Minx Ep. 02: Return to Anima

Rudy blinked his eyes at her. She could sense the anger building within him.

"Remember when you said I was an unusual cat-girl? Well, I'm really human."

"Like The Creator..." Rudy looked away from her. He went to the window and put a hand on either side of the frame. Minx saw the muscles all over his back clenching and releasing. She wondered what conclusions he would come to as he considered what she'd just told him.

"You look like a cat-girl..." he whispered accusingly.

"I have technology on my ship which allows me to disguise myself. My space ship is nearby, if you'd like to see it."

He turned around, and she saw the fear in his eyes. "Are you Morovan's daughter, or granddaughter?"

"What? No, I'm no relation to him that I know of. He lived hundreds of years ago, Rudy."

"But The Creator lived a very long life, and you have technology — who knows what you could do? Why did you come back? I mean why did you come back to me?"

Minx bit her lip. "I'm attracted to you. Maybe I'm in love with you. I don't know! All I do know is that if I'm going to stay with you then I have to be myself!"

"And being a cat-girl isn't good enough?"

Now Minx looked away. "I love Fran dearly, but the cat-girls are — simple, and apparently I need to be much more complicated or I'm not happy."

"They say humans look like chimp-men; do you?"

"Something like that, I guess."

"And you'd want to look human if you stayed with me? You'd want to be human?"

Minx nodded her head.

Rudy shuddered. "I need a strong drink." He left the room, and in that second Minx knew she wasn't staying.

"Ship?"

"Yes, boss?"

"I'm leaving. In a few minutes."

"I'm sorry it didn't work out with the tiger-man."

"Thank you, Ship."

Minx stood. She walked over to where Rudy had left his clothes on the floor and picked them up. She held them to her face and breathed in deeply, fixing his musky scent in her memory. Her eyes started to become blurry. She pulled a handkerchief from Rudy's pocket and wiped her eyes gently. She then put his clothes on the bed and walked out of the bedroom.

She debated finding Rudy for one last goodbye kiss, but her feet took her to the door. She stepped outside and closed the door gently behind her. The stars were shining, and she stood still for a few seconds to let her eyes adjust to the darkness. She could see much of the great spiral of the Milky Way, blotted out here and there by black dust clouds. There was a brief brightening of a star. Minx wondered if it had been a meteor burning up in the atmosphere, or perhaps two asteroids in the system colliding. She hoped it wasn't a supernova, exploding with catastrophic power and wiping out any unlucky inhabitants who happened to live in its stellar system.

The door opened behind her. She felt the tiger-man's arms wrap around her and the length of his naked body press up against her from behind. She leaned against him.

"I wish you were a cat-girl, Minx."

"I wish I were a cat-girl, too. I know I'd be happy being here, with you. But I have business waiting for me elsewhere, Rudy." She chuckled. "There are some issues that have to be dealt with. Business," she said, imitating his deep voice.

Rudy chuckled. Hearing that, Minx felt at peace and smiled.

"I'll escort you to your space ship. I wouldn't want anything happening to you."

"No. It's best you stay here. I don't want you wandering out there in the darkness and getting attacked by one of those lizards." She disengaged his arms. "I would like you to see this, though. Ship, please come and pick me up."

"Right away, boss," came the response that only Minx could hear.

They stood beside each other and watched the stars twinkle. Soon a dark shape was blocking out the stars. Minx pointed it out. "There she is!"

They watched in silence as the white, owl-shaped vessel dropped slowly to the ground, a short distance from the buildings. Lantern and candlelight from within the buildings reflected off the smooth hull.

"I have to go — now."

Rudy grabbed her by the arms, lifted her up, and kissed her lips. Then he set her down again. Without a word, Minx turned away and headed for her vessel.

"Now that we've got the suppliers all sorted out, Fran, I have a question for you. Are you and Julius together?" asked Minx. She leaned back in the chair and looked up at the blonde cat-girl, who was seated on the edge of the desk.

"What? No! I'm just a cat-girl. He'd never be interested in me." Fran slid off the desk and crossed her arms across her chest.

"If you don't want to talk about it..."

"That's okay. He is really nice and he's so smart. He's read books! And he can quote them from memory!"

"But, you are interested..." prodded Minx.

"Yeah, but he can do better than a simple cat-girl. I mean, if he wants to bed me I'll oblige, but I think that's the most he'd ever want from me."

