• Published 23rd Jun 2019
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A Forgotten Trooper - TheIronPone035



A lone clone trooper finds himself stranded on a planet previously unknown to the galaxy. A planet, inhabited by a race of pastel ponies, all completely oblivious to the war just beyond their sky...

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Chapter 2: Dark Forest (R)

Strider didn’t know exactly how long he’d been walking, nor did he really care at that point. What he did know was that as long as he kept going in a straight line, he was bound to reach the end of this forest at some point. He could still hear the howls of the wolves around him, apparently still hot on his trail.

His soldier instincts had kicked themselves up to eleven, alerting him of every single twig snap or crunch of dry leaves around him. If something was stalking him and began closing in, he would know.

As he walked, his leg continued acting up. He was beginning to develop a limp at this point, which definitely wasn’t a good sign. He did have some bacta on him in that medical kit, which should hopefully prove to heal up whatever injuries he'd gotten from the crash. However, he'd rather stop and treat them when he wasn't in a forest full of unknown creatures, one of which he was certain would be hostile to him.

Shadows were vanquished by his helmet's twin headlamps, which he’d been sure to turn off and back on again whenever the situation called for him to take cover and hide. He hadn’t needed to fire his blaster yet either, but the weapon was still primed and ready for when the time came.

”Wait, what was that?” Strider wondered, halting himself mid step and turning his focus towards a nearby bush.

Now that it was illuminated, the dark green shrub appeared completely average compared to its brethren. Yet he could have sworn he’d heard something moving within it. Not wanting to take any chances, he approached the bush with the upmost of caution. He took in a deep breath, before parting some of the shrubs' leaves with the barrel of the blaster.

He was greeted with the sight of nothing but more greenery. If something had been in there, then it was long gone by now, leaving no trace of it ever being there in the first place. Either that, or his mind had just been playing tricks on him.

”Of all the things to break on me, it just had to be the radar didn’t it?” Strider muttered internally, sparing a sharp glare at the glitched circular icon in question.

Ironically enough, this hadn’t even been the first time he’d found himself lost in a forest. One of his past missions had the squad he’s in positioned at a base on Felucia, one that needed constant patrols from the wildlife, pirates, and droids. His squad had been picked for the western patrol, and due to complications they’d found themselves lost.

However, unlike now, that time they’d had Cosmo, who specialized in wildlife navigation and identification. While he might be clumsy, Cosmo always knew where to go and what to look out for.

But now, he-

SNAP

Strider stopped dead in his tracks, spinning around a full one-eighty degrees to face the source of the noise. He lowered into a semi-crouched position and rose his blaster towards the underbrush, his helmets' lights illuminating only the greenery of wildlife.

But the clone wasn’t fooled for a second. He knew for a fact that he’d heard something, more specifically the sound of a rather large twig being snapped if the noise was any correlation. That meant that whatever had broken it, must be big.

No one could see it because of his helmet, but sweat had begun to develop on his forehead as he scanned the area, eyes sharp and unblinking. He slowly began to back away from the disturbed area, making sure to keep his blaster pointed at the spot he’d heard the noise originate from at all times.

And after a few agonizingly long seconds passed by, Strider finally spotted it. It was hard to see because of all the shadows, but thanks to his helmets' lights, he was able to spot a pair of beady black eyes amongst the branches of a bush. They weren’t that large, but they were all the confirmation the trooper needed.

As if it had sensed it’s locations being compromised, the creature lunged out of the bushes at an incredible speed. Right as it left its hiding spot, the moonlight overhead vanquished the shadows surrounding its body, revealing itself fully to Strider.

The creature seemed to somewhat share a vague resemblance to a Zalorian rock-lion, with a handful of key differences. For one, it had dark yellow fur and a red mane that was styled like a rock lion, but it also had wings on its back and a much longer and sharper tail. Two intimidatingly sized white fangs stuck out of its mouth, seemingly glittering in the light. And its black irises were firm and predators like as they locked onto Strider's helmet.

"What in the gods… " Strider commented out loud, not recognising this creature from any of the logs he'd memorised on Kamino.

Just before he could fire, the creature sprang forward with another burst of speed, claws outstretched towards him. Strider rolled to his right, just narrowly avoiding the attack by the skin of his armor plating. He rose back up into a crouching position and fired, sending a neon blue bolt of plasma right into the creature’s exposed left shoulder.

It howled in pain, but recovered much quicker than Strider had anticipated. Before he knew it, the creature was pouncing on him again, only this time it hit its target. Strider found himself pinned to the ground, his blaster stuck lying sideways on his stomach against the creature’s body. Claws met plastoid alloy, and luckily the armor plating proved enough to protect the troopers skin from what would have been a deadly slash otherwise.

However, Strider was still pinned and unable to either move or fire as his hands were stuck under the blaster. Only his head was relatively free, able to move as he pleased. But that was all the trooper needed in the moment, and he found himself focusing his helmets lights on one of the creatures eyes. It let out another roar and stumbled back a bit, its sight momentarily lost in a blinding white light.

Because of the creature’s miniscule backpedaling, he was given just enough room to maneuver his hand back over the blaster’s trigger, which was pulled not a second later. Another plasma bolt struck the creature, this time in its stomach. It stumbled back even harder, giving Strider enough room to crawl backwards a bit and get back on his feet.

The trooper took aim at the creature’s head, but its sharp tail made a sudden slicing motion which caught the blasters barrel. The rifle was flung to the left, before the tail changed targets and shot towards him. He barely had enough time to dodge, its pointed end just grazing his armor.

The creature kept up the pressure, switching from its tail back to its claws halfway through. Strider was forced to continuously weave and dodge, each strike coming closer than the last.

