Permafrost: Thunderbird

Chapter 13: Hired To Hunt

⭐️Chapter 13: Hired To Hunt 

Naturally the Wave Crashers hadn't taken too kindly to Bird's existence, and were now currently angrily storming through the outskirts of Laocrah Town. They weren't exactly going anywhere in particular, walks were just a thing they did whenever they needed to blow off steam...though it usually came at the cost of a few plants or bugs' lives. Of course, Bird had been disqualified from turf, but a TIE? REALLY? George wasn't going to have them redo the match in case the Crashers actually WON? It just stung like that.

Fang was actually thinking to himself, about what exactly has gotten him into this specific situation. The usual routine of the Crashers was that they would fight a team until they bested it, then moved on. But this one team that they'd beaten over and over again...why did they keep doing it? The Infernos weren't overly powerful, they just happened to have some kid with hot ink on their team. Even then, that did practically nothing to change the battle. So why was Thrash so bent on destroying this girl and her team?

Even worse, he'd blurted all his feelings to that one Rinkling on their adventure...what was his name, Correy? Whatever, it didn't matter. That Rinkling was friends with the Infernos, and even though they'd been there during the whole Rinkling Kingdom event, Fang still didn't like the thought of those groups teaming up against him with his personal information behind their backs.

Ugh, he wanted to curl up into a ball and disappear. He slammed his Tenta brella against a bush in a fit of anger and distress which made a very loud CLACK noise that echoed through the woods. It opened up after a few seconds, but he didn't care. He just...didn't know what to do now. He didn't care if he got weird expressions or questions from the others anymore.

He must've held the tenta brella there for loner than he'd thought, because the sound of the canopy launching soon rung in his ears. The other three Crashers turned around to look at him, though Fang looked at the path he'd made to avoid eye contact. The other three then directed their attention to the path, which was indeed, a wide area of orange ink pushing down several plants as it slowly moved along. However, it also revealed something else underneath all the shrubbery: strange metallic plates in the ground. Well, that was interesting.

Naturally, the whole group had to investigate. Changing their color to orange, all of them dropped into the ink and swam in the direction that the metal plates lead. Fang sighed as he watched them swim off for a bit, then shook his head and turned into a squid to follow after them. The path didn't go on for too long however, and eventually the group reached the end. As they resumed humanoid form and their usual colors, the group looked at where exactly the path had taken them.

It was a metallic gray building at the bottom of a hill, with trees surrounding it. It seemed like some sort of meeting building with a purpose, not some abandoned place left to rot and become scrap metal. All four members hesitated to go down the hill they were standing on to investigate it, but Thrash made the first move by snapping out of that and making his way down. The other three, with Fang lagging behind, followed him down as well. It seemed like a normal building with nobody around, but the group had to keep on their toes.

As Thrash got down to the building, he immediately went for the door. The others followed, but still hung back. 

"Uh...are you SURE that's a good idea?" Thorne asked.

"What? Did we come down here just to look at this building and not do anything with it? If anything, we could just put graffiti on it," Thrash replied with a grin.

Thrash tried the door handle just to see what would happen. He was surprised to find it unlocked, and pushed the door open. He momentarily blinked in an attempt to process that that had WORKED, before making a move to step inside. Suddenly, an adult humanoid harpoon snail rounded the corner, and Thrash could see it from the corner of his vision. All four Crashers froze, but were still startled nonetheless.

"Ack! Who are you?!" Spyke exclaimed.

"Totally weren't touching anything!" Thorne quickly said in a panic.

The snail examined the Wave Crashers for a bit before approaching them slowly. He had a very...authority-like presence about him.

"My name is Hunter, and I'm looking for a young female Inkling," he stated calmly.

"Is she short and yellow and have something to do with birds?" Fang asked.

"Yes! Have you seen her? If you know where she is, I could hire you four to hunt her down for me and bring her back!"

The four goons exchanged sly grins, ones that could only mean trouble.

"What's in it for us?" Thorne asked in a "we're interested, but only if we get the good stuff" tone of voice.

"Well, what would you wish for? I'd pay almost anything to get her back! She is valuable to us here at the lab..."

The Wave Crashers looked at each other in disbelief, especially since the guy mentioned "anything". Did this guy truly mean ANYTHING? Well, surely there was a limit on his offer since it was just one girl and not a whole bunch of things. The boy group decided that they should all wish for a similar thing in that sense, something that could possibly cover most of their needs anyway.

"Pay us. Pay us WELL," Spyke replied, though it was almost more of a threat. "You could even give us some gear to improve how we perform in turf wars...but powerful pieces, of course."

"If you don't do it after we turn the girl in, you're going to get solid metal to the face," Thrash threatened.

Hunter simply smiled, as if this group of teenagers were no true threat to him. Not that they noticed, of course.

"You have a deal."