Way of the Slugcat

In Case of Emergency

Night crouched and put his belly on the ground. His ears went flat against his back and he took a few slow steps towards the toll. Thorns copied him. The two were side by side, almost touching one another. As they approached, the white scavenger and his peers looked down upon their pathetic display of harmlessness. Thorns risked a glance into the white's narrowed eyes. It glared at him, then...
Crack!
Thorns lifted his paw off a snapped plant stem. It had made a much louder noise than he had anticipated. Immediately, every scavenger in the vicinity snapped to attention. A crowd of colorful eyes went wide and shot towards the slugcats. A few of them skittered nervously away from the scene. Others grabbed rocks and metal pieces from their primitive looking belts. The blue scavenger pulled its spear from its back and held it above the tiny nubs on its head, arm cocked and ready to release the weapon. It aimed directly at Thorns.
Look small, look small! Thorns' mind screamed. I am not of any harm, I am not of any harm, I am not of any harm... He squeezed his eyes shut and brought his tail closer to his body. Even though he was already as close to the ground as he could get, he still tried to get closer, flattening himself down like the squidcada he had accidentally squashed with a machine. He brought the image of that blue bug into his head, it's tentacles plastered to the floor and its four wings glued permanently to its back. That was the last time anyone ever let Thorns pilot a transport vehicle...
"The pearl!" Night said in a harsh whisper. He sounded urgent. Without opening his eyes, the white slugcat held his paw out and released the shining ball from his grasp. Almost instantly, Thorns held nothing but air. He dared to open one of his eyes to see which scavenger had grabbed it. Unsurprisingly, the large white scavenger held the pearl with two fingers, letting the sunlight shine onto its glossy surface. Its blue friend had put down its spear and was now inspecting the gift from over the white's shoulder. Thorns held his breath.
Will it accept it? Please, please for the love of karma...
The white scavenger glanced down at the slugcats. It's skeptical gaze pierced through Thorns' fragile shield of confidence. It then moved its eyes to Night, who seemed to be keeping his emotions under a tight lock. His milky eyes revealed nothing. They simply stared back.
    The scavenger stepped aside. It began waving its free hand in a circular pattern, seeming to urge the slugcats on.
"May we go now?" Thorns squeaked, hoping that Night was on the same train of thought that he was. Night answered by taking the lead. The slugcats slowly crawled through the crowd, passing black, pink, orange, blue... every color Thorns could think of was there in the form of a scavenger. He recognized a few of them, such as the red and grey couple that had been present during his first encounter with the big white one. The one that had thrown the rock at him was there as well, its blue eyes watching him from the back of the gathering.
Almost there, he reassured himself. Almost out. Night knows what he is doing. He knows what he is-
A glint in Thorns' peripheral vision stopped his inner dialogue in its tracks. There, in front of him, under a plain looking sheet of metal, lay a pearl. This one, however, was not white. It sported a glistening sky blue.
Thorns had to do something. He could not just leave it there, forgotten under the waste of these greedy little apes. They did not have the capability -or the intelligence- to keep it preserved and healthy. At this rate, all of the information inside would get bleached out by the sun like all the rest of the white ones! As the former CEO of the Data Preservation Movement, he would not allow such careless acts to go unpunished! Colored pearls always held important information, such as letters, official statements, spiritual poems, and detailed instructions for a multitude of different projects. The data within the white ones were nothing more than simple blueprints and memories. If there was one pearl Thorns was going to walk out with this cycle, it would be the blue one. He glanced behind him to check on the scavengers. Most of them had turned back to their weapons, sitting casually upon the stone heads and fiddling with rocks and spears. A few of them were occupied with picking up pearls that had dropped from the skull. Now was his chance.
He slowly inched his paw closer to the pearl, careful to not make any sound that might alert the scavengers to his scheme. His fingers slid under the metal sheet. They closed around his prize.
"Psst! Thorns!" Night had turned his head to look at Thorns. He eyed his paw suspiciously and read the guilt on the slugcat's face like an open book. Upon realizing Thorn's goal, Night shook his head. Thorns was not backing down so easily, however. He started to retract his arm whilst keeping eye contact with his friend.
Slowly, slowly...
"Freeze!" Night hissed. He froze. The sound of footsteps approached him. Thorns didn't dare to look behind him, as Night's eyes already said it all. They were focused on something, most likely a scavenger, walking towards him over his shoulder. Then, the footsteps stopped.
"RUN!"
Thorns and Night bolted away from the toll, the blue pearl clutched in Thorns' paw. The loud twang of a spear bouncing off metal sounded closer than the slugcats would have liked. A second spear was thrown, this one just barely missing Thorns' head. It embedded itself in the ground in front of him. He leapt backwards and swerved around the obstacle. Both slugcats were now upright, urging their little legs to move faster and faster, trying to outrun the rain of projectiles being hurled at them from behind. Night was ducking and rolling left and right, expertly dodging spears and rocks that would have certainly impaled him. Thorns thought about trying to copy his strategy, but decided against it. He was more likely to fumble and get stabbed than to actually pull it off. Instead, he resorted to using the terrain to his advantage, sliding behind old machines and obscuring himself with plant life. Even though their strategies were different, the slugcats managed to keep pace with each other.
A hissing sound flew past Thorns' ear. To him, it was foreign. To Night, it was all too familiar.
The ground before them exploded with an ear piercing BANG. Sheet metal and wires went flying in every direction. Thorns was violently thrown backwards, colliding with one of their pursuers, who, in a desperate rage, plucked a cherry-red ball from its waist. All Night could do was watch as the scavenger lost its grip on the weapon. It flew backwards out of its hand as Thorns' knocked its body to the ground. He knew the inevitable was to follow.
Thorns could not hear anything. Nothing except the incessant ringing in his ears. It refused to go away, no matter what he did. He held his head in both paws and turned himself over, hoping to get back onto his feet. Spots and blurry lines corrupted his vision, but he was pretty sure that he had landed on top of a scavenger. The creature did not seem to be moving. As for its brethren...
A cacophony of pops and bangs filled the valley of stone heads, echoing off its walls and screaming into the sky. Showers of red sparks erupted from every direction, sending scavenger after scavenger ascending into the heavens. It was quite a spectacle to behold. Nature's very own firework display. Thorns felt his jaw drop. Was he absolutely certain that his vision had not been blown out? Had he hit his head too hard on something?
Night tugged on his friend's arm. Without really thinking, Thorns accepted his comrad's pull and began walking in his direction, still dazed by his close call with the explosion. Together, they stumbled through the wreckage as the noise died out behind them.
"How did you manage to keep a hold of that?"
Thorns snapped out of his daze as Night finished his question. "Keep a hold of what?" He asked. Night gestured to his hand. Thorns gasped. The little blue pearl still rested snugly within his paw, cradled between his three fingers as if it were always meant to be there.  "I-I do not know." He responded.
"You must have been very determined to keep it." Night continued. "Why did you want it, anyway?"
"W-well, I could not just let the scavengers keep it! They would have destroyed the information inside!"
"...information? Inside that?" Night chuckled to himself.
"Yes, and very important information at that! It is colored, so it must be valuable. Do not laugh."
Night's expression dropped. His smile faded.
"Thorns."
"Yes?"
"You said you wished to ascend? To break the cycles?"
"I..." Thorns paused. How did Night know that word? When they first met, he seemed oblivious to the fact that such a possibility existed. When did that change?
"Um... yes?" He decided to continue. Where would this conversation take him?
"Will you need that pearl to do so?"
"U-um, well, maybe? Maybe the information insi-"
"Do you have any means of extracting the information?"
"W-well..." He wanted to say yes. Under any normal circumstances, he would. He turned his eyes to Night's unchanging expression. The black slugcat stared back expectantly.
"What are you trying to pull, Night?"
"Nothing. All I want is a simple answer: yes or no."
Thorns said nothing. The black slugcat took a deep breath. "I am not trying to make you feel uncomfortable. I only wish to help you."
"Help me do what!? Where are you even taking me? Why are we going this way?"
"Thorns, do you trust me?"

