Chapter 4 - Puzzle Peices

Rasp shivered, now he wished he’d brought a jacket with him. He switched back to his human disguise again, at least his antenna wouldn’t freeze that way…
He continued humming along to the music, completely lost in thought, closing his eyes in concentration. He looked asleep, laying motionless in the snow and allowed the images to play through his head again.

He stood before the almighty Tallest, not the present day Tallest but the tallest from a long time ago…
“Rasp! I trust all is running well here?” the Tallest said.
“Yes Sir!” Rasp said snapping to attention at the mention of his name. He stood, well uniformed, with a strict, military look on his face; nothing like the Rasp who lay there curled in the snow. His uniform was high a high collared jacket with long sleeves and multiple pouches, which were stuffed with random notes and gismos. A small badge was pinned tightly to his chest pocket, written in an Irken hand writing so small one would need too strain their eyes to decipher it. In his left hand he held a small device that looked somewhat like a dental pick, and in the other hand he held a small chip with a trail of assorted wires coming off it.
“Have you made any advancements in your Scientific Studies?” the Tallest quizzed.

The memory faded off from there…
“Scientific Studies… was that really me before the…?” Rasp shifted in thought knocking the small layer of snow that had began to gather on him off.
He relaxed, searching for the memories again. Unlike Arac, he wanted to know what happened, he wanted to know the story- not forget it, to try and recover the memory of the first half of his life. His mind rolled another vision as he settled back against the large stump.

There was an explosion on an Irken science base on the moon of a planet Irk had conquered. Rasp bolted down the hallway, his uniform tattered and covered in some unidentifiable black liquid, he made jagged turns as if he was trying to catch a mouse, zigzagging all over the hallway.
“Trator!” he shouted at nothing. He swiped at the air in front of him, still in a mad dash to no where.
“Sorry boy,” a voice from nowhere said, “Tallest’s orders, your experimentations have become to dangerous, you’ve become a threat to the empire.”
It echoed hauntingly down the hall.
“You lie!” he said, sounding much more like the Rasp of today every second.
Something exploded over Rasp’s head blowing a hole through the ceiling of the base to the outside. The sound of heavy footsteps tromped across the roof, someone was escaping. Rasp jumped through the hole in the roof and chased after the sound of the footsteps.
“You think I’m lying, do you?” the voice was smooth and taunting, and the footsteps stopped. “Fine then, here’s a message, in his hand writing no less-” a paper seemed to appear out of the air right in front of Rasp’s eyes “-that shall illustrate what I’ve been trying to say.”
Rasp caught the paper, and read it with a shocked expression.
A laugh came from the same direction the paper did, when it suddenly occurred to Rasp- a cloaking device! With no need for flashy moves, he stuck his hand in his pocket and felt around until he felt the knob of a small device he had put together in his spare time. The device pulsed with an electric wave, causing to confuse the signal of the cloaking device. There was a small orange spark, then a small flash, and an Irken figure appeared before him.
“Eric…” Rasp said, unmoved by the familiar face.
The Irken’s golden eyes glittered brilliantly.
“I hope you enjoy the rest of your life in Exile Rasp,” he turned away from the enraged Rasp as his pack sprouted to robotic wings, “and for the last time… my names Arac. Goodbye br-”
A warm hand gently touched Rasps cold skin bringing him back from his dreaming and leaving a vast cliffhanger in his thought. His eyes shot open, and he shivered violently.
“Nnnnn…” he moaned and sat up, brushing of the small layer of snow that had gathered on him. “Kitten? What are you doing out here in the cold?”
It was Raz. After Rasp had stormed off in jealousy of Arac, Raz had followed him out into the snow. He held a flashlight in one hand and a spare jacket in the other.
“Um… here…” he said softly, offering Rasp the spare jacket.
Rasp happily slipped it on, and it was still warm. He smiled at Raz, and looped one of his arms around his neck in a sort of half hug.
“So, how’d you find me out here Kitten?” Rasp was, of course, referring to Raz, as he rarely called people by their actual names.
Raz avoided eye contact shyly.
“Heh, never mind,” Rasp said, with a half laugh in his throat.
Raz looked back up at Rasp momentarily then looked back down, when a small brown case caught his eye. Rasp caught Raz’s eye wandering to the case.
“Want to know what’s in it?” Rasp said, seeming to read Raz’s mind.
Raz looked up again, “If… if you don’t mind…”
Rasp smiled, “You like music Kitten?”
Raz nodded slightly.
Rasp’s expression softened, “Heh…” He opened the case and pulled out a small wooden flute. “Then I think you’ll like this…”
He placed his mouth softly on the delicate old instrument, and began to play a soft lifting tune, his fingers moving stiffly from the cold. Raz relaxed and listened to the music, when Rasp suddenly stopped. Raz looked up at him wondering why he had stopped, and Rasp grasped his stomach which made an uneasy gurgle.
“Oops, heh, sorry about that, in all the excitement it seems I forgot to eat,” even with this odd news Rasp was smiling, he even laughed a little, and for the first time in a long time, he was genuinely happy. After a slight pause Rasp finally said in a low whisper, “… and Kitten… thanks for coming out here for me…”

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