"So, who is Troy again? And other than the old enemy of my enemy thing, how do you know he's your ally or that you can trust him?" asked Rutter.
"Good questions, but he is here to stop the Dancers. I don't know if I can trust him, but he knows this place very well and we have worked together so far." I relayed both his mission and his people's history.
"Here," I finally said, handing Luke's hand to Al. "I need to ask Troy some questions of my own," and ran to catch up with the Helvetian.
He glanced at me as I drew alongside and could see the scepticism on my face.
"Well?" he asked.
"I don't understand."
"Don't understand what?"
"Why do the Dancers carry weapons that are so destructive to them?"
"Why do you carry weapons that are so destructive to you?"
"Yeah, but we don't put them down making them available to our captors to use against us."
"No, but in their humanoid form, while they are vulnerable to the same blows as you and I, the stingers have no effect on them. When your friend beat it with the dead stinger, it reeled from those strikes. Its only way to deflect those blows was to melt back into a ball of energy and as soon as it was fluid, I killed it, but I must be honest. I had no idea that a stinger could be used so effectively against them until I saw you do it."
"Really."
He heard the disbelief in my voice.
"I told you. We had no enemies. We had no need for weapons before the war. I didn't know that the stingers could be used against them. I may be a warrior—"
"Yeah, thanks for that. You are the warrior and yet you left me to tackle them!" I snapped angrily.
"Actually, I thought you would distract them long enough for me to put Luke down and become elusive to them again. Then I could have tackled the Dancers. You really aren't very good at tactics."
"Neither are you. Didn't know the stinger could be used against them," I scoffed.
He scowled at me, the side of his mouth lifting on one side.
"So where are we going?" I pressed.
Troy stopped abruptly, turned and bent down to a panel neatly tucked into the wall. He pressed the opposite corners of it and the panel popped off.
"We're taking a short cut to somewhere the Dancers never use."
"Where's that then?"
"The old kitchens."
