The woman riding the odd horse-like creature makes it take a few steps towards me. She pulls down the dark cloth covering her face and arms, revealing a face almost identical to a human's. The only difference I can see is that she has two pupils in each eye, and instead of having pinkies, she has two small vestigial digits near her wrist, similar to a dog or cat's thumbs. Apart from that, her hair is a very dark green and her skin is striped tan and orange.

"Greetings, stranger. We hope we have not offended you with our foolish attack."

"It's of no importance, really. I hope your warriors will be okay after... that." I gesture to them, some of them still clutching their chests in pain.

"They've survived worse. It is very merciful of you to hold back from using the full power of lightning in order to stop them from being killed, and for that you have our utmost gratitude." She gets off the mount and kneels for a brief moment, head down. The rest of her party does the same.

"Tell us, how did you learn our tongue so quickly? Even the renowned scholars of the Dwellers take months or even years to learn its complicated speech."

"No offense, but I don't think you'd even understand if I explained it."

She laughs. "Such is the way of many things in this life. I am Kara, hunting chief of my clan. Do you have a place to stay tonight?"

"Oh, uh... I don't think I need to sleep."

She tilts her head, and a few of the hunters in the back whisper to each other. "How odd. I don't think I've met anything that can go without sleep before. Come with us. We will give you a place to stay tonight. Despite our rude greeting, our tribe is known for its hospitality."

----------------------------------------

The road back to their tribe is long and dirty. As we travel, Franklin scans many plants and animals along the way, detailing to me each one. Kara talks to me simultaneously, which I can now manage with my highly-efficient brain. She tells me about all of the rites and rituals her tribe does. Their way of life seems completely foreign to me; when their males die, their females respectfully consume the parts of their body that contain stem cells (they didn't know about the stem cells, of course, but Franklin drew a correlation), and some weird mix of genealogy and chemistry made it sustain the life of their females to nearly 400 years. For some reason, it didn't work for men, and because of this, their males were greatly revered and honored within their tribes. When one was about to die, they would hold a great ceremony and a grand party full of food and drink.

"I've never heard of anything quite that... unique, I guess. And what about-"

If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"Shh, quiet," whispers Kara sharply. Everyone stops walking. Something behind a tree next to us makes a gurgling noise. She slowly sneaks up to it. I do not follow, as I am far too loud to be able to sneak up on anything with ears. In a quick flash, something jumps out at her. As I process the event, I realize it was some sort of skeleton, of which I assumed belonged to a member of Kara's race. "Ret-Yas!" She shouts. "Scatter! They never hunt alone!"

Everyone runs around as almost a hundred more of the skeleton creatures appear and start sprinting at us full-speed.

"Everyone get behind me!" I shout. They all seem more than happy to oblige.

Now would be a good time for the particle beam!

One of my shoulder pauldrons tilts outwards to reveal an extendable laser underneath. It slowly raises, makes a charging noise for around 4 seconds, and just before the creatures reach us, fires a blinding-yellow beam of energy across all of them, completely annihilating them along with several hundred trees behind them.

"...So, uh, you were saying?"

----------------------------------------

"The Ret-Yas are a scourge to the world. They are parasites that devour the flesh of our dead and reanimate them to hunt us down and reproduce. They are the reason we hunt in groups as large as this; if we were to stray from our large parties, we would surely be overwhelmed and die," Kara says.

Franklin, did you scan any of those things?

"Of course. It is as she says: They are an obligate parasite with seemingly mixed qualities from Ophiocordyceps unilateralis, Leishmanias, and dermatophytosis. How they share such similar genes to their Earthen counterparts, I do not know, but iterations of simulations and analysis propose that the most likely reason is that they share a common ancestor. They seem to operate by consuming the flesh of the dead and applying their excrement to the surface of the skeletal structure, which reacts with the excrement to create a thin layer of musculature and a crude nervous system so the parasite can continue control of the body operating from the lower jaw. Their life cycle ends when they conceive twenty larvae, after which, if they are still alive, they will leave their host and bury themselves in the ground, waiting to die."

Interesting.

"How long have these parasites been a problem?" I ask.

"As long as we have been alive," Kara replies. "They have no goal other than to kill and spread."

Earlier, they spoke of other races, such as Avors and Dwellers. But...

"I apologize if this question is rude or out of nowhere, but what does your race call itself?" She looks surprised. "Forgive me, I meant no offense! I simply have not heard you refer to yourselves yet, and if I am to interact with different kinds of people, it would be convenient to have a name to call your people by."

She thinks long and hard before answering, "I suppose we have no name. The Avors call us Demisus, and the Piscans call us Skinlings, but we have never thought to name ourselves. I will bring that up at the next meeting of the chiefs."

Suddenly, Franklin starts speaking. "I have analyzed the genetic makeup and signature of their people. It seems there are several hundred tribes of them. I estimate they make up around 5% of this planet's sentient population, with the largest population group making up around 70%."

And what group is that?

My question is soon answered when over the horizon I see an absolutely colossal army of humanoids marching upon us. Oh, shit...