Ch. 251: The Workshop Mascots

Phoebe held Mo Fei up. "Can you walk?"

Mo Fei opened his mouth. His throat was so raw that it took real effort just to squeeze out a single "Yeah."

Her gaze dropped to his arms, and there it stopped short.
The Goldpaw Tiger Cub lay curled in a ball, fast asleep, its orange fur caked with dust.

She stared at that bundle of orange for a long moment before raising her eyes to him.

From the other side of the collapse came the clatter of tumbling rubble. Someone was shouting his name, and a jumble of footsteps was drawing closer.

Phoebe stepped back into the shadows until only a pair of eyes still gleamed there.

Then a black cat walked out of the darkness and sat down at his feet.

Mo Fei braced himself against the rock wall and got his footing.

Most of the facility had caved in, and dust was still sifting down from the gash overhead.
The procedure table was pinned under a boulder with only one corner showing, and a speck of color peeked out from the rubble beside it.

It was the three cut ribbons.

He pulled them out of the broken stone one by one and clenched them in his fist.

A bright green blur shot over from the far side of the rock pile, slammed headfirst into his shin, and wrapped its tentacles around his ankle, refusing to let go.

Barney emerged from the haze of dust after it, covered head to toe in grime, a few of his guys following behind and holding each other up.
Locke and his companions had made it too.

Mo Fei looked past them, to the spot where Tacksha had last been standing.

"Where's Tacksha?" he asked.

No one answered.

Mo Fei turned to Locke. "Which way did that woman go?"

Locke shook his head. "Didn't see."

Mo Fei looked down at his feet again. "What about you?"

Phoebe turned her head and pointed her nose at the iron door they had broken in through.

Locke's eyes swept across the rubble-strewn floor and stopped on the corner of a robe poking out from under the broken stone.

He went over and dragged out the man who was half-buried in the rubble.

One of the man's legs had been crushed out of shape by falling rock. Locke flipped him over and planted a knee on his chest.
"Where's Valk?"

"Wh-who's..."

Locke brought his staff close to the man's face, and a thread of lightning leapt from its tip.

"The one who came to investigate this mine before. The one in the hood."

The man stared at the thread of lightning, his lips trembling for a long while.

"T-they took him... He's not here..."

"Took him where?"

The man only shook his head, his teeth chattering.

A sudden dull rumble sounded overhead, and gravel came rattling down.

Locke glanced up, let the lightning die, and hauled the man off the ground by his robe.

"Move."

Mo Fei turned to follow, then looked back once more at the heap of rubble he had been buried under.
The massive body pinned beneath those rocks no longer moved.

The group had barely made it back into the mine tunnel when rat-hound monsters came pouring out of the branching tunnels behind them and on either side.

Mo Fei pulled the Goldpaw Tiger Cub tighter against his chest, and Barney raised his mechanical arm.

But the rat-hound monsters didn't spare them so much as a glance. They squeezed past everyone, jostling to the front, and raced for the mine entrance.

By the time the group ran out of the mine, the creatures had already scattered into the night.

Mo Fei had barely gone a few steps down the gravel slope when a dull boom sounded behind him.
Then the ground under his feet shook, and a plume of dust burst from the mine entrance, taking a long while to clear.

Mo Fei looked back at the pitch-black mouth of the mine. The facility... it must have collapsed completely.

After that, everything around them went quiet, leaving only the night wind scraping across the gravel slope.

Locke marched the robed man down the slope, his companions alongside.

Mo Fei headed for the Undercity with Barney and his guys, Phoebe pressed close at his feet and Prototype No. 1 following on his other side.

---

The moment the workshop door swung open, Phoebe slipped in past his feet.

The most timid kitten was huddled in a corner, and at the noise, its little body flinched. Phoebe went over and licked it from head to tail before lying down beside it, curling into a half-circle that enclosed it.

Mo Fei took out the Spirit Phial he had borrowed from the Young Lady at the auction and never returned, and held the Goldpaw Tiger Cub up to its mouth. The little orange thing drowsily shrank inside without even opening its eyes.