"You're better and more important than you think you are, Fran."

The cat-girl's face lit up. "Do you really think so?" she asked shyly.

The door suddenly opened and Julius rushed in. "Fran! Minx! You'd better come out here and see what's going on outside!"

"Two weeks of inaction is more than I should expect, I guess," lamented Minx as she rose to her feet.

"What is it, Julius?" asked Fran, but the chimp-man had already returned to the bar. The cat-girl turned to Minx. "What do you think could get him so excited?"

"You mean aside from a certain sexy cat-girl that he's teaching to read?" Fran blushed. "If I had to guess I'd say it has something to do with my hyperman." They walked out of the office and headed for the bar together.

"Oh, so he's your hyperman, now?" teased Fran.

"Boss! Get out of there fast! I'm coming to get you!" Ship said.

"No, wait." Fran stopped and looked at Minx expectantly. "Maybe you should stay back in the office, Fran."

The cat-girl gave her an angry look. "And whose place is this? I'm supposed to hide in the back while you make sure everything's safe?" Fran put her chin up and strode past Minx.

Once they were in the bar the two saw that it was empty, except for Julius who stood in the doorway urging them to come outside. Fran and Minx joined him, and the three went out onto the creaky wooden porch.

They followed the pointing fingers of the numerous people on the street and observed a large dust cloud to the south of town. It seemed to be blowing gently from west to east. Minx looked at the other two and found they were staring at her.

"What is it?" Minx asked.

Fran's eyes widened. "I was going to ask you."

"As was I," added Julius.

"So it's not a natural phenomenon?"

Fran furrowed her brow in response.

Julius put his hand on Fran's arm. "She wants to know if we've seen or heard of this type of thing before. And no, Minx, I don't think it's a natural phenomenon. It doesn't look like a dust storm."

Minx nodded. "Give me a couple of minutes," she said to them, stepping back a short distance.

"Ship!" she whispered.

"Yes, boss."

"What is it?"

"I don't know, but I thought it might be a bad dust storm. Hephaestus was tracking it from space and it's moving slowly but directly towards your town, and it has been for about a week."

"He's got to have better sensors than that! Tell him to take a good look!"

"He can't!" Ship whined. "He's a slave, remember? Dragon has given him tasks to perform and ordered him to do nothing else, and he has to follow Dragon's orders! I'm begging him, but he can't do it. You really have got to talk to Dragon about this! It just isn't fair, Minx! He..."

"Stop!" Minx interrupted. "Look, keep an eye on things, but don't do anything until I order you to. There's something strange going on, and I bet Dragon's neck-deep in it."

Minx rejoined her friends. "Nope. No ideas on what it is."

They watched the cloud for an hour, and then someone came running into town screaming out some news. Minx heard the word "army" and then there was a noise right behind her. She felt something hit her very hard in the back of the head. As she fell to the ground, she heard Fran hiss in fury.

Minx stirred and heard the clink of metal upon metal. She felt the vibration and occasional jarring lurch that suggested she was riding in a wheeled vehicle along a rough road. Immediately after the last bump a feminine voice moaned in pain. Minx opened her eyes.

She was in a roughly-constructed wooden compartment. The floor was rectangular and there was a bench on each of the two longest sides. There was no roof to the structure, and the sunlight lit up the faces of the others in the vehicle. She saw Fran, Julius, Rarvey the rat-man, and an unknown and very bored dog-man sharing the compartment with her. Rarvey was wearing pants and a vest that showed obvious signs of wear, while the dog-man had on some sort of leather kilt and harness. She wondered where they got leather on this world.

"Minx! You're all right!" called out Fran. The bounty hunter now noticed that her friend wished to help her but she was chained in place, with rusted metal manacles around each wrist. At Minx's questioning glance Julius held up his arms to show her that he, too, was a prisoner.

There was the clatter of metal and a pull on her own chains as the dog-man began to pull Minx's fetters through a series of metal rings. She sat up on the bench and waited for him to finish his work. After, he simply sat down and glared at the rat-man. Rarvey ignored him, but favoured Minx with a gloating smile.

Minx turned to Fran and Julius. "So what happened?"

"It was an army," began the chimp-man, "but a small group of them had circled around with the intent of capturing you. One of them struck you down just as we turned away from the spectacle. We were all apprehended, and the army is returning to the south with us. But to exactly where, we do not know."

