9. Grave Mistake

The Rescue Squad made for the weakest part of the city walls. The part that usually held the most soldiers. It was considered the linchpin on which Amor’s defense rested, but now … now it was completely abandoned.

“This is foolish,” said Wilplink. “Let’s return to our hideout, make a new pla—”

“You’ve said it ten times now,” said Ruby. “The answer remains no. The final step of our plan starts now.”

“Oh please,” said Mmhmmhmm, hesitant to continue. “We failed. Let’s accept it. There is nothing—”

Ruby breathed a column of fire as she stormed the wall, already blackening it.

“Mole, dig away the supports. Wilplink, increase chance of crumbling in our favor. I feel enough energy to destroy half the blastfeathered wall! And we will get our freedom now!”

The two of them stayed back, looking at each other.

Ruby stepped forward alone—and tripped over a strange wooden block.

Normally, this would mean nothing. But this block was holding up another one, which leaned against another one, which held down a rope, which, when unleashed, allowed a boulder to drop from the top of the wall.

A heavy net, made from unbreakable Dragonvine, fell over Ruby. Several magic spells shot around the corner and fastened it to the floor. The magnificent firebird trashed, and flailed, and screamed, and begged, but she could not escape. The net tightened until it cut into her feathers, and she struggled to breathe.

A large crowd of angry animals turned the corner too. They’d been waiting for them, even carrying weapons. The godchildren, led by Ardex, stood on the other side of the gate and mostly watched in disappointment.

Except Ardex. He watched in shock and disbelief, as his secret love, holding his baby, was ousted as one of the criminals. With countless witnesses, and arrested for it already.

Everyone clamored for justice. Beings both within and without Amor asked Ardex to make a decision. But the tiger stood frozen, jaw down, fire extinguished.

Alix the Alchemist came down to study his catch, but was disappointed. Feria tried to pull him away from Ruby, sensing she was still dangerous. He ignored her, asked about a chameleon, and learned that he was passionately helping the firefighting efforts now—because of course he was. He left at once, asking his son to join.

Mmhmmhmm hastily created a new tunnel. Imperfect, small, but it was enough. Him and Wilplink held each other tightly, then used the tunnel to escape the clutches of the angry townsfolk and return to their hideout.

The fires were closing in on Dilova’s restaurant. Before they could get there, though, they first had to pass through the other houses in the block. One of which was the Rescue Squad’s hideout.

“Get out. Flee. Save ourselves,” said Wilplink, out of breath and a voice shaking with fear. “Try again somewhere else. Together.”

“Oh please,” said Mmhmmhmm. “We’re fine, you and me, buddy. You can increase the chances of the fire going out, can’t you? I’ll create a firebreak. A tunnel around the fire, to prevent it from spread—”

Wilplink grunted as he surveyed the flames licking the doorway of their hideout. Their spoils—enough diamonds and gold to start a new rescue squad somewhere else—were inside. Their maps, their plans, their names.

“There they are!” yelled an elephant’s voice in the distance, right before sending a powerful water beam towards the flames. “The thieves!”

The thieves took a deep breath, then dove through a gap in the fire.

As soon as they were inside, a crowd of animals appeared in the doorway. They had been waiting for them, and carried weapons. Most of all, they sealed off their only exit.

“Help fight the fire, you idiots-or-something!” yelled Wilplink in an attempt to distract.

“We are,” said a voice.

The first puddles formed in the doorway. Someone was throwing water onto the walls, but it was a meager attempt. Not enough to impress any flame worth its salt.

Wilplink saw why. A single being was carrying seven buckets, but all of them were damaged and leaked. A trail of water was left on the street as the chameleon refilled at the nearest aqueduct. The buckets were nearly empty again by the time he returned to the fire.

Some laughed at him. Some just shook their heads. Only Dilova and two horses ran out of their restaurant to help carry leaky buckets, holding the handle between their teeth, however little it helped.

Wilplink wished he were a chameleon now. He looked all around, but saw nowhere to hide.

“I’m going to destroy the floor,” said Mmhmmhmm, “then tunnel us out.”

“No! The building might collapse.”

“And we have you surrounded,” said the crowd.

“Then you, my dear viverra, have to make sure a collapse doesn’t happen,” said the mole. “Or if it does, that we miraculously survive.”

Wilplink grunted and concentrated. So many probabilities. The walls might cave. A flame might suddenly flare. They might decide to enter the hideout any time.

He shook from the effort of changing all the chances such that they were safe.

Only one being entered their hideout. A fox. He carefully placed a heavy boulder on a tiny twig near the entrance, a construction that couldn’t last too long. Then he yelled to the chameleon, saying innocent beings were in great danger—the husband of Feria and his son, no less!—and they needed his help inside.

