To Save a Home

by Thethhron

Fauna

Megan awoke to a rustling sound in the nearby bushes. In the blink of an eye, she was on her feet, knife in hand. Slowly, a large rabbit hopped out of the bushes, sniffing the ground as it went. Unmoving, the commando continued watching cautiously. This rabbit was, by far, one of the most bizarre creatures she had seen. Antlers sprouted from its head and a fluffy pair of wings rested at its sides.The rabbit continued its sniffing; just as it reached the lean-to Megan had slept in, it froze, ears whirling around to hear something. In a flash, it was gone, blowing straight past Megan so fast that she didn’t feel the wind in its wake until two full seconds had passed.

Megan did not have to wait long to hear what had spooked the creature. A loud roar, followed by trees creaking, gave her impetus to run and hide. Grabbing her things and knocking her lean-to over hastily, she didn’t bother spreading the logs to hide her presence. As she ran in the opposite direction of the noises, she looked back occasionally. Trees in the distance swayed as something passed them, and each time she looked back, the swaying got closer. Realizing a direct escape was impossible, she dashed to the side to find a hiding place. Climbing into a nearby tree, she waited. Training her eyes on the source, she was able to make out two distinct shapes. As the fight - for that’s what it sounded like, as growls because audible - came closer, she was able to recognize a cynogriffin, which was moving fast on foot, looking here and there for something.

The other was a massive bear, two or three times the size of the cyno. As it came closer, she got a better look it’s paws. Instead of the normal pawpads and proportionally sized claws she expected, it had massive, scythe-like claws, which left deep indents in the ground with each step. Each claw was much larger than the paw it stemmed from, extending at least 6 inches from the base.

The cynogriffin tried to take to the skies, having found a good opening in the canopy. Climbing as quickly as she could, she watched him fly up and up. A crashing noise came from below and the wolf was tackled, easily 120 feet in the air. The bear had leapt, from the ground, to catch the hound in its claws, tearing into the furred flesh. The cynogriffin yelped as he fell in the clutches of the strange bear.

Having seen enough, Megan climbed down and quickly traveled away from the bear. She sincerely hoped she would not have to take something like that down on her own. Right now, she did not have anywhere close to the proper weaponry. If one of those bears snuck up on her, she would have problems taking it down. She had dealt with enemies larger and heavier than her before, while unarmed, but that didn’t mean it was easy.

When she stopped for lunch, she had, thankfully, not run into any bears or cynos. Stopping by the stream she’d had to refind, Megan took out her map to check her position. It seemed as though she would be encountering a much larger river soon, supposing she continued along her current path. If a natural bridge didn’t exist, she’d have to ford the river to get to a more central location on the island. Just beneath the mountain in the center looked like a good spot. She rolled the map back up, finished her jerky meal, and continued on.

Stopping early again, Megan gathered somes vines and green wood from the surrounding trees. Keeping in mind the types of prey and enemies she would be dealing with, she got to work creating traps and snares. Most of them were smaller and easier to make, intended to snag one of the rabbits or deer. She made fewer large ones, so she could actually move them without too much issue. These traps were sturdier, intended for the cynogriffins or even the bears, though they wouldn’t necessarily trap either. These traps would only stall them, hopefully long enough for Megan to either communicate peace or kill quickly.

As she ate, she set up smaller traps around her chosen sleeping area, and using more vines, set up a simplistic alarm system of tripwires to knock some wood together above her head. By the time she had finished, night had again fallen, as the planet’s moon remained as pale as ever.

---

*CLUNK*

Megan’s eyes snapped open. A quick survey found a rabbit caught in one of her traps. Moving over, she released the rabbit from the snare, now assured they worked properly; she had plenty of jerky from the deer she had killed before.. Strangely, the rabbit did not run immediately but have her a curious glance before hopping off at a comparatively slow pace. Almost as though it had understood her intent.

Shaking the thought from her head, she gathered the traps and closed them up so she could carry them, though she simply dismantled some. She had made a few too many the night previous. She cut the majority of the vines down and scattered the wood she had used. The skies were free of clouds today, even as early in the morning as it was.

Over the four days since she had arrived, this being her 5th day on the planet, a plan had been forming in her mind. In order for her to win this game she needed as many allies as possible, so that when the time came to defeat this other piece, Scorpan, it could be done. Moreover, these allies needed to be interested in her winning, as that her people could come live here.

