic clanking, like footsteps on more of the thin metal that imprisoned them, and the faint sound of Vamps talking to each other in their hissing voices. What was going on?

One side of the metal cube hissed upward, allowing bright sunlight to stream into the opening. Abe threw up his hand to cover his eyes, startled quickly by the sudden brightness after hours of the dark.

Two Vamps stood in the doorway, but unlike any others that Abe had seen: these wore gray armor that seemed to fit onto their compact forms, and in their spindly-fingered hands they held streamlined guns that crackled with white energy.

“Hello there!” Oner called out, hopping to his feet. “It’s about time you transferred us to First-Class seating! Aren’t you going to offer us peanuts already?”

(Out of character begins here)

“I didn’t know we had peanuts on Oddworld,” Cloud said. “What’s a peanut?”

“You’re speaking out of character!” Oner snapped at him. “Remember, we’re not supposed to know anything about earth!”

“Oh, yeah!” Cloud fell immediately silent.

(Out of Character ends here)

“Hush,” Abe growled.

Oner shrugged. “Better being a cheerful live Slig than a Slig who died with a frown.”

One of the Vamps gestured back with his gun. “Get out.”

“How refreshing,” Oner chuckled, as he obeyed. “A creature of few words.”

Abe observed the Vamp’s reaction: nothing at all. Apparently these guards had received a lot of insults from their prisoners over time, because none of them seemed to take the insults as anything more than meaningless words.

Abe dropped out of the metal cube onto grass. The soft touch of the plant life soothed the aching in his feet and made him close his eyes so he could simply concentrate on the nice feeling—

But one of the Vamps grabbed him by the arm and pulled him away. “We’ve arrived at our destination.”

From his new position, Abe could see across the grasslands, and suddenly he knew that they had stumbled upon a plot much bigger than anything that he’d ever met before. Possibly even worse than Keuja itself.

* * *