“Alright, here are your health metres, here’s where the trail starts, you guys got a tracker on your GPS to lead you back here, have fun!”
The team of Lanex and Temthan researchers had very quickly driven off, leaving Xeno Dessaron One somewhat perplexed. Sure, they had just been given a very fancy 4×4 vehicle with all their camping gear, weapons and supplies stored in the back, but the fact that they had basically been abandoned alongside a couple of hovering camera drones bothered Tenuk more than it should have. Which was why Tenuk was using his shapeshifting powers to make himself look like Retvik except blue and silver. He had originally shifted into a shape similar to Nyssi, but the vast jungle-y smells and the feeling of stray tendrils running across his back quickly began to piss him off.
“Alright, boys, hop on and let’s get going!”
“Do we even know where we’re going?”
Nyssi had been sniffing the air constantly. She’d already picked up the scent of something that was completely out of place and was desperate to start following it. However, she quickly realized she couldn’t do two things at once.
“Um, someone else is going to have to drive. I know I normally drive us around but I gotta keep us on the trail. And I don’t want it to be Retvik because we need him to be ready to punch anything that threatens us… Also, I kinda want Tenuk to be combat-ready as well.”
“Nyssi, I have a gunstaff on hand and we have standard guns in the back, I am not going to be punching anything that comes too close to us.”
“You get what I mean! So…” Nyssi glanced at Kayel. “You can drive, right?”
Kayel rolled his eyes, then made his way towards the vehicle. It was a rather heavy vehicle, with overly large wheels and a roll cage frame around it. The front two seats weren’t too bad, but as Kayel climbed in, he slowly got more comfortable as he realized he wouldn’t have to sit in the back with two massive Rethans instead of one. Clearly Tenuk had realized this as well and had shrunk himself down, so he was closer to Nyssi’s height.
Retvik and Tenuk got into the back and strapped themselves in, while Nyssi sat down next to Kayel. Between them was a GPS and digital map of the area. The trail they were following was both a set of massive footprints and a scent trail. They were currently on the edge of the Enfer region, which definitely wasn’t as dense as other regions. The local predators were Thracks, large, draconic beings with powerful wings, but they sometimes needed a run up to get themselves airborne. There was plenty of space to do that here, although the trail the team was about to follow did head into denser terrain.
Still rolling his eyes, Kayel started the engine and they set off, slowly and cautiously. Perhaps a little too slow and cautiously. The camera drones followed the truck as well, also slowly but not cautiously. The drones were mostly just there for entertainment purposes, everything the team was doing was being recorded, so it could be archived and probably made into some sort of television show at a later date.
“Kayel, you’re driving a 4×4, not a tank.”
“I’ve not driven a big car like this before.”
“You were in the K-Class, or whatever you call your army!” Nyssi exclaimed.
“How many snipers do you know that also drove army vehicles?” Kayel tutted back.
Nyssi calmed herself down. “That’s… yeah, alright, fair. You can pick up the pace a bit though, road isn’t gonna eat you. Even if the road is barely a road.”
“How comes the tracks we’re following neatly go down a road anyway?” Tenuk asked from the back. “We’re tracking big creatures here!”
“A lot of large creatures, especially smarter ones like Thracks, do what we intelligent beings do and follow each other via the path of least resistance. They basically accidentally make their own roads so they’re not traipsing through rough terrain all the time!” Nyssi explained, before abruptly pausing. “Kayel, can you stop, please?”
Kayel did as he was told, then glanced at the mirrors. They hadn’t gone very far. Nyssi jumped out of the vehicle (she hadn’t been wearing her seatbelt, Kayel considered telling her that when she got back) and made her way to the side of the road. She’d spotted something in the undergrowth, a patch of blood, which she was now tasting.
“Is that wise, Nyssi, tasting wild liquids?” Retvik grunted as he awkwardly undid his belt and climbed out to join the curious Temthan.
“I’m a Temthan, poisons and venoms hardly affect us… Also, this is Thrack blood. Recent and slightly spicy…” Nyssi stood up again and looked around for more blood. There was definitely more ahead of her, just off the main track. Kayel had realized what Nyssi was doing and had turned the truck around to head down this new, much more tangled path. However, Nyssi didn’t get back in, and instead started running, darting through the undergrowth.