"And wouldn't you like to know," sneered Rarvey.

"Ship?" asked Minx, drawing confused glances from everyone else.

"I'm here, boss," came the reply that only she could here. "You want me to zoom in and rescue you?"

"Not yet. If things get bad I'll call out for you. Maybe you should go into orbit and keep an eye on Hephaestus."

"Will do, boss. I'll be ready when you need me!"

"I hit her hard enough to addle what little brains the cat-girl had!" laughed the dog-man.

"Minx, are you all right?" asked a worried Fran.

"I'm fine, Fran. So how long have we been travelling for?"

"A day and a half, I think," said Julius. "We're about due for a break in the march."

The vehicle lurched to a stop. Minx raised an eyebrow at Julius, and he allowed himself a small smile of triumph.

A door opened at one end of the vehicle. The dog-man and Rarvey climbed out and stretched. Then they left. Minx spied dozens of armed animen on the road behind the vehicle. All were either sitting or lying down in the dust, grabbing what rest they could.

"They'll bring us some food and then a chamber pot. Our chains get loosened a bit at that point, but I don't think we should try to escape. Where do you think they're taking us, Minx?"

"What's south of the town?"

"Farms and more farms," said Fran.

"And..." whispered Julius.

"You were going to mention some holy place of Morovan's?" asked Minx. Julius nodded. "Look, I have to tell you both..." She was interrupted by the return of the dog-man. He loosened the chains so they could move their arms freely, and then gave them each some bread and water. He left a chamber pot in the centre of the floor, and then departed. Minx looked at the open door. "We don't get much privacy, do we?"

"No. What were you about to say before Thark came back with our food?" asked Julius intently.

"I'll talk while we eat. You both know me as a cat-girl, but I'm not. I'm not even from this world."

"I know that, Minx. You already told me that," said Fran.

"And your flying house informed me of that as well," added Julius.

"Flying house?" asked Fran with a shocked look.

"Look, I'll tell the story. I'm human. I'm merely disguised as a cat-girl, so I could fit in on Anima while I searched for a criminal from another world who had hidden here."

"Why on Anima did you disguise yourself as someone who has no rights?" interrupted Julius.

Minx glared at him, and then rolled her eyes when she remembered the cat-girl disguise had been Ship's recommendation.

"I think she makes a very nice cat-girl. I couldn't see her as a rhino-girl, or tiger-girl, or a chimp-girl," said Fran defensively.

"Please! Now, I fled when the hyperman came because I knew he'd found my — space ship. It's the flying house that you were in, Julius. It allows me to travel from world to world. Eventually, the hyperman caught me and we reached an agreement. He's not really that bad, actually."

"Oh, I knew that," said Fran, happy to have some inside information that Julius did not.

"So the hyperman, Dragon, and I returned to Anima. I came to free the cat-girls, while he came to see what was left of Morovan's technology." Minx scrutinized the two of them to see if they had absorbed what she had just said.

"So, the hyperman is disguised as a dragon?" asked Julius, incredulously.

"No, his name is Dragon. It was a joke, because he asked a planet to offer me up to him rather than be destroyed. I was the young maiden..." she stopped once she recognized that neither Fran nor Julius understood the reference.

"He was going to destroy a whole world?" asked Fran. "He was so nice to me. I can't believe he'd do such a wicked thing."

Minx closed her eyes. "It's very likely that Dragon has done something to upset the locals, and this army is heading south to deal with him. At least that's what I think is going on." Minx opened her eyes. "Possibly."

Julius and Fran looked at each other for a few seconds, and then turned back to Minx. "So what should we do, then?" asked Fran.

The bounty hunter relaxed. "Well, I imagine they wanted to capture me, thinking that Dragon is still after me. Could Rarvey have told them that?" Fran nodded. "So then we enjoy the ride, and when we get to wherever Dragon is he'll rescue me. And I'll make sure he rescues you, as well." She thought for a second or two and then added, "And if you meet him when I'm not around, just tell him that you're my friend and he won't hurt you."

"It sounds simple enough, Minx," replied Julius. "And it will give us a great deal of time to discuss The Creator. I think you may have some interesting insights into Morovan and his past."

