Chapter 4: Law of the Maw
...there was nobody there. Not a single sign of life. The map was neatly laying on a pedestal, and Jungorou was the only one in the room.
Jungorou: "Hm, i didn't expect it to be that easy."
Jungorou takes a few steps forward to get closer to the map, but his walking's interrupted by, of all things, a hiss. Jungorou looks up to the roof, and he sees that there's something clinging onto it. The creature he bore witness to would then latch off the roof and dive towards the floor, nailing the landing. As it landed, some dust was blown around the room, and Jungorou needed a moment to readjust his eyes to get a good look at what he was seeing. When he adjusted, he saw a creature that was about as him with a scratched orange chest, a head that defyed all logical explination, with eyes being present within it's dark void of a mouth and a pulsating mass stuck to his back.
When it spoke back, the voice of the creature would take Jungorou completely off guard.
???: "...The name's Molar."
The voice of the vile creature was oddly high pitched for something so sinister, almost as if it was trying to sound innocent to hide something.
Meanwhile, just outside of the room, Shep and Cypress were looking at both sides of the hallway, and at the exact same time, two identical figures made entirely of a tin-like material would turn around the corner. They didn't have a face, for it was drawn in with a felt tip pen. They also had a helmet with various light bulbs that illuminated the same colour and multiple different layers of armour around their chest.
Shep: "What the hell are those?"
Cypress: "I don't know. I've never seen anything like it."
In that moment, both of them would swing their arms, brandishing what looked to be a pair of syringes, and charged towards the two, holding out their arms to run with the syringe pointing towards them.
Shep: "You REALLY wanted to die today, huh?"
Cypress: "Then we shall grant you your wish."
Meanwhile, in the room just next to them, Jungorou would start talking to the unknown specimen on the roof.
Jungorou: "What... are you?"
Molar: "Details like that are only important when you can give a concise answer."
Jungorou would start glaring at Molar, which they would take as a sign of agression.
Molar: "Oh, i'm sorry. Did i offend you?"
Molar would once again chuckle to itself, as if it knew something Jungorou didn't.
Molar: "Let's ask a question that's a little more topical. Do you have any plans with that map over there?"
Jungorou: "What does it look like?"
Molar: "I'll take that as a yes. Another question, have you ever heard the term 'Finders, Keepers'?"
Jungorou: "...you're not getting that map."
Molar's expression would turn from a somewhat playful smirk to a no nonsense gaze. It was serious about getting the map, and it was about to show Jungorou wise.
Molar: "ALRIGHT wise guy. I'm going to give you an offer you CAN'T refuse."
Molar would move it's chest forward slightly, and a limb would come stretching out of the pulsating limb. It would contort and distort in multiple directions until finally stabilising. The limb itself had a pair of teeth on the end rather than a hand or a foot.
Molar would then lift it's hand, and the limb would reach out for a strange silver man in the background who was getting close to the map. Jungorou could only faintly see what was happening, but he could absolutely hear it. The limb ripped off the silver figure's arms, legs and eventually his head. It would bring the head back to Molar, demonstrating it to Jungorou.
Molar: "Do you want to go down as a hero when your name gets woven into the history books, or do you want to be left without a name, and without a head?"
Molar's extra limb would then spend a moment to feast on the head it was holding in it's jaws.
Molar: "If haven't noticed already, you're going to perish VERY soon."
Molar would then point to the small door where Jungorou entered to reveal that both Shep and Cypress were missing. This would start to get to Jungorou, leading him to making a rash decision a couple of seconds later.
Molar: "But you'll kick the bucket even SOONER if you DON'T LET ME TAKE THE MA-"
Jungorou would take out his blaster, switching it to grapple mode, and would shoot at the map to try and grab it from the distance he was at. Molar would respond accordingly by lunging the extra limb directly towards Jungorou's head. On reaction, Jungorou would take out the Monster Mash potion he took of the conveyor a few minutes back and would cleany throw it down the extra limb's hatch.
Molar: "Isn't that a fancy tri- WH- WHY'S MY CHEST MOVING?"
