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The Manticore

"I'm not playing this sick game of yours, Asran!" exclaimed Akandi. "I'm gonna blow the whole place down! Take..."

"Whoa, stop that!" said Narati while stepping in front of him. "No one's blowing up anyone!"

"He said if we defeat him then we can get out, right? I'm ready if we can get out and regroup with Karkas!"

"I said no! Asran is trying to goad you to use magic and make things super easy! We'll all be dead if you do that!"

"Goading me?"

"That light is only illuminating that part, like an arena. He wanted us to fight to our deaths. That lionman there is also a victim. Don't you see?"

"Yeah, being muzzled and restrained make you a victim, huh? He looked like a mindless barbarian to me."

"And also someone who needs help. Trust me. I'll play with that rat's game. You try not to get into the arena, okay?"

"You trying to fight that lion?"

"I'll manage, somehow. Find the door while we fight, okay?"

"Don't die."

"I won't."

Akandi then stopped his fire magic spell and started to go around with mage-light while Narati stepped into the 'ring' of light, facing a muzzled and restrained lionman. He was snarling, but it wasn't because of apparent insanity, but because of pain. As a beast race and a Chaos race, he knew an animal's pain as did a beast race's. He just wish he could find a way to stop his suffering.

"Okay, first off...I'm not your enemy. I don't know if you can understand me, given that you are trying to say something to me with another language I don't know, but..."

The lionman suddenly grabbed Narati and said something fast, but unknown to him. He was talking in another language that the rat didn't know, which confused Narati.

"I don't understand a thing, lionman."

He shook his head while pointing his long white claws to himself while saying 'martichora' many times. When Narati was still confused, the lionman grunted and then tried to turn around, but something made him roared in pain and forced him to the ground.

"Hey, are you alright? I can help you, but will you please stop struggling."

Narati tried his best to explain with gestures indicating that he wanted to help, and the lionman seemed to understand. But then, he kept saying, now slowly, the same thing all over again, which could be translated as: "(You are in danger. This is a trap for everyone)".

"Look, I want to understand, but I have no intention to fight you," said Narati. "Now let's not be hasty and talk about it...as much as we can understand each other."

"(Oh no...we can't understand each other)," thought the lionman. "(He doesn't know the danger he is in)."

He then noticed Akandi's mage-light, and realized that he was walking into a trap, too.

"(Hey, cat! Stop!)" exclaimed the lionman while turning to Akandi. "(Stop!)"

Somehow, the language he said was similar in both the common and his own, and it sounded like 'stop'. Realizing that he was trying to warn them, Narati ran to Akandi and shouted, "Akandi, stop! I don't know what he's trying to say, but you're definitely walking into a trap!"

"A trap?"

"Stop!"

Akandi froze in place, moments before stepping an obvious pressure plate when he saw it. He was fortunate he did not step into one before, but he came close to trigger a trap.

"You saved me," said Akandi with a sigh. "But, uh...how do you know?"

"That lionman seemed to have the same words in his language. Now if..."

There was a loud pained roar coming from the lionman, and he was writhing in pain while clutching his collar. This caused the chains that detached from his body to rebind itself like magnet, pulling his hands away from the collar and causing him to writhe in pain while being helpless about it. Narati felt the whole scenario felt so hot and turned him on, seeing a person in peril like that, but he warded off that thought and ran to the lionman.

Except that he was stunned when he stepped into the light and saw that the 'lionman' wasn't a lionman at all. He had no lion's tail, which was replaced with an appendage covered with carapace. He realized something when he went closer that it wasn't a regular weird tail, but was also tipped with a stinger and looked a lot like a scorpion's.

Realizing that he wasn't facing a normal beast race, he tried to find a way to get away, but seeing how he was hurt, he couldn't just stand there and see him suffer. He needed to help, and stepped into the light.

The pain stopped, but his restraints did not come loose. Narati tried to find a way to release it, and found something in the flawed mechanism that could free him from the self-locking restraint.

The 'lionman', looking at how easily the restraints came off, tried to say thank you to Narati, but what came out was an equivalent of 'thank you' in his language. Narati, seemingly understand, patted his back and smiled.

