Star Inkbright (Ink!): How Star Got mixed Up In This Whole Mevolent Thingymadoodah

[Btw, I refer to myself as both Star and Ink, just to dispel any confusion over that. Exciting stuff will happen on my next chapter; this is a boring scene-setter. :P]

Star hadn’t been alive in the war. She’d heard about Mevolent, of course, but he’d never known her and obviously they had never met. As far as she knew, he’d never even heard of her. She hadn’t done anything she could think of to annoy him. She had no quarrel with him or his followers.

Which was why the fact that he was trying to capture her, torture her and then kill her was immensely annoying.

She didn’t even know why, although someone had said that someone had said that someone had said that Ink had been in the same room as someone or other sometime or other or something and Mevolent didn’t like the someone or other so he wanted info from Star or something like that.

Yes, that was incredibly precise, trustworthy information. Not vague or unreliable at all. Should get a certificate.

Anyway, Mevolent was Mevolent. He was the evil bad guy. If he wanted Star, why should he tell her why? It wasn’t like he had any obligation to.

However, he couldn’t want her that badly, or he’d have her already. She thought that he’d prefer it if he had her, but he wasn’t really too fussed, so he was half-heartedly trying to catch her and if he caught her, great, bonus, but if he didn’t, it didn’t make much different.

She’d heard horrible stories already, and he hadn’t exactly been alive long. Stories about people being tortured to death. A person called Armethia Telna, another person called Marnie Chameleon. But there something about someone called Fabzilla Snake tricking and drugging all the guards and escaping, throwing dynamite at Mevolent’s face and almost blowing him up and killing him on her way out, so it wasn’t all bad.

Then again, this was all from the same reliable, trustworthy, precise sources as before, so it was hardly likely to be accurate.

If Ink kept running, Mevolent would catch her and kill her unless he got vanquished first. Him getting vanquished at all was remarkably unlikely, so that made that remarkably, remarkably unlikely. So by hiding, she was procrastinating her death. Not preventing it.

Which meant that obviously she needed to start preventing it. That meant actively resisting Mevolent, which she might have been doing anyway had she not been preoccupied with not getting caught.

So that morning, she’d started walking in the direction of Ireland. Then a building had got in her way, so Star had decided that she might have to walk to an airport instead, as there were an awful lot of buildings between there and Ireland and instead of waling round them all and getting lost, she should just whizz over them.

Then she realised that Mevolent was probably monitoring all the flights to Ireland, so she had booked a ferry instead. That was where she was now; on the ferry. Star was looking out of the window of her cabin, anxiously scanning the docks to see if she could see anyone looking like they were chasing her. Nobody. She was fairly secure in her cabin – a strong door with what she hoped was a strong lock. Ink didn’t know much about locks.

She was thinking over her alliances, working out who would be against Mevolent and who she could join up with. Most people would be in Ireland at the moment, whatever country they lived in, so that made things easier.

She fervently hoped all her contacts were still alive.