“Where’s Crash?” I asked.
“Right here,” came a voice behind him.
“What’s the ‘rainforest’?” I asked instead. Sport shrugged.
“I’m not sure, actually. When I was being warped here, something whispered “The rainforest” in my ear.”
“That’s weird. Hey, what’s that?” asked Crash, pointing. It was an owl of some sort. It was lying weakly on the ground. It had bright orange feathers like the sunset, unfocused, glassy, amber eyes, and across its chest patches of feathers had been torn away, revealing dried blood crusted around two deep slashes.
“Help,” it croaked in a raspy voice. “Help me.” Crash, Sport, and me all jumped. There was something unsettling about the fact that it spoke. Sport gave me a look that said “should we trust this creature?” I thought for a moment. If this owl, or whatever it was, was an enemy, it was pretty much helpless. On the other talon, if it was hurt, whoever it was, we should help them. I nodded to Sport. Sport whispered something to Crash. Then, Crash ripped Sport’s moss cast off. I helped line it with mud, and we pressed it to the owl’s wound. Sport still limped a little, but he seemed to be doing fine without the cast otherwise. Then I helped the owl up. She leaned, slumped over on Crash’s back. He carried her as we walked.
“Let’s go now.” Crash said quickly, glancing suspiciously at the owl I had just helped.
“Wait!” It said suddenly. “Don’t leave me here, “ It pleaded. “Maybe I can help you.” the creature begged desperately. I looked at Sport. Sport looked at Crash. Crash sighed in defeat.
“Fine.” We all asked questions at once, firing them like a catapult.
“Who are you?”
“What attacked you?”
“Can you help us retrieve the Medallion so our species can get stronger?”
“Well,” said the strange orange owl thoughtfully, “Once I lived inside the sun,” she gestured to the sky where a golden orb lay. “I was taking my hunting lesson. Then, I saw this statue. It was almond shaped, and green and yellow. I walked toward it to get a better look. It looked like an eyeball. I walked a little closer. Then, I couldn’t stop walking! I felt sort of dizzy, and everything went black. Then I ended up here, where I got attacked by a Moonbeast, and then, I met you.”
“Who are you?” I asked.
“My name is Amber.” She said in a less raspy, more formal voice.
“I’m Regan,” I said more eagerly than a Moonbeast that found a snowy owl’s nest. Maybe Amber really could help us find The Medallion. “But a lot of owls call me Owlgirl. That’s Crash, and that’s Sport,”
I gestured to Sport, but instead of cowering behind Crash, like when we met Cooper, he waddled up to Amber straining all of his weight on his good foot, then clumsily dipped in a posture that sort of resembled a bow. So he bowed. As well as a limping owlet could anyway, I thought. Crash didn’t look, well… as suspicious as in previous times. He waved a wing by way of greeting, and possibly dismissal. We continuously fired questions at Amber.
“You’ve seen a Moonbeast. What are they like?”
“They’re terrible beasts, with teeth like daggers and eyes like a dragon. They have long, curved, sharp claws, that can tear you apart like a dead mouse. Tall, cupped wings, and wild, gray fur. Hope I never see one again in my life,”
“What in this strange new world is there to eat?” moaned Crash. “You’ve been here a little longer than us.” He added hopefully.
“Well,” said Amber thoughtfully, “Before I warped here, I was practicing my hunting techniques. Wait here.” She flapped silently over to a patch of vines. The patch of vines rustled. Ambers eyes narrowed in an effort to hunt successfully. Her talons twitched. She hunched down lower. A big furry vole sprung onto the base of a tropical flower. Amber suddenly sprung out from her hiding place and pounced, long black talons curling around our prize. Sport, Crash and I all cheered. Amber looked down modestly at her neatly curved talons. She limped back to us and collapsed in a heap, exhausted. I split the vole four ways.
“What happened to the white mice?” I asked around a mouthful of vole legs.
“Beats me.” Crash shrugged. Sport eyed the lush, green rainforest beyond us. I followed his gaze to three tiny mice escaping into the lush green growth.
“Uh, never mind.” I said dismissively.
“It’s getting dark.” observed Amber. “Yeah, you can wake up now, Sport.” Crash objected, kicking Sport awake. Sport glared at Crash. Crash grinned. I gazed at the sunset, and something in my mind writhed and sharpened. Our mission became clear. We would search for The Medallion tomorrow night.