Not wanting to lose track of Nyssi, Kayel put the truck’s hazard lights on and slowly chased after her, not pausing to let Retvik back on. Retvik didn’t mind too much, Nyssi wasn’t running that fast and Kayel was clearly a slow, cautious driver, so he just plodded along behind them, making sure that his gunstaff was properly extended and the safety switch was in reach. Retvik did start to mind though when both Nyssi and the truck sped up, and Retvik had to start moving at a decent pace. He quickly realized why as he stepped in a particularly large puddle of blood and wished he’d worn metal foot plates instead of leather ones. Having armoured feet meant Retvik couldn’t really wear shoes.
Eventually, everyone began to slow down, and Nyssi didn’t seem tired in the slightest. She was really concerned though.
Lying in the large clearing was a young, 4m long Thrack with glistening emerald scales, large claw marks in its side. It was lying on the ground, one of its wings twisted and broken. Several of the five horns across its skull had been ripped off, and its front arms and tail twitched. The Thrack was still alive, just about.
Nyssi hesitated, then made her way to the back of the vehicle, grabbing a weapon for herself. Two weapons, in fact, a shotgun and a knife. Before she could make it back to the clearing proper though, a colossal shadow engulfed the area. This shadow then dived down into the clearing, grabbed the Thrack in its entirety then took off, back the way it came.
“Tenuk!”
“I am not following it, it’ll eat me!”
“Just tell me where it’s going!”
Tenuk immediately undid his belt and jumped out of the vehicle, shapeshifting into an oddly Skyavok-like shape, before growing a pair of wings. It took a moment for Tenuk to get himself off the ground, but he quickly flew into the air, above the trees. Whatever had grabbed what was supposed to have been the main local top predator in the area didn’t really seem to have much of a shape, and was obscured by a dark cloud. Not really sure what else to do, Tenuk reached for the phone tucked into his magical, elastic, self-adjusting belt, opened the camera and started taking pictures.
As he did so though, something else soared across the treeline, ripped the injured Thrack from the dark, cloudy creature with its jaws, then swatted at the initial predator with a tail that was way, way too long. The obscured beast dropped back down into the trees, screeching loudly but seemingly unwilling to fight back. The new creature then continued flying just above the treeline with its new meal, before changing direction and flying towards the nearest mountain.
Tenuk took as many pictures as he could until his camera could no longer see any of the predators. As he flew back down into the clearing, Tenuk hoped that some of the pictures were usable.
“So what just happened?” Retvik asked as he caught up with everyone else. “You all look like you saw a giant monster. While I guess that is to be expected out there, you all also look rather concerned.”
Tenuk awkwardly landed back down next to Nyssi, then pulled his wings back inside his body, returning to his normal, Spast self. He handed Nyssi his phone and showed her the pictures he had taken. Annoyingly, most of them were pretty blurry, but general shapes and locations could be seen.
“Huh… No idea what any of those are right off the bat… But the second creature definitely looks a bit like a weird Thraki…” Nyssi muttered. “And you got a rough location, so we know where we’re going.”
“You don’t want to go after the black thing?” Tenuk asked.
“Nah, not yet. Thraki like to eat at home like the rest of us, so we’re better off tracking the thing we do recognize than the thing we don’t recognize.”
“I guess…” Tenuk trailed off, not feeling too comfortable with what he had just seen.
Nyssi shrugged, then climbed back into the 4×4, looking at the map. Using the EXIF data from the photos Tenuk had taken, she managed to find their current coordinates, and had worked out a general direction to travel in, towards the mountain where Tenuk had seen the creature go.
“Alright, shall we?”
Retvik nodded, grabbed Tenuk by the scruff of the neck and gently placed him in the vehicle. They both strapped themselves in and waited for Nyssi to do the same.
“We can go, Kayel.”
“Not until you put your seatbelt on.”
Nyssi frowned, then did as she was told. “We’re semi-immortal or something, you know.”
Kayel tutted. “Yeah but if we crash or if I have to suddenly hit the brakes, I don’t want you flying through the windscreen and smashing your face in and then bitching that you’re in pain, super fast healing powers or not.”
For the second time that day, Nyssi found herself relenting and unwillingly agreeing with Kayel. “Fine, fine. But get going. We don’t want to waste time because you drive like an old lady.”
With another tut, Kayel set off, glancing at the map. Luckily, there were some road-like trails they could go down, at least for now.
The truck rumbled off, deeper into the jungle, its occupants unaware that they were being watched.