Every time Molar tries to get the limb close enough to strike at Jungorou, his chest would move in the wrong direction, which would move the pulsating mass that the limb was coming out of, resulting in the limb swinging wildly in the wrong direction.
Jungorou would take this opportunity to pull the blaster in and grab the map. Once he did, he turned his head back to taunt Molar one last time before leaving the room.
Jungorou: "I'll be taking that map, you fang toothed FREAK!"
For the next 9 seconds, Molar as uncontrollably dancing, and didn't have any way to stop. Jungorou took this time to try and alert Shep and Cypress to get the hell out of the building while they still had a chance.
Jungorou: "SHEP, CYPRESS, We need to leave this factory NOW!"
The two of them had only just got done pummeling the small tin men into the ground, and a few seconds later, Cypress grabbed Jungorou to escort him out of the building faster than he could run out of it on his own.
Cypress: "On it."
Shep: "Hold on, you guys run ahead. I'm going to see if i can rip out the building's CCTV footage to get an idea on what we all just witnessed."
Cypress would break out of the building (which was now completely empty as all of the reactionless workers had seemingly vanished after the two silver soldiers showed up) and would eagerly wait to see if Shep would return with some sort of tape. While searching the building, Shep saw a group of windows in one of the conveyor rooms with a tape that was actively being written to.
Shep: "Bingo."
Shep would break through the glass and carefully take out the tape with two of this fingers. After that, he would then run through the hole previously left behind by Cypress.
Shep: "We've got the map, and we've got the tape. Let's high tail it out of here before anything else decides to rear it's ugly head."
And with that, the three of them would run back to where the Hyperbikes were parked, and would start the 3 hour long trip back to their base. Just as they set off, Jungorou got one last look at Molar, who found the hole they broke out of, and swung their arm in anger.
Molar: "THIS ISN'T OVER, GREEN BEAN! JUST YOU WAIT!"
Jungorou: "Hm. What is his problem..."
The drive back to the base was largely the same, with no surprises jumping out at them while they were on the mountainous roads, the bustling highway and even the land surrounding their headquarters.
Once the three of them parked up their Hyperbikes again, they immediatly went into their designated studying room to analyse everything they just bagged from their visit to the unnamed factory.
Jungorou: "So Cypress, you think you can decode this map?"
Cypress: "Yep, there's not really any point in trying to read it normally if i can just decode it myself."
Shep: "While you're doing that, i'm going to try and find a VCR to put this tape into.
As shep started to rummage the vault to see if there were any VCR's he could put the tape into, Cypress turned on the cassette player, and it started reading the exact co-ordinates of The Wishing Rod directly to the group, with the location being far closer than any of them were expecting.
Cypress's Cassette Tape: "Head to the front door of your personal headquarters. Walk exactly 361 studs forward. Once you've counted the studs that you've walked, grab onto the ground with either hand. From there, you'll feel a zip that's hidden by the grass. Once you've got a feel for that, drag it 10 studs to the right, and a secret underground path will reveal itself. Make it through the maze that lays beyond the passage, and you'll find The Wishing Rod."
Jungorou: "Huh. I didn't expect it to be so close."
While Jungorou was writing down these instructions, Shep had found a VCR, and decided to play the camera feed he found before setting off to grab The Wishing Rod.
Shep: "Hm, this seems to be linked to the camera that was in the room with the map."
Shep continues to watch the tape, and he notices something strange.
Shep: "Hold on, that's one of those silver guys that tried to jump us. What's he..."
Shep's gaze widens as he sees one of the small silver soldiers walking up to the map, scanning it and tapping some buttons on his helmet. He started to think that him pressing those buttons informed every singe one of those soldiers in his team where The Wishing Rod was, and he frantically looked out of the window closest to the front door.
To his horror, he sees that the zip the tape described had already been opened.
Shep: "SHIT. WE WERE ALREADY TOO LATE!"
Shep instinctually grabs both Cypress and Jungorou, dragging them until he could break down the front door. He would then begin a frantic sprint to the entry of the maze, and as a result, The Wishing Rod.