Chapter Eight
I woke to a strange howl. It was close to night, and I was nocturnal, but the sun was still going down and the sky was filled with strange, foreign, swirly, pinks and golds, faded, as if in a dream. I yawned, and glanced over at Sport. Whatever had caused me to wake up had woken him, too. Crash and Amber were still asleep, so I would go check out where the howling noise was coming from, and then try to go back to sleep. I nodded to Sport to signal that he should come too. Sport’s eyes widened, but he nodded back. The ear piercing, mournful sound rattled its way into my head, and my heart seemed to pulse at the same, quickening beat. I shuddered, and let my ears lead the way. Sport limped closely behind. The howling noise increased, and I cringed. It sounded like a bunch of howling in unison. The noise prickled up my spine and into my heart. Fear swirled in my head, making me dizzy. All of a sudden, I heard a different sound. It sounded like a hiss. It was the kind of sound you would hear if you put a frozen sausage on a blazing heated stove. Crackly, burning, hissing. The horrible sound filled my ears. I could hear no other sound. Not the howling, not the sound of dead yellow hibiscus flowers crunching beneath my feet, not the sound of my own voice, not even…
“Sport!!!” I cried out worriedly. I whirled around. Coiled around Sport was a big, jet black cobra! It’s beady black eyes stared daggers into me. I realized that what I was about to witness was Sport’s death.
PART III
I stared into the cobra’s beady, sunken eyes, then into Sport’s. Sport was frozen with fear. “I’ll go get help.” I shouted to him. Suddenly, the cobra whirled around, distracted by my yelling. It was going after me. An orange sunset-colored blur swooped past, clumsily, but it gradually picked up speed. It was Amber! Her long, black talons cupped Crash. Crash and Amber swooped into the cobra’s range. It forgot about me. Agitated, it snapped at Amber and she dodged, just barely missing the cobra’s long, fanged mouth.
“Missed us!” mocked Crash. Amber dived down again, obviously enjoying herself hugely. She dipped down slightly lower than before, swerving, dodging, and plunging to avoid the cobra, each time inching dangerously closer. Crash grinned. Then, Amber plummeted downward at such speed that when Crash reached out extended talons to smack the cobras head, he toppled out of her grasp and onto the ground. He got up, coughing. By now the cobra was almost upon him. It opened it’s mouth and lunged. What happened next was the dumbest thing I’d ever seen Crash do. He picked a rock up in his beak and threw it at the cobra. Startled, the cobra paused for one split second, and Crash took that second to skid under the arch of the cobra’s neck and ran to the safety of a hole in the bottom of a tree trunk. It was too small for a cobra to get inside, but just the right size for an owlet. Or three. Sport and I scrambled to get inside the hole, too. We stayed like that until the cobra slithered off into the night.
Chapter Nine
FLIGHT
Amber glided over trees and lakes, us riding on her back. I peered over her scarred, torn up wings at the land below. Flight amazed me. Until now, I didn’t realize what power owlkind really had. I wonder how much power we would have if we had The Medallion in our possession. I thought. We swooped over flat land, mostly hidden by vines and trees. Maybe enough to come out of hiding. Maybe enough power to live here, eventually. Amber’s flying was choppy and slow, and every few minutes we’d escalate downward, until Amber caugh
t her breath and hastily beat the air once more. I narrowed my eyes at an unfamiliar creature below.
“What in the world is that!?!” exclaimed Crash. It seemed to be a large, auburn, mousey creature. It chittered and cackled. This newfound creature looked sort of like a large vole. As if reading my mind, Amber then said,
“Those are monkeys. The hunters told me about them when I hatched. What’s that sound?” she asked. It was the same bone- chilling noise I had heard back when the cobra had attacked Sport. It was the howling. But now that I was with Amber, Sport and Crash, I couldn’t feel the lonesome terror of the howls.
“Moonbeasts.” I said automatically. “If they really are guarding The Medallion, we have to steal it back from them,” I said sincerely.
“You’re saying that we go down there? Unarmed?” asked Crash worriedly. “If anyone can do it, it’s us.” I said.