Did he? Did he really trust this strange rodent? He had saved his life multiple times. Although, to Thorns, there was something about his new friend that seemed a little... off. Something that he could sense just by being in his presence, just by looking at him. Those white eyes hid something , and they hid it very well.

"Thorns?" Night continued. "I trust you. I trust that you will make the correct choice in this situation. I will refrain from bugging you."
Thorns kept quiet. As he hobbled beside Night, using his body as a crutch, he let his mind wander. He did not understand Night, although he really wanted to. He yearned for the knowledge that hid behind those milky white ovals of his. For now, though, he concluded that it would be best to focus on the present. The issue at hand... finally, he had an answer.
"No."
"Hm?"
"No, I will not need this." He stared into the sky blue body of his prize. It did not speak to him. It did not reveal anything to him. Slowly, he allowed it to slip from his grasp and sighed. Night put a hand on his friend's shoulder.
"Maybe someone else will find it. Someone who does need it."
"...yes. Hold on." Thorns' eyes landed on a small crack in the valley wall. Taking the pearl back into his hand, he strolled over to the opening and inspected it. It seemed to be just wide enough to shove the pearl inside. It fit snugly within the crack's grasp, blanketed with straggled weeds and an armored plate of sheet metal.
"There! Now the sun will not be able to bleach it out. If someone does need to find it, it will be waiting here. Just not for us."
"Well isn't that generous of you?" Night grinned.
"I suppose so." Thorns smiled back. "Now, where are we off to? I need an answer."
"Hm. You will find out." Night craftily replied. He gave Thorns a wink and continued down the valley.
"Hey! That was not an answer!"
"Yes it was, it just wasn't clear."
"That is not the point! And there had better be a shelter up there somewhere, the sky is looking a bit foreboding."
"There will be if you hurry up."
"Alright, alright, here I come!"
As the sounds of the slugcats faded down the valley, silence once again fell. The tiny blue pearl rested peacefully in its shelter, rouge rays of sun barely missing its glossy surface. Then, the sun vanished. A shadow fell over the crack. It covered the wall and cast the pearl into darkness. It then paused, lowering its head to the ground and taking in a very long, deep breath.
And then it was gone. The fading sun filtered down upon the ground once again, highlighting the imprints that had been left behind. A trail of footprints, and a single red scale.

Caution
It would be best to heed its word.