"We'll get out of this trap, and I will save you," said Narati. "I can't kill someone who's suffering, and you clearly have no intention to fight me."

"(I don't know what you say, but I'll believe you)," said the 'lionman'. "(But what's 'lion-man'? I am a manticore. A lion-scorpion)"

"Leon Scorpicos?"

"That sounds like...lion scorpion," said Akandi. "He's a lion-scorpion."

"And martichora is..."

"(Yes. Manticore)." He made a gesture to himself. "(I'm a manticore)."

"A martichora, eh? Sounds like a cool race to me."

The manticore didn't understand what Narati said, but he stopped talking nonetheless.

That did not mean that they were out of it, for somehow Asran's voice was heard, albeit not very clear. Yet, it was apparent that he was taunting someone, and that 'someone' was Karkas, up there, alone, and being ravaged by dangerous traps that he needed help with.

"We are still trapped down here, and one of my friends is up there, dealing with Asran's trap alone," said Narati. "I hope we can understand each other, manticore, but...I need help. We need to get up there and find Asran before things get worse for him."

Luckily for Narati, the manticore was not clueless. He could understand many of Narati's gestures, especially when he made a gesture to go up, which the manticore understood right off the bat. The problem, however, came in the form of one-way communication. Narati's gesture may had found its way to the manticore's understanding, yet not the other way around. Both Narati and Akandi were confused with the manticore's attempt at explaining things. Most of his gestures were not common, and even then, only one gesture was easy to see: 'go out'.

What the manticore was trying to explain was that, once they went into the light, they would not leave until one was dead. Most of the time, the manticore endured. But, every victory came with more restraints. He started with nothing more than his armor, which he had discarded for a while, replaced by the 'armor' he was wearing. Asran, despite of having a manipulative and twisted personality, seemed to value fairness, and the manticore's expertise in fighting, coupled with his scorpion stinger-tail, would cause others to die before they could even fight properly. He bit one of the victim's hands, eating it while he screamed in agony and bled to death. This lead to Asran restraining him and putting a bit between his teeth, to rein him in. After a while, he replaced it with a simple muzzle, which was the one he wore at that moment.

After a short while, the manticore was fed up with killing, and tried to let people to find a way to escape. Angered, but amused by that, Asran's twisted concept of sympathy came to play. Every time the manticore tried to get someone to escape, he would be zapped, and his restraints would lock, leaving him helpless and forced to endure the torture until the person, feeling sympathy, would either let him kill them or they kill themselves. Of course, not everything's are brutal deaths. They would all disappear after the manticore passed out because of the pain.

"(Those are all I can explain to you)," said the manticore, trying the best he could to explain. "(I hope you understand)."

"I guess I'll try," said Narati, still confused with all the random-sounding rambling. "I hope I don't misinterpret anything. This is getting ridiculous."

"So, what's the plan?" asked Akandi.

"Nothing. But at least I know what to do." Narati then pointed towards the manticore. "His shock collar."

"Shock collar?"

"The thing around his neck. While dog people uses collars as a sense of fashion, the one around him is clearly used for disciplinary action. We take that off him, we can take him out of this basement and up towards Karkas."

"Why don't we just blast through the ceiling?"

"Two reasons. First, I don't have that much explosives left, and second, we might get buried. And...let's add the third part where I can't even have a sense of where the ceiling is. The best thing we can do right now is to get him free, and hope that he's not misleading us. That is where you come in?"

"What do I have to do with a shock collar?'

"It's a magitech, and I want you to drain the crystal inside it so my tampering won't accidentally release another trap. I know how a Fa'ar works, and I know they are quite meticulous in designing something."

"Huh, and here I thought your race doesn't have that much pride on yourself."

"That's because we don't get that much chance, and the most we do is to become vermin. Now, get ready. I hope you know how to drain a magic crystal."

"And I hope you know what you're doing, and what you're betting for."

Narati walked towards the manticore, who was waiting patiently for Narati to finish his discussion. He pulled out his tools, collected from abandoned hardware shops around that region in ruined cities. Most were still intact, with the tools in it, and that helped him a lot. Looting an abandoned shop didn't seem right for him, unless if it was abandoned for more than 200 years now.

