RA: Intuition

Category: Friendship/Horror
Characters: C. Snippy/Sniper & A. Gromov/Engineer
Words: 6,711


Intuition over Intention

Four dark figures with different colored goggles, one wearing a distinctive black and white jacket and another a military hat, marched along a wide street between city buildings, passing piles of rubbish, debris and broken glass.

It was another bitter cold and cloudy day in the wastelands. The sky glared a bright gray tone above the charcoal land, interrupted by single dark clouds every now and then. Countless broken skyscrapers and towers loomed out of the city below, covered in a soft mantle of clouds.
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The Captain had brought his people – his minions, as he liked to call them – to a ruined market place to show them something he'd found.

"Behold, my minions, zee absolutely holy and original, unique, wonderful statue of eternal awesomeness!" he declared in front of his fellow crew mates.

It was a statue of a man standing up straight, covered in all kinds of rubbish and plastic bags that had gotten stuck in there as they came with the wind. There was a meaningful brick plate on his head and nobody really knew how it had gotten there.

The crew didn't seem to take Captain's flub dub too seriously, except for the green goggled man who was always clinging to him like a dog.

"This is truly godly, my Captain!" Pilot said gleefully, staring up at the statue in devotion.

Engie, the engineer with the orange ski shades and fluffy fur around his hood, sighed audibly and said: "It's just a damn statue! Whats so godly about it?"

Charles Snippy, alias Mr. Snippy, the sniper perfectly dressed for wasteland camouflage, stood next to him and covered his face with his palm. He had been with these two crazy guys for far too long to still give a damn about their retarded behavior and their never ending nonsense and understood how their newcomer Engie felt right now. His name was actually Alexander Gromov, but Captain insisted on calling him Engie.

"Why would you even waste your time with nonessential things like worshiping a statue? Geez!" the engineer ranted.

"It wears a wonderful hat, just like Captain!" Pilot said, pointing at said "hat".

Before Engie could continue the pointless argument with the hopeless idolizer, Snippy wanted to put his hand on Engie's shoulder and tell him that it was no use arguing with that guy. But before he could, everyone suddenly froze as they heard a loud scream.

"...Did you hear that noise?" Engie asked after a few seconds of silence.

"Was that the voice of a... woman?" Snippy whispered, wondering about the dubious situation.

Pilot just stood there, staring in the direction the sound had come from, while Captain still looked at the statue behind them, apparently disinterested.

"It came from that old office building over there!" Engie exclaimed and hastily dashed to the entrance of a large building standing by the street. It wasn't any higher than two storeys but its floor space was enormous. Snippy couldn't help but follow him.

"Hey, where do you two think you are going? Running away from your duty as my minions? I was just about to order you to-" the sound of Captain's voice faded down to a silent muttering from outside as the two entered the building through a doorless frame. Cold wind howled through the dark hallways. There weren't many sources of light inside. Pilot ran right into Snippy's back as he stopped behind Engie and the sniper almost toppled over.

"Hey, can't you watch your steps?!" he scolded at him in an angry tone.

"You're always so mean to me. I'm gonna tell Captain!" Pilot whined.

Captain entered and looked at Snippy, then at Pilot and then gazed back to Snippy.

"Mr. Snippy, explain this boobery! Why do you disobey zee Captain and run away with Engie?"

"We heard a scream. There might be someone in urgent need of help," he explained. He was still kind of skeptical but he at least wanted to find out where the sound had come from.

"Nonsense, my Snippy-Sniper, there aren't any other people on the premises!" Captain said, fully confident about himself as always.

The man wasn't quite sure if he should put faith in the Captain's questionable intention to stop him or into his own intuition. No one knew what could be lurking inside these chambers.

A strong wind blew through the hallways and brought a howling sound with it, giving Snippy the chills. The noise became stronger; it almost sounded like somebody was crying and sniffing.

Engie instantly followed the sound and ran deeper into the building, entering the ominous darkness and disappearing into the shadows.

Snippy didn't have time for decisions now, he couldn't just let him go alone. The sniper put his thoughts aside and followed Engie without hesitation, hoping that his instincts wouldn't fail him this time.