It was two weeks later, and the three had rarely set foot outside the wagon. Minx had learned that it was pulled by eight, brawny animen. She had also noticed Rudy and some other tiger-men up near the head of the column, although he hadn't seemed to have noticed her. Julius had pointed out Bjarn and his cat-girl-devouring lizard to Minx, and the news both frightened and thrilled her. She wondered how she might recover her sword and weapons, and also eke out some revenge on the sadist.

One evening the three were kept in the wagon much longer than usual. Through the open doorway they could see the soldiers readying a camp, and Minx and Julius guessed that they must have finally reached their destination.

"Is that right, Ship?" Minx asked. The other two now seemed to take it for granted that Minx conversed with someone they could not see or hear, but neither had remarked on it.

"You're outside a complex which lies directly below the ancient satellite. Hephaestus has been monitoring the satellite very carefully, as per his orders, and also keeping an eye out for intruders in the system."

"Thank you, Ship. Keep an ear and an eye out."

At last they were unchained from the bench and led out of the wagon. Once on the ground, they stretched their aching muscles.

"She's a beauty! You were absolutely right, rat-man." The three turned to see a grey-furred tiger-man, with a wide and ugly scar across his chest, leading a group toward them. Rudy was in the group, as was Bjarn.

"Why have you brought us here?" Minx asked, with her hands on her hips.

"And mouthy, too. You were right about that as well." He turned to Minx and her companions. I am the General of this army. We have assembled to do battle against one of the most evil creatures ever to stride Anima. He raised an arm and pointed a taloned finger at a cobalt blue wall of metal that stood at least one hundred metres high. "There is a hyperman in The House of Morovan and we mean to see him destroyed, as per the teachings of The Creator."

"You want me to go in and talk to him?" asked Minx innocently.

"No. And if you continue with the smart mouth you'll feel the back of my hand, kitten. The hyperman seeks you out for some unfathomable reason. We mean to use you as bait."

"He doesn't want me."

"This rat-man seems certain of it. And I'm ready to use any weapon I have against a hyperman." He looked Minx up and down. "You'll stay in my tent where I can keep a close eye on you."

"Jakart...that was not discussed," said Rudy in a quiet voice.

The General turned a jealous eye on the younger tiger-man. "I command here. If you really want a cat-girl to play with then take the other one." He waved at some soldiers and they hurried over, grabbed Fran, and stood her in front of Rudy.

The younger and larger tiger-man glared at his General. Then he huffed at Fran, turned about, and stalked away. Fran cast a quick glance at Minx, who nodded her head toward Rudy. Fran hurried off after the fuming tiger-man.

The older tiger-man stared at Julius. "Of what use are you, chimp-man?"

"He's a priest of Morovan!" blurted out Minx.

"Morovan's balls!" cursed Bjarn. "He's a novice. Put him to work digging latrines!" There was scattered laughter amongst the surrounding soldiers.

"Bjarn's a liar!" countered Minx. "Ask him about Morovan. Ask him anything about Morovan!"

The General looked over at a horse-man wearing robes similar to what Julius wore. The horse-man stepped forward. "'Morovan came to our world seeking peace and he found it barren of thinking creatures. So he decided to make the animen.' Continue the lesson with the correction."

Julius bowed his head. "You have forgotten the order of creation. 'Morovan came to our world seeking peace and he found it barren of thinking creatures. The Creator was lonely, having none for company before he had arrived but the most evil of creatures: the hypermen. So Morovan created the cat-girls, and there were seven, one for each day of the week. But, even though Morovan was a very old human and still had the lust and energy of a young man, he sought someone to converse with. So he created the cat-men. But these were stupid companions, and he went on to create the other animen. First the...'"

"Enough, brother," the horse-man said, raising his open hand to Julius. "General, he knows the lesson well. His knowledge of The Creator and his works could be of use." The priest's eyes did not look away from the chimp-man.

"Then he goes with you." The old tiger-man again looked upon Minx, ignoring the polite bows of the robed animen, and then raised an eyebrow and smiled. He nodded to some men behind her. She was grabbed and taken to the General's large tent in the centre of the encampment.

Several minutes later Minx found herself chained to the central pole of the large tent, with her arms tied behind her. She had decided to sit when the old tiger-man began his interrogation. Her captor had been thoughtful enough to have given her a pillow to place between her back and the pole, although as comfortable as she was Minx understood very well that she was still a prisoner.

"The rat-man says you're dangerous," he began.

"I am."

His eyes narrowed. "He's right in that you don't act like a typical cat-girl. Captain Rudy said much the same thing."