"I will remove that shock collar," said Narati while gesturing to the collar. "Don't move."

The manticore, not understanding anything, just nodded, assuming, correctly, that his explanations were understandable.

Taking off a car, dismantling a hover car, or even crafting bombs, were like everyday life for Narati. It was like the cycle of wash, rinse, and repeat; it was always those kinds of things before Diamondback's Nest. Even after a year or so living permanently, he honed his skills well beyond his usual ones. Having a workshop helped him with that.

The shock collar around the manticore's neck, like many adapted pre-war technology, always had a power box somewhere on the length of the collar which looked different. It was a hard time trying to find it inside the manticore's thick mane, but he finally found it after digging in it more. Akandi prepared for anything, as it was his job as a mage.

As Narati suspected, the shock collar was a magitech instead of purely mechanical, with its battery being an adapted magic crystal. Technology was something that Narati liked, especially leading to the Great War that caused the world to end. It did not need any magic, only powering up with its own strength and chemical reactions instead of mana conversion. However, it still had many flaws, including some that were too dangerous to use, limited power, and pollution that, despite of mitigated by green technology, still did not save the Earth. Magitech, as Aranis once told him, was adapted some 30 years before the elf was born. For a wood elf like her, technology and magic were nothing more than exotic concepts that she liked. While magic was the life and blood of an elf, be it wood or any other elves, they still did not rely much on magical technology, given how 'down to earth' their lives were.

The adapted magic crystal could give the collar a greater shock while conserving energy. The electrical energy contained within was similar to a mercury-based battery, except that it was more contained and not as dangerous. While alkaline batteries were a norm for the humans and some beast races, it had less power than a pea-sized magic crystal, one mined from old mountains and found by volcanoes. Narati somehow knew most of it despite of his race being a Chaos race, born without magic and would never be able to use natural mana inside their bodies.

Thinking about theories and explanations made Narati forgot that he was trying to fix the collar, and beckoned Akandi to absorb everything in it. The cat person obliged, trying to be as close as possible to the manticore without getting into the light itself, so as to not hurt him or causing something to trigger. He knew a spell that could _directly_drain the whole magic reserve in the crystal without triggering anything, depowering it before started. It was something that he was taught when he was with the Collectives. It was a necessary, but helpful, knowledge, given that it saved him many times from traps and other contraptions. At first, he did not think it was useful, given that the Agents only used purely mechanical contraptions. But, as his world widened, he saw that things were not always exclusive to each side.

"Ready when you are," said Akandi while extending his hand.

"Do it," said Narati. The feline person did not hesitate. He closed his eyes, concentrating on the mana reserve within the crystal, picturing it as a water tank full of water, and his hand, his imaginary hand, holding a faucet. Within his mind, he opened the faucet. He sensed some resistance, as if the knob jammed, but his willpower was stronger than that. He forced it open, yet something unexpected happened.

Like a water tank with too much water in it, the pressure within the crystal was strong enough to cause the imaginary water to burst out of the crystal, as if exploded. It overwhelmed Akandi, 'drowning' him within the imaginary scape, before he returned to his own self, panting and exhausted. He then looked towards the manticore and Narati, and realized that he made quite a mistake.

Not actually a mistake. A serendipity. It's a solution created from accidents or mistake. The electricity within the crystal was not converted into mana reserve as it burst out it, spreading across the room and giving out sparks of blue electricity in and around that area of light. It unintentionally caused every mechanical-based technology to fail, including the lights and the speakers with Asran's voice. They were apparently not powered with magic, like they initially assumed. Everything failed, and they were plunged into darkness.

Akandi turned on his mage-light spell and approached Narati, who scratched his body after that electric outburst. It was numbing both, and Narati felt it more.

"At least I'm not electrocuted to death," said Narati while trying to comb his fur, which had stood on its end. "What was that?"

"Sorry. I didn't know that the crystal's flawed. A small crack and everything burst like a dam."

"At least whatever accident you did turned off everything, but now we're in darkness."

"But can you free him now?"

"It becomes easier after this." Narati simply pulled out a screwdriver and wedge it between the collar. It opened easily. He did the same thing with the manticore's restraints, with the same result.