He had trouble seeing anything at all in this pit of broken walls and material laying around all across the floor and blindly followed the sound of Gromov's swift footsteps. Suddenly Snippy's boot got caught up in something and he fell down. As he struggled to get back up he noticed what he was lying on. It was a rusty iron grating that had apparently come down from the broken ceiling at the time it had collapsed. He freed his boot from the wires and scraped it away to not step over it again, and it created a strange sound.

The sniper startled. "That sound... metal wire grating... of course," he said to himself. Now things started to make perfect sense. It should have been clear to him all along, and he hated himself for not considering this earlier.

That stupid engineer... why did he have to run inside so quickly? It was his fault that he hadn't had any time to think of a logical explanation.

He hurried to catch up with the engineer. "Gromov, wait!" he screamed from the bottom of his lungs.
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They hadn't moved yet. Pilot stood straight next to Captain, the two of them staring into the darkness that was interrupted by a small glint of light every now and then, revealing only a little of the rubbish that was scattered on the floor.

"How ignorant of Engie and Mr. Snippy to not listen to my orders and run away like two little disobedient dogs. Their bad manners are just unacceptable!" the Captain exclaimed. "Pilot, I have a new mission for you."

"Oooh, a new mission? What is it? What is it?" he asked gleefully, excited for anything to come.

Captain cleared his throat before he finally spoke up: "Find Engie and Mr. Snippy and bring them to me!"

"Yes, Sir!" he shouted and sprinted away.
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Pilot had gotten quite far as he stumbled upon an iron grating. He picked a small piece of it up and felt the material between his fingers. These two impertinent shoes ran in there to have some fun playing hide and seek in the dark without him and they haven't even asked the Captain for permission.

"Who do they think they are?" he thought to himself and sighed at the vision in his mind of their inappropriate behavior.

"Where could they be right now? They must be hiding somewhere, waiting to be found. But I'll join their game. I will play hide and seek with those jiggly slugs, and I'll be the one who wins and then gets appreciated by the Captain. Oh yes. Because they're all just dirty shoes!" he drifted away into a day dream as he continued his search.
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Snippy finally saw Engie standing some meters ahead of him and picked up his pace.

"Gromov, you need to know this...!" he said, out of breath as he finally reached the man with the orange ski shades and came to a stop next to him.

"Sshh... it's the sound again." Engie ignored Snippy and walked around the corner to their left. Light glowed down, illuminating a bunch of loose, rusty iron wires, rubbing against each other in the wind and creating wailing sounds.

"It's the wires," the man with the blue goggles finally said.

"Why didn't you tell me earlier?" the other man scolded.

"I would have told you, if you hadn't dashed off so quickly!"

A moment of silence followed. As far as Snippy could tell, Engie was fairly irritated about his own misdirection. After a while he finally continued the conversation:

"Okay... but what caused that screech then? It's impossible for these gratings to cause such loud noises."

The sniper felt his heart pause for a second as he caught sight of a movement behind Engie.

"Don't... move..." he whispered.

He felt alarmed as he clearly saw a long head rising behind his companion. He didn't know what kind of creature that was, but it must have been over two meters high as it stood up on its hind legs. Three long, razor-sharp claws were lifted up in the air and in the second Snippy grabbed Engie's jacket to pull him away, the monstrosity released an ear-splitting high pitched screech. The fear made the sniper feel numb for a second, but an adrenaline rush woke him back up instantly. The claw missed Engie by a few centimeters. It hit the floor with a loud clank and the mutant snarled angrily about its misfortune.

"Run!" Snippy shouted and the two men legged it.

"What's the way back?" the engineer suddenly asked while running.

"I don't know! You brought us here! I only followed you!" Snippy yelled over his shoulder.

"And I only followed that damn noise!" Engie shot back.

The mutant chased them on all fours. It came dangerously close and leaped off the ground, landing right on the engineer and pressing him down under its weight. He screamed in panic and wriggled under the pressure, trying to get free.

Snippy's heart missed a beat.

"Get your dirty claws off him, you ugly monster!" he growled and immediately readied his rifle with nervous, trembling hands, quickly releasing the safety catch. Every second mattered now and he heard a ticking noise in his mind as they passed. He aimed quickly and his bullet hit what appeared to be the right arm of the monster. It groaned and let go of the helpless man, but caught sight of the sniper and hissed at him furiously.