“That looks like a good place to land,” said Amber, trying to change the subject. She was inclining her head toward the nearest tree.
“Also, it’s right near the Moonbeasts, so we won’t have far to walk.” Sport pointed out.
“We could die. We don’t have a single weapon. It’s three unarmed owlets against a whole army of Moonbeasts.”
“I don’t ever want to see another one of those in my life.” Amber shuddered.
“Come on. We will find The Medallion. We’re never going to get back to the sun if we don’t find it anyways,” Amber sighed in defeat. She then spread her wings to her full wingspan and flared her wings up and down to cut off the air circulation so we wouldn’t get blown away. Amber perched on top of a palm tree. Crash, Sport, and me climbed off of Amber’s back. The landscape was mostly vines and cattails. But in one corner I spotted a cave. It was silver and rocky, and seemed to be chipped of granite. Guarding it was a Moonbeast. It was skinny and alert. It had wild, silver fur and pearly, blunt talons. It had pointed ears and bloodthirsty, narrowed, guile, yellow eyes. Knifelike, bloodstained fangs jutted out from his lower lip. And it also had wings. Huge, ginormous wings lined with shaded fur, and blotted out the sun.
“Guys, look over there,” I whispered. “A Moonbeast.” Sport’s eyes were as wide as saucers. Amber jumped. A single coconut fell from the palm tree we perched on. It plummeted down the tree and clocked the moon beast on the head. It turned its head slowly around to face the tree. It glared, its evil yellow eyes searching, searching…then, it pounced. The moonbeast swiped at the tree, and its stubby, knife like talons locked in the palm tree’s bark. It growled, throwing its full weight onto the tree. The tree swayed violently from side to side, leaning diagonally. Amber grabbed a leaf to keep from falling into plain view. She dangled upside down. I grabbed a tuft of her orange feathers. Sport grabbed my talons. Now I was upside down. Crash snatched Sport, dangling dangerously close to the rainforest floor. The leaf Amber had snagged on snapped, and we all collided with the forest floor. We were spotted.
Chapter Ten
The Moonbeast glared at Crash, Sport and Amber. The palm tree leaf had fallen on top of me, so the Moonbeast could only see my friends.
“What are you doing in Moonbeast territory?” It growled in a deep, gravelly voice. I winced. “Answer me.” It demanded in it’s harsh, sharp voice. A dead shriveled vine lay at my feet. I picked it up. Ideas flowed through me in a heartbeat. I moved gradually under the protection of the leaf. I looped the dead vine around the Moonbeast’s front left paw, then tied a knot. Then I did a loop around his right front paw, and tied a knot. The Moonbeast continued not to notice. It was too busy interrogating my friends, but he did twitch a little when I finished tying all of his feet together. I tried hard not to laugh. When for the final time my friends refused to answer, he made a lunge at them, and in that attempt, tripped over his own feet. I scrambled toward the entrance to the cave, and motioned for my friends to follow. The moonbeast furiously tried to fly after us, but he could only fit in the cave with his wings folded, and he couldn’t fly with folded wings, and he couldn’t walk without tripping frequently. I tied the vines as tightly as possible and even a moonbeast wouldn’t break free easily. Those vines were as tough as steel, even if they were dead. I continued to walk through the cave. For a while, the calm, damp air seemed to silence my friends. I broke the silence.
“What do you think that is, Crash?” I slid aside to let Crash take a look.
“They look like footnotes. But they’re just pictures; don’t get so hysterical.” Crash noted. I rolled my hazel eyes.
“What are the pictures about?” I questioned further.
“Well, it’s kind of hard to describe. It looks like a moonbeast, wearing a necklace. Hey! And this here, next to it, looks like an owl. It looks like a barn owl. But they’re facing each other, and glaring…” I shoved him aside for a look. “The ‘necklace’ around the Moonbeast’s neck could be The Medallion. Also, this owl looks like it wants to take The Medallion back from the moonbeast.”
“And look under the pictures!” said Sport observantly. More engravings. The same ones from my eggshell. I read them aloud,
“Danger awaits all who come here.” I whispered, barely recognizing my own voice. A slight breeze swirled around me. Something about those engravings---maybe the ferocious tone that went with them, or maybe the fact that only I could read them---spooked me. Below me, I could feel the floor opening up into a giant pit. Amber flapped upward, her talons scrabbling for a grip on the cave wall.
