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Vast, intense, entangling...

Flora of eye-burning hues intertwines and weaves together in a dense mat of raw vegetation. All that separates the jungle from the wilderness beyond is the fact that the former prisoners have managed to at least nominally explore this area, discovering some of its many dangers and natural traps, whereas the wilderness is simply unknown and unknowable. Within the jungle are life-stealing plants, disease-carrying parasites, vicious birds, poisonous reptiles, and various predatorial mammals that can pose a threat even to a powerful warrior. Nothing is taken for granted in this melting pot of danger... especially not life.
Back to Zero Hour

Eat or Be Eaten -- Inapiel, 17:33:26 11/08/03 Sat
Inapiel wandered through the jungle he found himself in, he wondered "were am I?". his stomach growled, he was hungry. Apparently so was the beast that just came thumping out of the woods. It was easily twice the size of an elephant, and it's grey furr covered it, making it look even larger. "He shouldn't mess with a sela of the new path. I'll kill it, or I'll never get anything to eat. this'll be easy" he thought

He thought wrong.

The huge beast swung a paw at him, but the slow beast was too late, for Inapiel jump out of the way and leaped at his left side. Ripping flesh, Inapiel had no mercy. the beast let out a moan, then tried to butt him with his rhino-like horn. The sela jump out of the way, but right into the way of the creature's right paw. Inapiel went flying into a tree, wounded badly. The beast limped of a short way and collapsed in a puddle of it's on death blood. The sela knew he had to get over to the carcass before others stole his food. He took one step, and collapsed.

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Another crash. -- Lhall, 22:05:08 10/17/03 Fri
"Landing in approximately three minutes."

Antique gold eyes open very slowly, blurred vision coming into focus as seconds tick groggily past in the relative silence of the craft's descent into atmosphere. A sleep-fogged mind translates the message and quite suddenly, the Sela within is no longer hampered by the lingering tranquilizer. A snarl ricochets off the metal walls as struggling commences, and lean muscles burn at their first use in months of comatose space travel. Pearly claws scrabble against the cold flooring as a low, liquid growl rips from a long throat and the male wriggles, moonblade twisting about to slice some of his bonds into shreds.

"Approaching zero hour. Landing is imminent."

Glossy hematite-colored fur ripples as Lhall's thrashing grows more pronounced, but the sudden high-pitched wailing from outside the craft warns him in time; he tenses and braces himself against the inner walls of the shuttle as it crashes into the earth, tearing a long furrow in the soil and plowing through some saplings. After several meters of grinding, the slowed craft slams into the base of a massive tree and crumples.

Within, Lhall is thrown forward and torn free of most of his bonds. Swift, effortless strikes with his moonblade sever the rest of the chains and metal cords, and the white-maned male is able to stand shakily, winded and slightly bruised from the crash but otherwise unharmed. Slender limbs picking their way gracefully from the middle of the craft, Lhall approaches the crumpled part of the hull right next to the tree and studies it in the near-darkness of power loss. Thin metal to begin with, especially for a space-faring craft, it had dented and torn so much that a few powerful blows with claw and moonblade freed the male.

The rich scent of life hits him strongly, and for a moment the Scholar is stunned, unable to do more than simply breathe in the air of a real world, so different from the stale, recycled air of Jhee laboratories. Then, darkened gold eyes darting about, the Sela takes the first step onto ruddy soil and away from the stench of slagged metal. In fact, that first step turns into a clipped, beautiful trot, Lhall not looking back at his shuttle as he leaves it behind in the foliage. The smells that wash over his sculpted muzzle are delicious, and though common sense dictates caution as necessary, for a long time the young male cannot bring himself to be properly alert and on edge.

Until, that is, a snarl on his left greets him. Some sort of low-slung feline, black fur scratched and bloodied in myriad small wounds, charges forward, jaws gaping; Lhall leaps easily out of range, lips curling high to reveal vicious fangs as his pearly moonblade swings past his hip and slices at the creature's head in a warning shot. Sweeping his torso downwards into a spontaneous crouch, long ears flatten and he leans back onto his haunches while still crouched, lashing out with both forepaws as he whips his tail back, providing brief balance as his claws rip across the black cat-thing's face. It snarls and jerks away, fleeing through the underbrush as Lhall completes a smooth rising motion, completely unruffled.

Nostrils flare as the dark Sela sniffs the air. There is a young, frightened scent attached to the feline's more primitive one; Warrior training kicks in and Lhall is tracking the smell before he realizes he's begun to move. A fit male, it only takes him a few minutes to find the creature that he seeks, and by then he's realized he'd best be cautious. Ears pricking, cord-bound white mane rippling silkily against his neck with the wind of his own speed, Lhall gradually slows to a graceful trot as darkly gold eyes finally catch sight of the Zrruvan. Moonblade carried low behind him in a peaceable posture, the shapely male steps into plain view and stops, expressionlessly examining Xi for a long, long moment. It takes him that long to figure out the gender or lack thereof of this strange youngling, and once he manages to do so, he dips his sleek muzzle in a friendly nod. "Shiana," he murmurs in a kind tenor, a greeting from his homeworld.

