Saving Soul

"no. I have no where for me." Anja sighed. "You can just leave me when you go. I don't blame you"

"I'd rather not leave you alone while you're still injured," answered Adair, though he was a bit worried what Voltaire was going to think. As obnoxious as he was being lately, he might find himself on the wrong side of a summon attack. "What about your bat master? Do you have any way to contact him?"

"No. He contacts me." Anja replied.

"Hmm..." Adair mused. "Well, I guess you can travel with us until we can get you to someplace you can stay, or until your ankle gets better. Ava shouldn't mind. I can deal with 'Taire if he's a problem."

"You don't have to. I do better on my own." Anja stated.

"I have to or else my conscience gets the better of me," Adair replied with a slightly humorous tone. "Don't like not helping people, I guess."

There was a steep incline downward, and Adair slowed the the somewhat slippery surface. He didn't need to be dropping Anja again.

Anja clung to Adair slightly. "Whatever." She mumbled

He managed to make it to the bottom of the slope safely. A couple of bats flew near him and then squirted cold water at his face. He yelped, but kept ahold of Anja.

"What is with this place and all its water affinities?" he muttered, steaming slightly.

"I don't know." Anja stated evenly. "But yell in my ear one more time." she let her threat hang.

"...Right," Adair replied, though he didn't feel too threatened. He fried a couple of bats that got too close.

Anja rubbed her ringing ear with a grumble. "If you're hungry, we can stop and eat some of my dried rations. Well, you can. I personally don't like them."

Adair wondered what brought this up all of a sudden, and then glanced at the smoking bat bodies laying on the cave floor.

"I'm not that hungry," said Adair with a laugh. His stomach growled. "...Well, maybe I am, but I didn't fry the bats because I was hungry. I fried them so they wouldn't attack me."

He decided that a quick lunch break would be good though. He hadn't eaten since...yesterday, actually. Yesterday afternoon. No wonder he was hungry. He put Anja down.

"I know that wasn't why you were frying them! I was offering to be nice," Anja snapped. "Using your fire powers uses energy right? And using up energy makes you hungry. It was basic logic. And besides, if you're going to insist on protecting me, I may as well make sure that you're in top condition so that I get fully protected right?"

Of course Anja didn't mean the last part of what she said, but that didn't stop her from spewing it out there in an attempt to divert Adair from the truth: She was starting to worry about him.

Adair stood in startled silence for a bit, not expecting the sharp retort.

"Ah, right..." he finally replied, sitting down. "Just...never mind."

Anja handed him a bag full of oats and dried fruit. "Here." She grumbled. "Travel rations."

"Thank you," he replied. He took a handful and began to eat. He didn't want to take too much time. They could both get a real meal later when they met up with Voltaire and Ava.

Adair heard the mechanical creak of another invention coming to greet them. Something that was supposed to be either a cat or a dog came into view, eyes glowing yellow. He let out a groan, but he was also relieved. They must not be far from the exit.

Anja glared at it. "Another one?" She asked venomously.

"Yes, another one," Adair confirmed, gulping on the the last of the food before he stood up. "He has a ton of them. It's what he works on when he's bored." Might have been what he's been doing all day waiting for us.

He walked over to the cat-dog thing. The machine stopped and sat down before it opened its mouth.

"Hi, nice to know you're still alive, at least the last time I talked to you," said the mechanical recording. "This message is brought to you by Ava -" -at this point there was some shuffling around and muted discussion, following by a couple loud footsteps- "HI FIERY! IF YOU COME SOON THERE WILL BE FOOD!"

Adair staggered back from the loud recording, covering his ears. Ava apparently still did not understand the concept that one did not have to yell to be recorded. He heard Voltaire telling her this at the end of the message before the creature shut its mouth again.

"...Ow."

"... What the hell was that?" Anja stated, her hands over her own ears.

"Ava," Adair replied dryly. "She doesn't understand the concept of recording. She keeps on thinking that if a message is going far away then it needs to be loud."

What was it that Barret said the other day? Your family is always there to love you and embarrass you. Something like that. The redhead found it didn't really apply to his own family, but it seemed to apply to his current group just fine. Did that mean they were closer to a family for him than his actual family? The thought bothered him as he knelt down to record to his own message.

"This is Adair. Me and Anja should be there soon. It didn't take us long to receive this robot after the previous one, so we should be close. Ava, please stop yelling into the recorder. You nearly made me half-deaf."

The contraption turned around and began to amble away. He thought about giving the cat-dog thing a kick to speed it up, recalled what happened last time, and thought better of it. In fact, it would probably be easier just to follow it back to the others. He went back to pick up Anja and then went after the strange machine.

"If we're following it, what was the point of making a recording?" Anja asked dryly, her ears still ringing.

"Because that didn't occur to me until after I had already done the recording," Adair admitted.

The contraption creaked along, occasionally stumbling over a rock but uprighting itself soon afterward.

"What is that thing even supposed to be?" Anja asked. "Its creepy looking."

"I think it's supposed to be a cat," Adair guessed, looking at the long tail waving around behind it. It stumbled, and then used the tail to right itself. "...Though I suppose it could be a monkey too. You'd have to ask 'Taire. He can make things work, but he's not too much in the artistic department."

It looked like they were finally reaching the exit, judging by the bright light ahead.

"Oh, look. An exit." Anja stated dryly. "About damn time."