"Now that I've done my part of the bargain, it's your turn," said Narati.

The manticore gestured towards his muzzle, saying, "(How about this?)"

"Are you talking about the muzzle? Don't get it wrong, friend. You might be harmless, but that doesn't mean that thing's coming off soon. There's a saying in common language, about trusting a beast race. 'Make sure his teeth are clean, otherwise, don't trust him."

As the manticore was confused due to language barrier, Narati gestured towards his teeth, and the manticore realized, in embarrassment, that his teeth were dirty due to biting into victims' flesh before being muzzled. He could not clean them ever since, and it made his mouth smell foul and his sharp carnivorous teeth dirty and dark. But now that he was unrestrained, he tried to pull away the muzzle, only to realize that the leather straps were heavy duty and needed to be cut. He growled in frustration.

"(Now what)?" asked the manticore.

"I think he's asking you, Narati," said Akandi.

"Now, we rise," said Narati. He turned towards the manticore and gestured up, something he understood.

In a giant leap, he tried to feel his way up, trying to find the ceiling. He couldn't find any ceiling, and wanted to continue, but Narati stopped him, saying, "Don't jump too high or you might hit your head in the darkness. Take me with you."

"And why would you want to do that?"

"Between you and me, who's the one with the bomb?"

Akandi stared at Narati for a while before saying, "You have a point there. Is it enough, though?"

"I don't have the more destructive ones, but one dynamite and one duct tape is enough for a ruined building like this," said Narati while pulling out a dynamite from his pouch. "Just stay out of the way when I lit it up. You don't want rubbles to get into you, right?"

Akandi did not get any warning when Narati climbed the bigger manticore, during which he, somehow understanding Narati's intentions, jumped higher this time, while Narati held a flare in front of him to find where the wall was.

After the second attempt, he finally found the ceiling, yet by this point, it was so far high that falling down would mean injury. He looked down, then up, realizing how far they had come down and how the manticore had been trapped within for so long. He then wasted no time. Lighting the dynamite, he took a second or most when they were on air to duct tape the dynamite. As they fell, he hoped that it was strong enough to blow the whole thing up.

He soon found the answer when it blew, yet it wasn't as expected. It was far stronger than what Narati anticipated, and caused a bigger section of floors to collapse on them. Fortunately for him, the manticore was very nimble, and strong. His scorpion tail swatted many of the bigger chunks away from them while they were falling, but then another surprise came when they were moving away from a particularly big one that fell on top of them, during which the manticore simply moved to the side.

Narati realized that the manticore could fly, never anticipated this and never saw his bat-like wings before due to the darkness around them. He swooped down and snatched Akandi, also surprised by this turn of events. He then flew upwards until they went out of the hole Narati made into the room where Narati, Akandi, and Karkas started, except that, due to the EMP blast Akandi unintentionally made, the whole place lost power and the door outside was open. They quickly walked outside and were momentarily blinded by the blazing sun.

But they did not have time to relax. Narati was the first to ask for the manticore to climb the side of the building, in which the manticore understood. Carrying both Akandi and Narati's smaller bodies on him, the manticore opened his black wings and flew upward with such speed as if they did not weight him down.

Just before they reached the top floor, however, Narati saw a glimpse of Karkas, who was struggling to walk towards the top floor, bleeding and hurt. The Fa'ar had never saw the croc in such state before. He seemed hurt, angry, and conflicted. He didn't seem to be focused in any other places, only towards Asran, with eyes ready to shred the Fa'ar to pieces, literally. While Narati consented on that, he could not let Karkas die before he reached that goal.

"Martichora...whatever your name is," said Narati. The manticore understood that he was talking to him. "I have a request. I want you to ram through that glass."

"Ram through?! Are you crazy! We have taken a lot of time getting out of that basement and you don't want to just get to the main guy and rip the hell out of him?!"

"Actually...I have another thing in mind. Martichora! Ram through!"

"(I don't know what you're talking about, but here goes, I guess)."

The manticore the prepared to get to the window in front of him, getting ready to ram through the window and brace himself from the glass.

Taking a deep breath, he flew forward.