Past: Run

Lofgun was pacing the floor of the sitting room, the others standing around while Coolyala sat on a couch, a blanket about her shoulders as her body shivered: a side effect of the antidote the assassin gave her. But her leg was healing and she didn't feel like she was dying.

"What is in the box?" Jin asked.

Lofgun continued to pace, as if he couldn't stop moving. Coolyala wrapped the blanket tighter about her. "Stones."

Lofgun sent her a questioning look before sighing. "That's the reason they're after Butterfly. Her father stole the stones. He gave the stones to her and told her to run. She ended up here."

"What kind of stones are they that they are desperate?" Rinnowra asked.

"Powerful," Coolyala croaked. "Dangerous."

"Where did they come from?" Boom asked.

"Experiments. They were trying to do something, and resulted with this. Now, they want to destroy worlds with them." Coolyala shut her eyes, seeing the box in the assassin's hands and cursed herself. "Now, they have them."

"But they can't access them," Lofgun reminded her. "The box is opened one way. You know this!"

"Your knife-"

He waved her off. "It'll be easy to get that back. They have no need of it."

"But, it's important to you."

He looked straight into her eyes and said, "Right now, keeping the worlds from being destroyed is important. Keeping you safe is important."

She shook her head. "Lofgun-"

"I don't want to hear another word about the knife, Butterfly. I just want you to rest."

She sighed. The others were restless, unsure of how to take the information, as they were not told in the beginning. There were fourteen of them. Fourteen powerful people who were loyal to Lofgun. Coolyala was afraid she had destroyed that loyalty.

Lofgun seemed to sense her thoughts because he glanced at his people. "We have kept things from her. This isn't just on her."

"Our secret, Lofgun, isn't as big as this," Goomal hissed.

"Not just about us, but about each of you individually."

Wong stepped forward. "I belong to the Graqnots and joined up with Lofgun when he offered adventure."

Coolyala blinked. "Graqnots? Isn't your world all about order and peace?"

"I am different. I like being on the move."

"On the move?"

"We're Pirates!" Keayo said proudly. Everyone except Lofgun scowled at him.

Coolyala looked at them all. "Pirates?"

Lofgun crossed his arms. "How do you think we know so much about how to fight and pickpocketing and why we carry curved blades?"

She shrugged. "Some kind of military or force to protect worlds? I don't know. Maybe you're some sort of species of your own?"

Lofgun chuckled. "No, Butterfly. We're pirates. In other terms, we're outcasts from our worlds or have the need for something more than what home can give us."

"Where's your ship?"

Jin and Wong exchanged a look. Lofgun said, "The original ship is destroyed."

"Original?" He nodded. "What happened to it?"

"It was bombed ten months ago."

Coolyala did the calculations easily enough. When she did, she paled. "They did it, didn't they?"

"And captured one of my other crews."

"Other crews?"

"I have four. Each made of those who get along and fight well. They captured my second best crew, the White Bulldogs. I don't know how, but each one of them are in their hands."

Coolyala felt despair and guilt. "It's all my fault. If I hadn't come and brought you into this, none of this would have happened!"

"Butterfly-"

She shook her head. "Stop calling me that! It was fine before, but now I can't handle it!"

"Even if you hadn't stayed," Lofgun said, "my crew would have still been taken. They were taken the same day you appeared. My ship was bombed the same day as well."

"But today wouldn't have happened," she whispered, head down and eyes burning. "Today you all would be fine and happy. Not watching me and risking your lives for me."

It was Wong who said, "But then we wouldn't have had so much fun!"

"Not to mention, we wouldn't have been able to get to know you," Dalgoring chimed in.

"How about seeing Lofgun spar?" Rinnowra asked. There were murmurs of appreciation all around.

"Everyone has baggage," Lofgun whispered. "Each of them has baggage the rest of us helped with. You're not the only one we've had to teach and help protect. Granted, no one else had world destroying stones to go along, but hey, it's a new adventure!"

"Tell us everything you know," Jin said.

Coolyala glanced at Lofgun. "I don't know much else."

There was a long silence in which everyone was deep in thought. No one was still, all seeming to be as restless as the next. Then, Jin said, "So they have the stones. But Lofgun said they can't access them, so we steal them back, right?"

Coolyala shook her head. "They're well protected. Deep within their domain, deep within the labyrinth that only they know the best routes in and out of."

"I don't know about that!" Keayo explained. "I mean, after all, they are just scientists, right? They don't navigate worlds like Logun does! They have no idea that in between worlds are labyrinths that you can lose yourself in. Lofgun is the most experienced with these puzzles!"

