---Track---

---Tymancha’s perspective---

We walk from the shuttle into the village, watched by grim looking Twigg sentries.

The gun users are all armed instead with newly forged airrifles, loaded with tranquilising liquid filled pellets.

Darts obviously wouldn’t work on a species covered in bullet proof armour, so the pellets are meant to be shot near the joints, where they will burst and the liquid will seep into the cracks and through the animal’s skin.

Slower than a direct injection into muscle and, for that reason, they are not plan A.

Ideally, once I locate the animal’s lair, gas grenades will be thrown in, which will knock it out much quicker.

The medics assure us that, if there are any Twigg alive in there, they will be safe… the gas will be slightly irritating to their lungs but shouldn’t do them any great harm.

If they were Vrakhand, it would be a different story. The gas would be dangerous for them to inhale.

The absolutely destroyed village before us is… interesting.

The tallest of the freestanding houses only comes up to around chest height.

They’re all scrupulously designed to look like natural features on the outside, piled over with dirt and covered in mats of live moss and herbs, though, as I walk past one with its roof smashed in, I can see that the interior is built of exposed mudbrick.

Were it not for the extensive damage, I imagine that, with 20 seconds’ warning, this entire village could be completely camouflaged to anyone who might walk through it meaning the Twigg harm… provided they didn’t have a particularly developed sense of smell… If you know what Twigg smell like, you would recognise that the scent hangs thick on the air.

“Please!” pleads a middle aged Twigg woman, running towards Taylor and looking up at him, miserably “Find Mirt!… Find him and bring him back to me!”

“We’ll do our best, Ma’am…” responds the man, sombrely, as he keeps walking.

The woman says nothing but stands by the side of the thoroughfare looking up at us as Ms Tuun, Ms Hunter, Ms Loper, Mr Kelly, Mr Byrne, Ms Pereira and I file past her.

The desperate hope I see in her face as I meet her eyes stings my heart.

We reach what looks like the centre of the village and Taylor throws up his hand and turns around, his piercing green eyes locking onto mine.

“Alright Tymancha… where’re we headed?” he asks, earnestly.

I frown slightly and point North, along a trail that, to me, looks so obvious that you would need to be blind not to see it.

“Alright… lead the way.”

---later---

It took us around 3 hours to get here, me leading the way the entire time.

The others were mainly taking up a guard against surprise attacks but, from how often their expressive faces passed directly over blindingly obvious track evidence without the slightest flicker of recognition, it’s safe to say they just couldn’t see it.

I know I’m supposedly the best… but I don’t think I had really appreciated just what a gulf existed between me and others before.

We’re overlooking a canyon at the end of which is a cave, both of which carved from the rock by a river that no longer flows.

That cave is one that I would never consider making my base of operations for the reason that, if a dangerous animal were to come up the canyon, I’d be completely cornered there!

However, based on the descriptions of this animal that I’ve heard, I guess that that simply wouldn’t be a concern for it… You don’t need to worry about being cornered when you’re the toughest bastard out there, afterall.

“Steve, this looks like its lair to you too?” asks Mr Taylor, his voice low.

“Say so, mate!” confirms Mr Kelly.

“Alright then… The cave seems like it’ll keep the gas in well but we should also throw a few further down in the canyon as well… That way, it tries to run, it has to run through more of the gas!… Try an’ toss ’em lightly though… Don’t want it comin’ out early to investigate.” says Taylor, passing one of the gas grenades out to each of us “Everyone line up, 6m apart. Throw ’em in one at a time when I indicate… I’ll throw the one into the cave. If you got a marker, have it ready after you tossed your grenade.”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

We do as he instructs.

I find myself near the end of the line with only Ms Tuun to my left, the others all on my right.

One by one, Taylor points to us and we each toss in a grenade.

When it’s my turn, I aim for a patch of thick looking moss on the canyon floor, about 5m below.

It lands silently.

Taylor signals that he’s about to throw the final one into the cave itself, then rests his left hand on the remote trigger on his belt.

He pitches it down, overhand, and triggers them all before it’s clanged against the stone of the cave floor.

I get a brief glimpse of bright, vivid blue gas, jetting out of the grenades before they are swallowed by their own smoke cover.

A loud, disorientated, animalistic roar rumbles forth from the cave.

We got it!

Now we just have to wait for the smoke cover to dissipate and then go down to collect it!

Everyone’s airguns are pointed down into the canyon, nervously.

The gas’s opacity means that, even though it’s the middle of the day, the base of the canyon is completely obscured.

“Shit!!!” shouts Taylor as a leg breaks the surface of the blue haze, just metres from him, throwing up wisping spirals of blue smoke.

Apparently, the animal can climb!

Emerging from the smoke, it reveals itself.

Not much taller than Khr’kowan but far more solidly built, it isn’t difficult to see where the full tonne of extra mass comes from.