“Amber, what are you---“ I began.
“We need to find a way out. NOW.” I barely recognized her voice, cold with fear and darkness. I was about to ask “How?”, because the entrance was blocked by the smirking Moonbeast guard, when a shriek tore my thoughts. I was falling…
When pain rang through me, I knew I was alive and that I should look for the others. Where was I? I looked around. Silver eggshells! Just like my own---everywhere. The floor was covered in them. I ran my talons over the one closest to me on my right. The eggshell felt smooth and shiny. It also burned. I jerked away from it, wincing. The talon I had touched the egg with glowed electric blue for a few moments, pulsing eerily, then stopped. Weird. I touched the eggshell again. It singed my claws. Once again, it glowed blue. I held up my talon, guiding it around the room, using it like a flashlight. I heard someone scream.
“Your claws glow!” the voice shrieked. It was Crash, sitting in an eggshell.
“Well, yes, “ I responded absentmindedly, “but you’re sitting in an eggshell. Doesn’t that burn?” Crash looked at me like I had two heads. He stood up, and sky-colored repulsive sludge oozed down his back. “What do you mean, ‘does it burn’? Never mind. We have to find the others so we can find a way out of here.”
Hopping and dodging around the eggshells, I carefully scavenged around to try and find Sport and Amber. I came to a halt over by the right wall.
“Crash! Come over here!” I shouted to Crash over by the left wall. He was examining a diamond shaped multicolored feather. A Moonbeast feather. He dropped the feather and hopped over to where I was standing. “Whoa,” he mumbled, astounded. Before us was a doorway as tall as a giraffe. The doorway was studded with topaz, but there was no door. A silver engraving the color of the moon topped the doorway. On the sides, two almond shaped eyes sat. Were they alive? Were they staring at me? With a shudder, I realized they had stems, so they were alive. They were some kind of creepy plant. Had the stems been there before? The plants suddenly blinked in unison! The stems lengthened, and a vine reached out and coiled around me. The other eye-plant snatched Crash. I could feel vines squeezing my ribs, pinning me down. I could scarcely breathe. In the midst of all of it, I couldn’t help but notice that the eye plant glowed the same electric blue as my talons when I touched the eggshell. Did I have some sort of relationship with this creature? Crash had clearly not been glowing or fading to ashes, and he had been sitting in the eggshell! Maybe it only worked on certain owls. Or…maybe if I could somehow find a way to drag the plant guards into the eggshells
, it would burn them, too! I kicked with the remaining weak strength I had left. The eye-plant dropped me with a jolt of surprise. I waded into the eggshells. It burned, but it would only be for a few moments. The eye-plant that had tried to capture me tried to follow me into the silver mess, but while my knees were slightly singed and glowing, the minute the eye-plant’s leaf brush the eggshell, the eye-plant shriveled to tiny crisp, tan pieces. Seeing that I had escaped, the eye-plant that was holding Crash dropped him and chased me, but soon, it too had fallen before my eyes. I hopped over the maze of silver eggshells to check on Crash, who looked unusually shaken.
“You’re welcome,” I imitated Crash using a dramatically high pitched voice. “Guess who I am.” I added, giving Crash a shove toward the doorway. “Come on.” We walked through the doorway, unsure of what lay beyond us.
Chapter Eleven
I looked around the newfound room, and my lazy gaze landed on a metal chair in the corner. Dagger like pointed spikes studded the hinges. Otherwise it was bare. Its towering height shadowed the room, and the local sitting in it was even more terrifying. It was a moonbeast. It was larger than the one guarding the cave. Much larger. The moonbeast had golden, majestic eyes, and shiny, wild, silver fur. Short, sharpened talons gleamed pearly white, despite the growing darkness that surrounded me and Crash. Wings, bigger than any I had ever seen seemed to fill the entire room. A bush, plume like tail folded over the Moonbeast’s talons, and The Medallion hung around her neck. All the stories and legends about The Medallion flooded back to me. I could save The Medallion. Even more horrifying, Amber and Sport were pinned down under her talons.
“Who are you?” I choked out once I could speak again. The moonbeast smirked at me.
“Alpha Sapphire,” she answered, flicking her tail.
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