Considering that cynogriffins were likely sapient, she might be able to attract help from them, if they had any leaders she could converse with. That would also prove useful for when the humans finally landed. An entirely new species suddenly showing up with no foreknowledge could prove troublesome and Megan began to wonder if Faust had a plan regarding that.

The cynos actually reminded her, vaguely, of a planet the ship had to pass up about three years previous. At the time, they were still fairly hopeful at find a suitable planet to live on. One such planet came up on the scans, and they’d made their way to it. A small task force, including her, had been sent down to survey the local flora and fauna. The team included a couple of their small armored mechs, along.with about 20 soldiers, with enough varied weaponry for anything they thought they might encounter.

The landing site was a clearing in the midst of a forest. They had begun traveling into the forest after unloading the mechs. The ship took to the air in patterns, looking for activity and on alert for quick pick-up. The forest itself seemed normal enough, excepting it’s colors. At first glance, the trees were just that - trees. But when looking close enough - or seeing so many in one place, gold and pink threads seemed to pulse through them, almost as though the trees lived on some massive artery network. Other plants had similar off colorations, with blues and neon colors of all sorts, just barely noticeable.

Not an hour into their search for potential wildlife dangers, a transmission came through about a corpse. It appeared similar in nature to terran mountain lions, albeit with some more muscle and strange whiskers, It was covered in claw marks and something had been eating it. The strangest thing, however, were the impact traces - namely the ribcage, which had broken and pierced through the skin on multiple occasions.

As the message came through, Megan saw shadows flitting around her teams positions. She silenced them, and signed towards her surroundings and what she was seeing. Guns raised. When the transmission had completed, Megan called out.

“Show yourselves!” Nothing responded and she would have been surprised if something had understood her. A minute passed with no movement. When a marine tried to move from the circle of soldiers she was a part of, a blur came out and pinned him to the ground. Shots were fired into the blur immediately, even as more blurs darted from the surrounding.

The pinned soldier had gotten out from underneath the carcass, albeit in a large amount of pain. The things that attacked them were large wolves of some kind, who were moving at incredible speeds. Similar to the lion reported earlier, there were long whiskers that were far more substantial than just hairs.

As the fight continued, one knocked Megan’s gun away as she fired. Reacting to another wolf, she chopped across it’s neck as it blew past. It crashed into the underbrush and did not seem to return. Still, even as the bodies began to pile up, a massive amount of the creatures continued to pour out of the surrounding trees. Radioing to the other groups a retreat order, they had moved towards a common landing zone slowly. The beasts would easily have outrun them, but the soldiers were able to keep the canines at bay with slow movement and shooting.

When everyone was finally aboard the ship, some injured and, thankfully, none dead, they lifted off. Even as the doors closed and the spaceplane lifted off, the hounds continued to throw themselves at the side of the ship, dull thumps echoing throughout. The “Noah’s Cradle” had left that planet immediately, not attempting any further incursions to its landscape.

Much like those wolves, the cynogriffins here moved at amazing speeds. In fact, many of the creatures here seemed to moved at such enhanced speeds. At least on foot, the bear had managed to chase the cyno down and in the air, the cynogriffins could obviously travel at mach speeds. The rabbits, though she hadn’t seen them actually fly, could likely do the same.

Megan pulled a donut from a tree as she passed it. Training would be necessary. If a cyno ever attacked her, she could probably take it if it didn't get the jump on her, but a surprise attack could easily injure or possibly even kill her. A pack of them would be nearly impossible to handle with her current loadout; a combat knife and some wooden traps would hardly be enough.

No, she needed to get herself some kind of weapon, one that was either fast enough or versatile enough to compensate for her lack of natural defenses. Even more so now, she needed a location that would serve as a base, a place where she could store anything that could count as supplies.

The rush of water pulled her out of her thoughts and she found herself at the edge of a proper river. Pulling out her map, she discovered herself at the river she thought she might encounter. At her will, a mark was made on the map. She bent to drink from the swift-moving water and froze.

Crashing noises echoed from the other side.

Author's Note:

Has yet to be pre-read, so error locating would be highly appreciated. This is also the shortest chapter I've ever written

Also, Huzzah! The Prequel is now being released! Over the next 10 days, a new story will be added, every day, to the continuum. Stay tuned.

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