He didn't have a chance to run or hide this time, so he aimed again at the berserking beast as it charged right at him. The ground was trembling dangerously below its heavy steps. It made an ominous cracking noise, sounding like metal being torn apart. The rusty iron bent and cracked below their feet and in a matter of milliseconds the last of the girders broke down.

Snippy saw Engie coming closer behind the mutant as it made its final step and the ground gave in with a loud crash. The vile monstrosity sank down in a mess of iron gratings, bars, wires, splinters, cement and dust. The two men were dragged along with it mercilessly. There were no nearby objects they could hold on to; everything collapsed and was plunged into the depths. In the very moment Snippy could feel the ground falling away below his feet, he counted the seconds to the end in his head and shut his eyes tightly, hoping to wake up from this horrible nightmare.
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Captain sat on a bench near the large, dark building his minions had disappeared into. He indulged himself with some delicious, steaming hot tea that he drank through a straw.

"I tell you, this tea is most delicious!"

A random skeleton sat there next to him, happening to stare right at his face in death.

"What? I told you, I will neither share my straw with you, nor let you sip from my glorious mug of sheer awesomeness!" He bumped the lifeless pile of bones with his hand aside and the head sunk a little, staring at a different spot now.

"You dirty little creeper! Stop staring at my body!" the Captain slapped the mannerless skeleton across its bony face and the skull ended up falling down right on his lap. That filthy skeleton had definitely gone too far this time, shoving his face into places it didn't belong! The Captain jumped up quickly and kicked the skeleton away, the bones falling apart completely as it was slammed to the ground by his strong hand. He cleaned off the remaining dust from his coat before he sat back down.

"...And that's how you deal with pervs!" he said confidently and took a sip from his tea.
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Dimmed lights broke the darkness. Was he dead? Engie opened his eyes and dust fell from his jacket as he moved his head. He was still breathing and felt solid ground below his hands as he tightened them.
He pulled himself together and shifted back to sit down on his feet. More material fell off his jacket. He felt a headache forming and a dull pain made itself noticeable in his ribs and knees. Strong colors covered his vision for a few seconds and he swayed. They started fading slowly as he shook his head slightly. He looked up to see the big hole in the ceiling they had fallen through. He guessed it to be about eight meters high, but wasn't quite sure at the moment. He didn't want to waste any more thoughts on it and felt like he should start looking for his fellow, so he stood up from the pile of rubbish he had been sitting on.

He heard a sudden crack, and turned around as quickly as possible. He sucked in his breath as he saw a gigantic, monstrous head staring right at him. The next second he calmed down a little as he delightedly noticed that it didn't move anymore. Various wooden and metal spikes were stuck deep in the mutant's back and limbs. A truly horrible sight. The thick blood that ran down from its side was still fresh and covered the ground at his feet in dark red. He looked about and spotted something white on the ground behind the fallen creature.

"Charles...?" he asked, but received no response.

While climbing and hopping over the obstacles to get closer, he feared the worst. He found Snippy lying on his back, covering his face with his arm and buried in a bunch of scrap material, big pieces of metal and wires. Alarmed by the situation, Engie instantly started scooping the heavy material off his body and located a sharp edged round metal bar stuck in the sniper's left lumbar region by his abdomen, surrounded by blood soaked white and black cloth. He didn't move nor respond to the engineer's calls or react to his attempts to wake him up.

Engie was on the verge of despair as he swiftly pulled off his gloves and brushed Snippy's collar aside to search for a pulse.

"Please... don't do this to me now... don't you dare die here like this..." he whispered tremulously. He detected a faint pulse. But how much longer would it last?

A loud screech cut off his every thought and made him freeze in shock. He felt paralyzed by the fear and didn't even dare to turn around and face the thing that caused it. In his mind he lamented that he had absolutely no experience in contesting physical battles, and he had never wielded any kind of weapon in his life. In fact he always left the fighting part to Pilot and Snippy, who were quite good at it. But this time he was on his own, there was nobody who could help him now...