Wilplink followed the twig, the boulder, until he looked at the ceiling and saw a massive Dragonvine net prepared there. Of course, how stupid they had been.

“Get out and take your trap,” he hissed at Alix. “This building is about to burn down and coll—”

“No it isn’t,” whispered Alix confidently. “I’ve studied flames and foundations. We have at least an hour of safety here.”

And while he was talking, Mmhmmhmm was carefully digging away those very foundations and adding onto the fire.

The chameleon had heard his calls. He trotted to the hideout with several leaky buckets. The other animals hesitantly made way.

Alix licked his lips. “That colored salamander … oh the energy he’ll give me … let me tell you, strange cat, don’t be surprised if I walk out of this building young and clever and passionate again!”

The chameleon set off the trap. A simple kick to some wood, and gravity did the rest of the work.

Wilplink reacted with cat-like instinct and reflexes.

The viverra kicked Alix aside, leaped forward, and pushed the chameleon against the wall. As the net fell on him, he focused all his energy on modifying the probabilities, and the net was caught halfway by some half-burnt, broken log in the ceiling.

This meant he had mostly neglected watching the other probabilities.

With a thunderous crack, the hideout gave up its resistance. The ceiling came down like a bird diving for prey, the walls caved in, and whatever remained instantly ignited.

“What have you done!?” yelled Alix, caught below a falling beam thrice its size.

The floor moved, slanted, turned into a collection of holes that fed on the debris.

“WILPL—” yelled a mole stuck below the ground. Before his words choked, and the floor lowered several tail’s lengths at once, crushing Mmhmmhmm.

Wilplink stood in the center of the flaming room. Dazed. Uncertain. Shaking and crying for his friend.

“I told you!” he mumbled, voice dancing between grunts and cracks. “I told you it’s probability, not certainty! I did my best. I … I …”

Permiox tried to lift the beam off of his father Alix. They managed to move it a little. This merely revealed the deep, nasty wound that Alix had suffered.

The chameleon was completely fine, crawling around Wilplink’s neck and flashing every color imaginable.

“Who are you?” said Alix, voice weakening.

The chameleon spoke with a pause between each word. “I have … MANY names. But I’ve finally chosen one. Chamtaid.”

“And you,” said the chameleon, flashing red and curling his spiky tail, “need to DIE.”

“No!” cried Alix.

The hideout wasn’t done crumbling. Everyone else had fled the area; the doorway was crushed anyway; Wilplink danced around the fires, but couldn’t prevent a few painful burns.

“I have so much left to learn!” Alix writhed and tried to open his eyes, but every movement brought immense pain. “So much to study! So many secrets in the universe I haven’t unlocked yet! I only ever tried to help all life on—”

“That’s a lie,” said another voice. An elephant’s trunk was spraying the fires with a serious amount of water, while another tried to clear the doorway. “You expect Feria to still love you? To let you ‘help’ us? After she finds out what you’ve been doing?”

Permiox made helpless circles around his dying father, not even caring about the fires. Alix moaned: “I can do this because I know I’ll have Feria’s love. Forever and always. If you let me die … oh, the wrath of the godchildren will fill your nightmares!”

A trunk shot through a gap in the burned walls. It snatched Chamtaid, the chameleon who finally decided his name, and rescued him.

Alix turned to his son. “Save me then! Freeze my life! Don’t look at the wounds, no, no, don’t care about them, I’ll be fine, as long as I live.”

Streamers of purple and blue smoke appeared around Permiox. His body seemed electrified.

“No,” he mumbled. “No! I promised never to do it again. Look what happened then!”

“I am your father!” yelled Alix. “I demand it! Freeze my health with your powers, do it. For me. For Feria. Freeze your own health too. We will survive. We will …”

Alix coughed and stopped moving. “We will visit those beautiful faraway planets Feria talked about. We will study the magical depths of the oceans. We will discover why gravity is the way it is, son, there must be a fascinating reason, like … like …”

Permiox kept preparing a spell, kept crying for his father, but never executed it.

All that left him was a small trickle of magic. A river through the air, if you will, that was blown away by the fires, out of the hideout.

Permiox looked up at Wilplink. Together they might have saved Alix. He could have lowered the chances of him dying here to near zero. The elephant firefighters just outside might have saved Alix, if they didn’t hate the fox too.

Ruby captured, Mmhmmhmm dead, Boaris gone, the war likely a true nightmare now. Just accept you’re a criminal. The world doesn’t care about you; and you don’t care about the world.

“I don’t care. I don’t care anymore,” were Wilplink’s final words. He reduced the chances of burning to death, lost all expression in his face, then stepped through the fires and fled.