Chapter LVIII: Oh No…Where's Crux? ~Rainstorm

(Note: This chapter occurs before Naaro and company’s abduction, and Lich’s staying)

Rainy walked around the Spectrum for awhile, feeling slightly bored. Seemed to him that up to this point he was rather useless, but he shrugged off that feeling and just kept walking. He passed Lich staring out a window in one part of the train, and Jade sitting in another drinking some odd sort of drink. As he continued to walk he began for the first time in a while to feel homesick. It had been many many years since he had been back to Nimbus, and he was starting to miss his friends. Even though these people seemed to like him at least a little, he missed all of those days with Ravis. Rainy wiped a tear from his eye and shuddered after his last few nights of dreams. He wondered for a moment why he even slept anymore for he knew what night would bring anyway.

Oh well, he thought, still walking around.

His mind drifted off as he stared out of a window and thought of earlier days, when he was happy before the wars had started. After sitting there for awhile, he noticed someone passing by with Kyanosa. He waved to the human whom he'd only seen a few times. Kyanosa gave a slight wave back.

"Hey, who's your friend?"

He shrugged, "I dunno, just met him. His name is Joshua."

Rainy introduced himself and then watched both of them disappear into the next cabin.

I wonder if I'll ever be able to go home? thought Rainy as he stared out the window again.

Thinking of home made him kind of sad so he went back to his sleeping quarters. When he went inside, it was dark so he flipped on the light switch and closed the door. Making absolutely sure no one was around, he reached underneath his bed and found his backpack. He pulled it out and undid the little buckle and quietly said, "Come on out, Crux; it's safe."

He waited a few seconds, and Crux didn't come out.

"Come on, it's ok, I have food for you," he said, trying to convince the small Bron that it was alright.

Again he waited, and again Crux didn't come out.

"Oh, dear lord, come on out you," he said and reached inside the bag.

"Oh no...no...oh no!" shouted Rainy when he realized that Crux was missing.

He searched and scoured the whole room not finding Crux at all. Then Lich came in; "Hey, what are you lookin' for?" he said.

"Nothing...nothing at all," replied Rainy, mentally kicking himself for not locking the door.

"You sure?"

"Yeah, I'm sure."

When Lich left, he walked into the adjacent car.

"Man I wish this thing weren't so huge," he said to himself and he began to search for Crux.

He went from car to car, spending all day looking for his little blue friend. "I wonder where that little bugger could've gotten to..." he thought to himself, still looking.

From the beginning, he went to the kitchen thinking that perhaps Crux had gotten hungry and smelled food. He looked through all the drawers, underneath the tables, and even in the refrigerator and still didn't find him. Then he went to the other sleeping quarters, feeling rather stupid looking under other people's beds and calling Crux's name. By the time night rolled around, he had searched through literally the entire Spectrum. Figuring that either Crux got left behind or that Crux was hiding somewhere in a small niche or corner, he went to the kitchen. When he got there, Naaro was standing in front of the refrigerator looking puzzled.

"What's up?" asked Rainy, trying to sound normal.

Naaro pointed at the fridge. Rainy looked inside and noticed that there was a lot of food missing.

"Hmmm, wonder who raided the fridge?" Rainy said with a laugh.

He took a sandwich and began to unwrap it. Again he started to walk through the train, eating his sandwich and trying to think of what places he could've possibly missed. Everyone he passed on the train asked him the same question, "You alright? You look a little confused?" or something along those lines. And to each of these questions he said simply, "No, I'm OK."

It began to get late and most of the people on the train had already started heading towards their beds. By this time Rainy was really worried about Crux so he headed back to his bed and checked his bag again; still no Crux. He went out onto the last car and stared out the window again.

It was weird, he found himself staring out the window a lot these days, perhaps he had been hoping for a rainstorm, or snow, or something along those lines, even though at any second he could have created one of his own. When he started heading towards the front of the train he heard noises. As he got closer he heard a crash and some cursing. He opened the door to the next car to find Jade with quite a mad look on her face.

"What happened?" he asked.

"I have no idea. All I know is that one second I was sitting here by myself, and another something whizzed past me and into the next car."

"Hmm, could be Crux...."

"Could be what?"

"Never mind," he said quickly and walked into the next car.

Again he found the same sort of thing. People on the ground cursing and saying they saw some small object hurtling towards them and into the next car. He kept moving from car to car until he came to the last car before the first. No cursing, banging, or loud sounds came from this car. He opened the door slowly and saw Kai for, some reason, alone. Then he noticed something else, a small blue ball of fur on the ground, namely Crux.

He slowly walked towards the small child, "Be careful, Crux isn't very trusting usually to strangers..."

Kai ignored him and moved closer to the small blue Bron.

"Kai, please for your own sake don't get any closer to her..."

Kai continued to ignore him.

"Oh great," he thought to himself, "please, Crux, don't do anything stupid. Kai, I'm going to get him now ok?"

Kai looked up and had a weird look on his face as if he was just noticing Rainy there. He moved closer to Crux. "No please Kai do–"

At that exact moment, Crux leapt into the air on Kai.

Rainy's first thought was, "No Crux no no no!!" He ran towards Kai and Crux, "I told you he was a dangerous little thi–"

In the middle of his sentence he stopped short. There was little Kai, playing with Crux. Rainy could hardly believe his eyes. At that moment, Naaro and Rynn came through the door with the others to see what was going on. Then they saw Crux and Kai.

"What the heck is that thing?" and, "Awww, look at how cute," were the first responses to Crux.

Rainy stopped them all. Laughing nervously he said, "Um…this is Crux. He's my Bron."

"Your what?" he heard from all around him.

"He's a Bron. A small blue creature from my homeworld," Rainy replied. Then he began to tell the tale of how Crux became his and why he had been acting so strangely all day.

"Why in the world were you hiding him from us?" said Kyanosa with a weird look on his face.

"Well...um...actually," stumbled Rainy; he honestly could not think of a good response to that. "Truth be told, I don't really know," he said with a shrug. "It's odd though, Crux doesn't usually like strangers, though he warmed up pretty quickly to Kai," he said looking over at them playing. "Oh well, then, do you guys mind if he wanders around the cabin?" asked Rainy.

"No as long as he doesn't knock me over anymore," he heard from a few voices, Jade's louder than the rest.

"And as long as everyone remembers to keep the refrigerator locked," added Naaro with a smile.

"Oh yeah, heh heh."

Then all of them headed back towards their beds and Rynn picked up Kai, who was still holding Crux.

"Go ahead, Crux, just don't cause anymore trouble ok? Take good care of him until tomorrow morning, OK, Kai?" Rainy said with a wink. And then he headed back to his own bed, dreading what dream may come tonight.