He crouched in horrible fright as the screech echoed up one more time.

"Goddamn it, Gromov...! Stand up and fight like a man, you pussy!", he whispered to himself in anger at his ridiculous helplessness. He stood up slowly, hands trembling in fear. He dared a gaze at the dire mutant standing not far away from him, praying that it hadn't spotted him yet.

As far as he could tell in this dim light, it was about half the size of the dead monstrosity over there, but it still had a jaw full of sharp teeth and claws capable of ripping a grown man apart. It eyed Engie curiously while it tentatively strode towards him, obviously conceiving the best way to kill him. He could almost make out a vile grin in its deformed face.

Engie's first thought was to lure it away from his injured comrade; taking him out of trouble took first priority for now. So he slowly moved away from him, perpetually keeping eye contact with the beastly creature. He regretted not having the slightest idea about a fight strategy yet, but with his low experience in combat he would probably not even have a ghost of a chance. Razor-sharp claws were ready to strike as soon as he would dare to interrupt the line of sight.

He moved sideways, hoping to find any sharp objects to use as a weapon. The glowing eyes glared at him so intensely that it felt piercing and mind numbing to him, hypnotizing him, keeping him trapped in a trance-like state. Then the moment came when he just couldn't look at the creature any longer.

It happened in a matter of milliseconds. It got on all fours, darted towards him and stopped, standing up straight to ready itself for an attack as long as its target was in melee range. It raised its claws and Engie dodged the slash with a swift roll... unfortunately not fast enough.

He felt the cold claw striking down on his leg, leaving him with a painful wound. He saw the next attack coming and moved back, swallowing the pain down in his leg to avoid the risk of getting hit another time. While running to the other end of the room, he noticed a pointy metal bar sticking out of the ground, clutching it instantly and pulling on it. The bar was loose, but it was firmly stuck in the ground and wouldn't move. The monster growled, saliva dripping down from his mouth as it crept up to the engineer. He breathed heavily. His grip tightened so much around the sharp object that it hurt. The furious mutant started rushing towards him with open jaws, ready to bite his head off as soon as it reached him.

Engie felt a sudden snap in his grip and the object was released. He almost fell over but caught himself quickly and turned the pointy end towards the beast. His plan worked. The pole shot right through the open jaw as the creature charged and emerged out the back of the mutant's head.

Engie was overwhelmed by the heavy collision and felt it in his whole body as the monster rammed him. The massive weight of the beast pushed him down and he felt his breath being taken away under the pressure. The fight was over.

He lay on the ground for a few seconds to regain strength, then he slowly pushed the lifeless, heavy body off him. Air finally filled his lungs again and he rested his hands on his knees, gasping and coughing. In memory of what happened shortly before the attack, he felt alarmed and began checking the environment for his fellow, dashing to the sniper as soon as he spotted him again, well aware that the next mutant might arrive anytime soon.

Snippy tilted his head to look up at him. The engineer dropped down to his knees beside him.

"Charles, can you hear me?" he tried.

"I can..." he muttered, "What... what happened?"

"Hey, hold still now, do you understand? This is going to hurt a lot, but I have to do this now..." Engie said with a nervously trembling voice.

"Gromov wait, what are you-" he broke off and released a loud cry of pain as the bar was pulled out of his body. It clanged down beside him. Blood streamed out of the wound and hands were firmly pressed against it. Snippy was breathing unevenly and groaning in agony, his whole body tense with pain.

"Get your hands off me... this hurts like hell!" he snarled at the engineer with a rough voice.

"Shut up idiot, you're bleeding!" he reprimanded the sniper.

"That's because you-" a pained groan interrupted his talk and a wave of blood gushed from the wound.

"I'm trying to help you..." Engie said quietly.

Snippy didn't give a further response. After a while, Engie started wondering why and wasn't quite sure if it was because he might have lost the urge to continue this pointless argument or if it was the growing weakness... or both.

"Charles... we need to get out of here. I don't know when the next mutant will find us. They seem to be capable of scenting our location, and I guess they're all over this place."

Again no response.

"Damnit man, don't you dare die here!" he scolded, grabbing him by the shoulders and shaking him.