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Replies:
- Blink? -- Xiaelrohjanyeux, 19:12:57 10/21/03 Tue
  - Hmm... -- Lhall, 20:44:29 10/21/03 Tue
    - Comprehension! -- Xiaelrohjanyeux, 21:12:43 10/21/03 Tue
      - Kin...?! -- Lhall, 13:25:49 10/25/03 Sat
        
        Water. Whee! -- Xiaelrohjanyeux, 22:47:42 11/09/03 Sun
        
        Blech. It's *green*. -- Lhall, 20:29:55 11/14/03 Fri
        
        *nods* -- Xiaelrohjanyeux, 17:46:12 11/23/03 Sun
Crash. -- Xiaelrohjanyeux, 21:05:03 10/17/03 Fri
Two sets of eyelids opened at the droning voice that seemed to be screaming through a pounding skull. Xiaelrohjanyeux lifted hes eyes, the only moveable thing on hes entire body, and tried to discover the source of the noise... better yet, make out what it was saying. His searching viridian eyes found the source fo the discomfort almost immediately. The grating sound came from a small box in the upper left hand corner of his space pod. It was saying something about landing?

"Approaching zero hour. Landing is imminent."

Xiael 's eyes widened, hes drugged mind finally comprehending. He was about to crash into something... but what?

A jolt of shock rattled thrugh the tiny space pod as the shuttle smacked into the atmosphere. Xi's claws scrabbled aimlessly against the metal flooring, while hes emaciated body slammed time and time again into the straps that held hem into hes place. Finally, hse lay still, hes battered body too tired to move. Hse focused on hes foremost claws, looking at the red taints of fear that had grown there with almost an objective view, as if they had been detached from hes body and were now an odd little form of entertainment. Who was the Akkad? Certainly wasn't hem.

A shrill alarm suddenly went off in Xi's mind, pummeling his mentality now along side the motionless body. His decorative ears folded in against the sides of his head, and his eyes slammed shut in his agony. The writhing began again, and the Zrruvan jhaen was no longer aware of what was going on. Hse was dizzy, possibly spinning, and surrounded by the insessant noise which tore at his scalp and dug holes within his skull. He retched once, and was unaware of it, and then with a final painful noise, he heard an explosion... and was immersed in a senseless bliss.

An unknown amount of time passed, before the young Zrruvan opened one eye and found light there. Hse closed it immediately, for it was green light that shone against his gaze, both bright and irritating.. but also fake. Hse must be back on the Jhee ship. Testing had resumed.

Or had it?

The odd sound of chirping, combined with the suddent scent of high humidity perked the youth's interest. Hse opened his eye again, and tried to raise his arm... Only to scream. It was bloodied and very much broken from both the crash and the incredible amount of jostling. Hes muzzle, also tender but not as pain-wracking, curved itself over to lick away dried blood. Gods. The pain.

Unknowing what else to do, the youth merely kept cleaning hemself, or at least the few parts he could reach. When that was done, he tried to survey his situation. Hse was surrounded by metal and shattered space-glass, blood, probably hes own, was the prevailing scent. Also, hse was completely entangled in ropes, some of which had ripped at the weight of hes body being flung against them, others remained. The youth began to chew away at these confinements... and after hes mouth was dry, and his tongue was bleeding from the raw, rough, taste of woven rope... Xi finally was able to painfully wriggle out. Hse forced his aching body into a quadropedal form, and with a final glance at the shuttle... began a slightly dazed march through the jungle.

Hse didn't know much about travel, but he tried to clean up the blood hes torn arm dripped as he moved. Leaning over one particularly bloodied stone, hse found a reddish leaf and began to try and wipe it away.

Hse turned to find a massive pair shinging golden eyes gazing up at him, from a flat, streamlined ebony body. The creature was definitely feline, but looked flattened to the ground, it's legs perpendicular to it's body. It's jaws however, were twistible within it's head, and it lurched forward at him without any warning, massive black jaws twisting to get a grip upon an azure Zrruvan leg.

Xi kicked out with hes feline mid-legs, scoring a deep gash across the hunters face... but in no means affecting it's charge. The Zrruven youth turned and fled, dodging as nimbly as hse could through the mass cover of trees and brush. His four-working legs worked fairly well on the flat terain, but then... mud. A hind leg sunk faster and the Zrruvan was jerked to a swift and painful hault, muscules tearing and an anguished scream jolting through the youth's body as hse fell flat on his horribly bruised rib cages. Green eyes flicked up once to the sky, and then the lengthy serpentine neck curved over it's own shoulder.

Xi wanted to see hes attacker before hse died.

Then, suddenly, a small blur of shining color dove from the sky, a shrill screech of incomprehensible snarls, screams, and hisses ripping from it's tiny throat. It fell upon the black flat-cat's eyes with the fury of a mother bear, a serpentine winged body which ended in three sharp talons raking across the beasts face again and again... trying blood from both flesh and eye alike. The black predator snarled, and snapped it's massive jaws at the tiny lithe little body. The little winged-snake was too quick however, and with a hiss of annoyance, dodged and came at the crett from behind, pestering it with chirrups and occasional pecks and slashes.

With a final grunt, the feline turns and scrambles away, unwilling to deal with a meal that comes with a free side-order of pain ala mode. Xi on the other hand, lifts hes leg painstakingly from the mud... now lame in two of six limbs. Hse turns quietly towards his hero, and almost instincitvely holds out his unbroken arm to the crett... it's serpentine nature reminded hem of home. The little winged-snake chirrups confusedly, but after a few moments of deliberation flies over to perch itself happily on the top of Xi's head... and there curls up and sleeps. Xi can't help hemself and grins at the only warmth hse'd felt in... what seemed like years.

Hse continues onwards.

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