Phoebe stared at the phial in his hand. "You made that?"

"Mm." Mo Fei's voice was still hoarse. "While I was buried."

Phoebe's gaze settled on the orange bundle inside the phial, and it was a good while before she spoke.

"...Just like it."

She lowered her head and buried her face in the fur of the kitten nestled against her.

"This little one... keep it here with you."

"Of course."

With that, Mo Fei didn't even bother brushing off the dust that covered him. He collapsed and was asleep at once.

...

When he woke, it was already broad daylight outside the window.

Mo Fei tried to push himself up, but the moment he put weight on his palm, the pain made him snatch his hand back.

He tried to wrap the cloth strip on his own, but his hands had no strength, and no matter what he did, he couldn't get it tight.

In the end, he had no choice but to bite down on one end. Just as he was about to pull the strip taut, there was a sharp intake of breath from the doorway.

"M-Mr. Mo Fei?"

Toby stood by the door. "Wh-what happened to your hands?"

"Shumthin' happened." Mo Fei let the end of the cloth drop from his mouth. "It's nothing serious."

Toby hurried over, undid the loose strip, and started wrapping it again.
His fingers trembled a little, but he still wound it firmly, one loop after another.

"I-is this too tight?"

"Just right. Thanks."

Toby's gaze slid past him, landing on the black shape in the corner and the kitten huddled inside it.

"Wh-what are..."

"Picked them up in an alley. They'll live here at the workshop from now on—mascots, you could say," Mo Fei said. "When I'm not around, help look after them."

Toby froze for a beat before nodding. "O-okay."

Noticing that the ribbon around the kitten's neck was covered in dust, Mo Fei took it off, wiped it clean, and tied it back on.

"Right, the ribbons..."

Mo Fei knotted the cut ends of the three ribbons together one by one. He tied the knots crooked several times along the way, but he gritted his teeth and finished joining them.

Then he opened the Spirit Phial, let the Goldpaw Tiger Cub out, and tied the joined ribbon around its neck.

The Goldpaw Tiger Cub twisted its head to bite at the knot by its neck. When it couldn't reach, it lowered its head and started stomping on the back of his hand, left, right, left.

Stomp... tamp it down...

"...Tamp-tamp. I'll call you TampTamp."

TampTamp looked up at him, then lowered its head and went on stomping.

The kitten poked its head out from Phoebe's side, saw the orange bundle, and pulled all the way back in to hide behind her.

TampTamp paid it no mind. It hopped off the workbench and started wandering around the workshop on its own.
It stomped on the floorboards, stomped on the chair legs, and even went over to stomp a couple of times on an empty potion bottle that had rolled against the wall.

When it reached Toby's feet, Toby went completely rigid. Only after it had finished stomping on his shoe and walked off did he ask in a small voice, "Mr. Mo Fei, i-is this a mascot too?"

"It's a Phial Spirit. Its name is TampTamp."

Phoebe kept the kitten tucked against her side, her eyes following that orange bundle wherever it went.

TampTamp stomped its way across half the workshop and finally lay down under the window, in a spot the sunlight reached.

The kitten poked its head out from behind Phoebe and watched for a long time.

It edged forward a step, stopped, then edged forward another. Little by little it made its way to the window, sniffed TampTamp's back, and curled up against it.

TampTamp twitched its ears, and the two small bodies nestled together.

Mo Fei stood by the workbench, watching.

He remembered the alley, how the little orange cat was always the first to come rubbing up against him, how the other two loved to tussle with each other, and how one of them always lagged behind.

Tacksha's words—"Ah, those three"—echoed in his ears again, along with the way the corners of her mouth had curled up as she said them.

He clenched his fist. The wound in his palm began to throb under the cloth, but he only gripped tighter, and it was a long time before he slowly let go.

Under the window, the two little things were sound asleep.

...

That night, Mo Fei went down to the basement and walked straight up to Victor.

"Everything you know about the Chimera Society and Chimimi—tell me all of it!"