"Ow ow ow stop it, I'm not dead yet!" he spluttered weakly. Silence followed. Engie didn't know why, but he found himself smiling behind his respirator.

"I'm gonna lift you up now. Hold your breath, this might hurt a little."

He laid down beside him, picked his arms up to hold on to his neck and rolled over. Snippy jerked and bit his lip as he was lifted up to Engie's back. It felt like as if his body was being torn apart.

"Are you alright?"

"Are you kidding..." he whispered, shivering.

"Please... hang in there..." Engie thought.

Snippy wasn't as heavy as he had expected him to be in the first place. Engie started walking slowly. Hearing the sniper's soft, constant breath next to his left ear reassured him that he was still alive.

Stopping every now and then to take a look around, he tried to find a way up to the first floor.

So many hallways, so many doors... Engie felt really lost right now. All he could do now was guess the way and hope to find any sign of an escape route in this mess. He made sure to double check every corner for possible predators lurking behind them in the shadows. The last thing he wanted now was to confront another mutant. Carefully he took a few steps forward. Now that's just great... another dead end.

Turning back grudgingly and wandering off to the other source of light coming from a small hole in the ceiling, he glanced around. There! He felt relieved when he noticed a grayed out, almost faded sign reading "in case of fire", high up on the wall above an archway. Heading in that direction, he found even more of them that finally led him to a stairway. Driven by a strange fear caused by an assumption of being followed, he sped up and climbed them rapidly.

When he had reached the top he already felt a lot safer and sighed in relief. At least the main floor wasn't quite as dark as the underground. Now to find a way out. At one point he thought about climbing out through one of the few windows this building had... but then he saw the sharp edged, dirty broken glass soaring up towards him. Even without a load on his back, he probably wouldn't have even dared to climb through such a death trap, so he moved on.

Blindly groping his way through one of the darker parts of the way, he ran right into something with a rather soft surface. No wall could possibly feel like this, which could only mean...

Engie sucked in gasp and backed away, horror-stricken. At this point he started to wonder if Snippy's bad luck had transferred to him. Oh how he wished he could have undone his last step.

A horrifying screech sounded through the empty hallway. Engie backed away and almost fell over a few pieces of wires and junk. He reached down to narrowly pick up a strong metal pole while trying not to drop Snippy off his back. In the dim light he saw the monster coming closer, craving for their flesh. Engie held the pole defensively in front of his body with his free hand as the furious predator tried to claw him. The big, sword-like claws clanked mercilessly against the stalwart defense. A volley of berserk attacks hailed down on him and he parried each of them with difficulty.

He was forced back a little with every attack and he didn't know how much longer he could keep his defense up. Exhaustion made itself noticeable in his muscles, burning under the constant pressure they were being subjected to. His heart pulsed so violently it felt like it was about to collapse.

Suddenly the ground ended behind his tentative steps and he fought to keep his balance as it threatened to break away below his feet.

"I'm falling down there again..." he thought to himself, and swung the pole against the monster with sudden courage.

What he hadn't expected was to miss.

He fought for balance as the mutant deftly dodged backwards and took advantage of Engie's clumsiness. One last, effective claw attack knocked the pole out of his hand. His only weapon fell down into the pit.

Was this how he would die? His blood rushed, his body numb from all the exertions it had had to endure today.

"Snippy, I'm sorry..." he whispered.

The rising claw above his head was the last thing he saw before he closed his eyes. He flinched as he registered a quick, gruesome, wet noise. Dark liquid splattered over him, but he felt no pain. Something was not right.

Anxiously he dared a glance at the happening. He could hardly believe his eyes as he found the deadly mutant standing still in front of him – but half of its body slid down and fell to the ground, leaving behind a perfectly guillotined body.

Glorious, green lenses glowed in the dark behind the remains of a threat that now thudded to the ground without any sign of life, to reveal the man wielding a blood-soaked katana in his right hand.

Engie could barely believe that he was still alive in this very second. He quickly pulled himself together. Then he felt a deep shame to be the one getting saved by that moron... a moron who was ridiculously strong and good at close combat. On the other hand he was very grateful. Pilot really had arrived in the nick of time. One second too late and Engie would have joined the skeletons on the ground.