Lofgun chuckled. "You give me too much credit, Keayo."

Coolyala smiled but it disappeared when she began to think frantically. Her father had given her something else. She had forgotten it because it didn't seem possible she'd ever lose the stones. But now…

"I need to go home," she hissed, straining to stand. However, each male and Rinnowra scrambled to stop her. She scowled at all of them. "What was that for?"

"You're still hurt!" Wong stated, arms crossing over his chest. "Just do all of us the favor and stay down for now."

"I'm not hurt, just weak."

He shrugged. "Same thing."

Coolyala rolled her eyes, but settled back, now looking at Boom. "You have said you've been to every world. What about Tedinver Obegl?"

Jin shrugged. "Sure. Didn't stay long."

"That's your world?" Lofgun gasped.

She nodded. "Have you been to the center?"

"Close to it."

She began to explain directions for what she wanted, answering any of Jin's questions, but giving no attention to the others, as she wanted him to leave as soon as possible. It was necessary he get what she needed before anything else take place.

Once Jin understood everything she explained, he promised to leave immediately the next morning. That was good enough for her. He was also going to take Boom, Goomal, Merra, and Mangoo: Merra's full name being Nammammerra and he was brothers with Mangoo.

They left to prepare while Coolyala closed her eyes, exhausted. She heard others shuffling about, but didn't move herself until she felt arms go about her. "Let's put you down to rest," Lofgun said softly.

"I need to stay awake."

"No, you need rest. Jin will be fine. The rest of them will be fine. Just take some time for yourself, Butterfly."

"Why do they still care?" She finally opened her eyes too look at him. "I've endangered you and them. I've likely killed your friends, the Bulldogs, and I'm the cause for your ship being destroyed."

Lofgun chuckled, entering a room and setting her on a bed. "First of all, the ship was old and was going to end up destroyed at some point. I have a new one built. It is better and I love it. Second of all, the Bulldogs aren't dead."

"How do you know?"

He winked. "I'm their captain, Butterfly. Each member from my crews creates a bond with me and each other. I would feel it if they died, and they haven't." He pulled the covers up so she was nice and warm and said, "Lastly, we are always in some danger wherever we go. It isn't new. They still care because, like I have, we have taken you into our crew and accepted you as one of us."

"But I'm not."

Lofgun shrugged. "Each crew member is different. Each of us is a different species from a different world. Each of us brings something new to the crew that is either useful or special. We have come to live with one another, no matter if some of us are supposed to be enemies."

Coolyala blinked, trying to stay awake. "Who are supposed to be enemies?"

"Keayo is technically hunted by Boom's world. When Keayo joined, Boom had the instinct to kill him. But in time, learned that Keayo is not inferior, but an equal. The reason Keayo's species is hunted is because they apparently are weak and have nothing to give to their world. Boom's species wants to take their world and expand. But, they only have managed a small portion of it."

"What made Boom decide Keayo was an equal?"

"Keayo has a special ability that Boom's species don't know about. When Boom found out, he understood Keayo was as special as him, as the rest of his species."

Coolyala hummed in pleasure but eventually let sleep take over.

Lofgun left her to sleep, going down to the sitting area where five of his crew waited: Rinnowra, Wong, Dalgoring, Coomarrah, and Boom.

"Is she finally resting?" Wong asked.

"Yes."

Wong snorted as Coomarrah said, "She's going to need to trust all of us to help her if she wants to retrieve the stones with our help."

"I don't believe that's the problem," Dalgoring said plainly. "I believe she needs to trust herself to do the right thing and make the right decisions. She is beating herself up for giving the stones up when she could have sacrificed herself instead, when she could have let us kill the assassin."

"But she wouldn't do that," Rinnowra hissed.

"No. She wouldn't, no matter how she feels about her duty to keep them away from the enemy." Dalgoring scowled towards where Lofgun left Coolyala. "She needs to trust that she can make right decisions or to not be afraid to ask."

"You can't blame her, though," Wong protested. "If her father did throw this on her without forewarning, then she is bound to doubt herself and everything around her."

"I don't blame her," Dalgoring growled, sounding more like his species than ever before in Lofgun's relationship with him. "I blame her parents."

"We don't blame anyone," Lofgun whispered. "We only think ahead to what we do next."

"Which is what?" Boom asked. "Besides Jin going to get whatever she wanted, what do we do?"

Lofgun sighed, shaking his head, having no idea their next move. All he knew was that they had to get the stones. All he knew was that he would not let her, his Butterfly, get away with dying for her cause.