Unlike the skull earlier, the living animal has a pair of thick thanatite fangs adorning the side of its face.

Like the Vrakhand, its thickset arms end in tridactyl hands but, unlike them, there is no thumb, all three fingers being roughly equally long and aligned with eachother.

“Everyone open fire! I’ll pin it down!!!” instructs Taylor, drawing and igniting his blade and making himself the creature’s primary focus even with the hail of pellets that pop against its armour.

Despite having said he wouldn’t hesitate to kill this animal, Taylor sensibly does not approach the formidable creature close enough to actually swing for it with his sword, instead staying outside of its reach and drawing all of its attention.

The creature throws out its arms, leans forward and opens its jaws to emit a powerful, guttural, bestial scream, exposing its gorillalike, thanatite canines as the slow acting tranquilisers are yet to show any sign of taking effect.

It’s clearly cowed by the unfamiliar, glowing weapon for a few moments, wavering over attacking its wielder.

Its hesitation doesn’t last though…

Finding its courage, it surges forward, batting the weapon away without caring about the smoking char that instantly mars the armour of its forearm, it scoops the enormous man into a bearhug and… kisses him?

No, it’s not kissing him… its head is just so much taller than his that, while their scalps are level, its mouth is at the level of his chin, its fangs buried into the sides of his neck.

It tosses him to the ground, his face red and his mouth issuing a repulsive foam.

He doesn’t get back up.

The creature turns on the rest of us… our tranquiliser entirely spent.

Hunter charges it, swinging her spiked hammer and shouting.

It charges her back… she loses the battle of momentum… hard.

The animal swoops down on top of her, its fangs ringing out as they fruitlessly try to pierce her nanoforged iron helmet a few times before finding the gap between it and her durasteel gorget.

Loper brings her lit leafblade sword down on it, fiercely… It does not penetrate its armour and she receives a horse kick with the creature’s left foreleg.

Thankfully, her durasteel protects her from impalement but she is hurled through the air and impacts a rock, alive but wheezing and temporarily incapacitated.

Kelly, Pereira and Byrne have all backed up almost to where I am.

“Everyone, I’m going to distract it. Once its focus is on me, I want you to leave.” I say, seemingly calm.

“You out of your mind, Dude?!” demands the blond New Coloradoan.

“I’m not. Do as I say.” I state.

With that, I sprint right, away from the canyon’s edge.

Being the only one to run, the predator’s whole focus immediately snaps to me.

I decide that it can’t hurt to make sure its attention stays on me… I draw three arrows from my quiver and nock and loose them at it in quick succession.

The first glances off the right side of its head, the next, half a second later, flies just over its left shoulder, the third strikes its throat but fails to penetrate its dense flesh.

Enraged, it thunders after me.

I dodge and weave through the trees, making my way back to Taylor’s body in such a way as it gets hung up on every obstacle.

I’m able to spare 2 seconds to unclip his belt and yank it out from under his lifeless form, throwing the string of gas grenades over my neck as I take a flying leap down into the smoke filled ravine.

I take the fall of more than twice my height harder than I’d like but am still able to roll and don’t think I’ve broken anything.

The gas instantly makes my throat tickle.

I’m able to restrain the coughs that want to erupt.

Visibility is obviously poor here but not so poor that I can’t see the animal’s silhouette as it follows me down.

It can’t see me though.

I sense its terrifying bulk moving through the smoke as it casts around for me.

Silently, I take one of the grenades from the looted belt and manually arm it.

I toss it near the creature, purposefully throwing it hard enough to make a noise.

The creature shrieks and charges to attack the spot where it heard the disturbance, just in time to receive a concentrated blast of sedative gas to the face.

I take a second grenade and arm it.

The animal has evidently not learned its lesson, since I’m able to see the shadow of its horns, charging (much more slowly) over to this one as well, with the same result.

I take a third grenade but, before I can arm it… a cough escapes me.

It clearly realises this sound is different.

It wheels on me and thunders over with slow, heavy footsteps.

I back away from it but quickly find myself pressed against the canyon wall.

I arm the grenade as a three fingered hand reaches through the fog.

A drowsy looking eight eyed face lists downward, slowly.

I point the end of the grenade directly at its snout.

The grenade bursts, flooding the animal’s mouth and nose with a jet of smoke.

It stops… then… almost in slow motion… keels over to my right… impacting the ground with the *boom* of a falling mammoth!

I break out into a coughing fit.

---Mirt’s perspective---

“Whuh?” I say, blearily, to the large, blurry, out of focus shape lifting me out of something sticky.

“I said are you alright, Sir?”

“Don’ thin’ suh!” I answer, my mouth not doing what I want it to “Who… yuh? Wher… we?”

“My name’s Doctor Phan. We’re in a cave… you were pretty badly envenomed but you should make a full recovery. Can you tell me your name?”

“’S… Mirt…”