"Hello, Pilot," he began.

"Captain told me to go fetch you and Snippy. Why did you disobey him and run away to play hide and seek in an office building?!" Pilot grouched at Engie, resting his left hand on his hip.

"What?! Look, I don't know what's going on in your stupid head, but we came here to find the source of a voice and then monsters chased us and we fell through the-"

"Stop making up excuses, you disobedient shoe!" the green-eyed man interrupted him rudely.

"I was only trying to explain the situation to you!" Engie raged.

He felt a slow movement on his back. Snippy muttered faintly enough that only the engineer could hear him: "It's no use... Just leave the idiot be."

The man irritatably sighed away his anger. "Okay Pilot... just let's get this over with. Now show me the way out."

"Don't you order me around! I know very well what to do!" Pilot protested, but hearing no response from the engineer he just started moving in the direction he had come from. This worked out better than expected, though suddenly Pilot started going faster for no reason and Engie had trouble keeping up with his speed due to the extra weight on his back and the searing injury on his right leg. He tried not to run because that would only deliver additional pain to the sniper.

"Come on, you lazy slug, move! We're almost there," Pilot taunted over his shoulder, but Engie kept his temper down, saving his energy for more important things.

It cost him a lot of breath but finally he saw the crazy man emerging through an arch straight ahead of him and he soon caught up. Glorious light welcomed him in the outside world. Never before had he been so happy to see the open wastelands. Panting heavily, Engie stopped just outside and caught his breath for a moment.
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"My Captain!" Pilot exalted, "I brought back the two runaways, just like you ordered!" He skipped around happily near Captain.

"Well done, my minion! But why is Snippy sleeping?" Captain queried, gazing over to Engie.

Pilot rudely blurted out the first thing his strange mind could make up: "I don't know, that lazy slug is probably taking a nap again and trying to get a day off from work!"

The engineer was still trying to catch his breath.

"Engie, your actions were most inappropriate! Have you anything to say in your defense?" Captain demanded. "You had better find a good explanation for this boobery, or zee mighty mug will have to demote you to a piece of wet garbage!" He pointed at the exhausted man with his beloved heart imprinted mug.

Engie was finally rested enough to speak up for himself. "I seriously don't care what you're gonna do with your stupid mug. Anyways, I don't have time for your bollocks now."

Captain stood there frozen again, reminding the engineer of a lagging robot who was processing an answer. Engie didn't even bother waiting for it and left him standing there, heading directly towards the base.

"That was the rudest thing ever! You're ignoring your Captain again. There is no pardon this time!" Pilot ranted, and tossed his shoe after the man. He missed and covered his face with both his hands in shame.

Captain patted his shoulder consolingly.

"Do not worry, my faithful minion, nobody gets away with disobeying zee Captain! They will get the punishment they deserve. I'll come up with the best punishment in the history of punishments on our trip home."
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Blurred, soft colors of dark blue and white were enhanced by a dim light in the corner. Was he dreaming? He blinked his eyes and the colors started to shape to detailed edges and sharp textures in the near distance. He could make out the ceiling of their current base and noticed the smell of alcohol, burning oil – probably from a lamp – and a bunch of various other scents. How long had he been asleep? He barely remembered anything that had happened after Pilot had appeared in the dark.

Suddenly he heard slow footsteps and felt the urge to find out who they came from.

Snippy wanted to sit up but soon realized it was a bad decision as a searing pain manifested itself in his abdomen, bringing back the memories of the day. He cringed, gritting his teeth and giving up any further attempts to move.

"Hey, don't get up!" a familiar voice said.

Snippy opened his eyes again and tilted his head to the side. Fire was peacefully flickering behind the glass of an oil lamp that stood on the table next to the couch he laid on. There were a bunch of other things that stood on the small table. He gazed over and saw a bowl with water, some blood-soaked fabrics hanging over its edge, a bottle of alcohol and a bunch of small and pointy metal tools on an unfurled cloth.

An uneasy feeling overwhelmed him. He curiously fumbled over the skin of his lower side and felt threads under his fingers. He rose his hand up to his eyes and saw blood on it.

"Oh crap..."