Strider ducked under a right claw swipe, then rolled to his right to avoid the left swipe. But he wasn’t able to recover fast enough, and found himself getting struck by the right claw. The impact sent him flying into a nearby tree, knocking the wind clear out of him. He fell to the ground like a rock, gasping under his helmet for breath.

Strider struggled to get back on his feet, but by then the creature had already gotten back in striking distance. It slashed both its claws against his chest, chipping parts of the plating away. It wasn’t nearly enough to worry about, but it was still damage to his armor.

Strider eyed the DC-15A which was now more than half a dozen feet away from his grasp, with a very angry beast standing between himself and the blaster. He was also incredibly aware of the fact that the backup blaster pistol was at the bottom of the backpack still on him, meaning he couldn't just reach around and grab it. Luckily, when he crashed into the tree, a broken branch had been knocked free for its spot resting between two other attached branches. It landed next to him, and was immediately grabbed and held like a makeshift spear at the creature, who didn't seem deterred by the troopers actions.

The creature began circling Strider, faint growls escaping its mouth as it took in the sight of the strange creature once more. Strider did the same, making sure to keep his grip on the branch tight in preparation for an attack. Then, the beast pounced onto Strider, the seemingly sizable branch getting snapped in half from its weight.

Strider was quickly pinned back on the ground, the beast smiling at the sight of its snack getting trapped. Strider looked around for anything he could use, only for his eyes to lock onto the DC-15A which was now lying right next to him. He made a frantic grab for the blaster, only for his arm to get caught by one of the creature’s paws.

The beast leaned down towards Strider's helmet, its mouth opening in preparation to claim its meal. Instead, it was met with a headbutt that slammed right against one of its fangs. The fang cracked, sending streaks of pain into the creature's mouth. It moved away from Strider and held up a paw to its now cracked fang, before it glared at the trooper once more.

Strider scrambled back to his feet, grabbing the blaster rifle and pointing it at the beast. However, before he could fire it again, a rather familiar looking wooden wolf-like creature emerged from the underbrush, its lime green eyes taking in the scene. The wolf spotted the wounded beast, then the trooper, its mind wondering whether or not it would be worth hunting it.

After deciding it wouldn't pass up this meal, it advanced on the trooper, its wooden paws crunching dry leaves below them. Strider squeezed the trigger, and another blue plasma bolt shot through the area. It struck the wooden wolf in the leg, which shattered into several bits and pieces on impact as well as sending the wolf to the ground.

The yellow furred beast quickly vanished into the underbrush, not wanting to lose its other fang. Not to mention avoid getting hit again by whatever that blue stuff was. That left Strider with a few moments to let the adrenaline die down a bit. That was, until the wood making up the wolf suddenly became engulfed in a lime green aura. Much to his shock, the broken pieces began re-attaching themselves on the wolf's leg, returning it to its original status before getting struck by the plasma bolt.

Strider took aim again at the wolf, ready to blast it to pieces again, but stopped when two more wolves emerged behind the original one. So, he instead took off in the opposite direction of them, taking a few shots at them when he got the chance.

The wolves quickly gave chase, weaving through the trees and around the blue projectiles they now knew were quite lethal. Strider's leg was also working in the wolves favor, aching more and more as the trooper tried to pick up speed in an attempt to escape his pursuers.

Strider ducked between two arched trees and took a sharp left, before he came across a large patch of blue flowers. He was about to run through them, but halted in his tracks when giving them another once-over. Something about them, just seemed wrong. Whether or not it was the moonlight reflecting off of them, or their icy blue coloring. It felt like a trap, something that would lead him into an even worse situation. He already didn't have any information on the wolves chasing him, nor these flowers which might be poisonous, even with his armor on. So he scanned the area for a bridge of some sorts.

His eyes rested on a fallen tree whose trunk managed to reach the other side of the field, a perfect natural bridge. He made his way onto the fallen tree and rushed across it, managing to keep his balance up until reaching the other end. Upon landing back on solid ground once more, he quickly took up a defensive position behind a couple of large rocks.

His previous assumption proved to be the right call, as the wolves halted their chase upon spotting the patch of blue flowers. They paced back and forth a bit on the other side, possibly looking for a clear path through the field. Upon finding so such path, the trio of wolves turned around and dashed back into the underbrush, vanishing from view.

With the knowledge of his hunters giving up, Strider let out a sigh of relief and stood up from his crouching defensive position. However, his leg once again made itself known by sending streaks of pain throughout itself. The trooper stumbled over towards a tree and leaned against it for a couple seconds, catching his breath and letting his leg settle back down again.

As it turns out, getting chased through a forest by three predatorial beasts isn’t good for a hurting leg. But he still needed to get out of there, so he cut his breaktime short and began walking again.

Strider's body seemingly went into autopilot as he went, his mind wandering to other places as a result of exhaustion. Hopefully that chase had gotten him closer to the edge of this forest, and not farther away from it. He desperately needed to find some civilization now, or at least someplace to rest safely and treat his leg. Hopefully there’d be a town somewhere in sight once he got out.

Through pure determination and strength, the clone managed to not only continue walking throughout the entire night, but find the end of the forest. Trees grew further apart, if only slightly. This continued until a massive plain made itself visible, one that seemed to stretch on for miles. And as luck would have it, he spotted a nearby cottage just a short distance away.

Yet even with his goal in sight, his body was begging for him to stop. He didn’t want to, he really didn’t. But against his own wishes, he found himself lying against one of the farther out trees.

Maybe, just a quick rest wouldn’t hurt.

Strider was out like a light in seconds after that thought, simply letting the cost of his journey steer him into the world of slumber...

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