"I wouldn't touch it, if I were you," the voice said again, "There's a high risk of infection."

Engie walked over and sat down on a nearby chair, tightening a bandage on his own leg.

Snippy's vision kept blurring out in colorful swirls and he noticed a strange ringing in his ears, but he intended to stay awake this time. He groaned silently and tried to get a clear head. Had Gromov just stitched him back together? He didn't know whether to be annoyed by the fact that the man who was responsible for his misery just fixed him as if he were one of his machines, or to accept this rather unpleasant situation as it was...

"I didn't ask for this... you're an engineer, not a doctor," he wanted to say in a serious tone, but his voice came out lower than intended. Even speaking was painful.

"You didn't exactly leave me a possibility to ask... after all you were unconscious most of the time and bleeding," Engie revealed and seemed a bit resentful by the mistrust of his crew mate.

"You were the one who brought us into this dilemma in the first place... so don't expect anything in return," Snippy said sharply.

They both remained silent while staring at each other, then Snippy looked down in regret. This just wasn't right... it all didn't seem quite fair to him after he thought about it once more. Getting carried all the way out after he had just yelled at him, calling him stuff, while the other one only meant well for him. Maybe he should at least try to show some appreciation to Gromov.

"On the other hand... Thanks for the rescue..." he finally said with a slightly rough voice and he cleared his throat afterwards.

"You're welcome," the answer came tentatively. "Uhm... thanks for getting that giant monster off me up there earlier, too."

"It was nothing..." Snippy said and turned away.

An awkward silence followed.

"So... Are you still mad at me?",the engineer wanted to know. After quite a while he received an unexpected response.

"Let's just forget about it. I can't hold a grudge against you forever, can I?"

Engie was delighted about this change of sentiment and slightly smiled behind his mask.

The peace was interrupted by a door slamming open and they both startled. They figured out what was coming next and prepared to face "zee mug".

"Minions, your marvelous master is back home! Did you play nice together?" Captain announced as he popped up in the doorway, holding his mug containing a hot, steaming beverage in his right hand.

"Does he always appear out of nowhere like that? It's kinda creepy..." Engie whispered to Snippy, who nodded slightly in response.

Pilot stepped into the house like a cheerful dog coming back from a short walk, passing Captain and rushing to the couch, ready to lay down and relax on it. But it was already occupied.

"Why is Snippy still sleeping? Let's wake up the sleepyhead!" he said, attempting to touch him. He backed away winced as Engie got up from his chair and growled at him, giving him a death stare.

Abruptly Pilot dashed off like a scared mouse and hid behind the Captain's back in a slightly crouched stance, who looked at him confusedly for a moment before he declared what he had to say.

"Listen up, everyone! I have announcements to make," Captain began, "I thought about today and came to the conclusion that Engie and Mr. Snippy were behaving most inappropriately."

"Here we go again..." the engineer muttered.

"So Pilot and I agreed to this delicious punishment for both of you: You will polish my 200 pairs of shoes until they shine like the eyes of your glorious Captain!" he declared and bent down to Engie's ear to add in a whisper: "Resistance is futile."

Pilot started cheerfully dancing around his beloved master, waving around two pom poms he must have found on the way here.

"Oh, and I joyfully announce Pilot as the employee of the month! Congratulations!" Captain declared, and his green-eyed companion started throwing confetti all over himself.

Snippy and Engie face-palmed in spectacular unison.
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Engie really drew a lesson from this day.

He definitely wanted to learn more about defending himself in future battles and therefore started puzzling about what kind of weapon he should carry. He wasn't quite a big fan of long, sharp weapons or guns.

One day he found a random weapon shop on his way and left with a tiny dagger in his hand. It was perfect for him, he found.

Out of some junk he scraped together, he crafted himself some reinforced arm guards he wore under his sleeves to use as defense for any kind of attacks he would have to endure.

On top of that he wanted to increase his knowledge about anatomy and first aid. The others often found him sitting somewhere, intently reading some dusty old books about medical stuff and fortunately didn't bother disturbing him.

If he wanted to increase his chances to survive in this dangerous world, he wouldn't only need to stick to Captain and the team, but he would also have to be prepared for anything to come and make himself useful in some way.