'Thou shalt not kill members of our gang, but everyone else is fair game'

-Margaret Mead, The Lucifer Principle

When a Daggerwrist winds up in Happy Tree Town, and he proclaims himself supreme ruler, Sniffles is in for a rude awakening about aliens in another world.

Google 'Darwin IV' or 'Daggerwrist Darwin IV' to see a picture of the Daggerwrist, if you haven't seen one.

In a Plaque-bark Forest near the Equitorial Mountain chain, there lived a troupe of forest was one of Darwin IV's only forests, and local animals knew it. Up in the highest canopies, a particularly small Daggerwrist named Black-Dagger was lounging on one of the pole shaped branches. He was named Black-Dagger for his primal compluse to use his daggers to kill anything that bothers him. In any society on Earth, such violent behavior is frowned upon, while in Dagger-wrist society, it is held to a godly level.

A swirling blue and purple vortex opens up near a grove of bladderweeds floating above the canopy. Black-Dagger assumes a defensive position, daggers sunk into the branch of the plaque-bark tree. He fake hisses, and the blades on his back arch up. The vortex refused to bend to Black-Dagger's will. He leaped up, spreading his gliding membranes, and aims his daggers directly at the swirling center. Instead of meeting a entelechy of flesh and blood, he flew straight through, and collided with a plexiglas wall. His head snaked around, searching the fascade of plastic infront of him for an exit. He pings slowly, each sonic wave bouncing of the plexiglas. The sound of fingers tapping on a keyboard startles Black-Dagger into a frenzy, daggers swinging aroud, lower jaw trying to impale a non-existant prey item. Black-Dagger had no idea what was happening, but he had no intention of letting it kill him.


Sniffles watches the alien beast spaz out on the other side of the plexiglas. He could plainly see what a fit of confusion the beast was in, and he typed a code into the computer that would introduce a sedating agent. An azure gas fills the chamber. What a beast, Sniffles thought to himself. I am the first scientist to witness alien life, although not the first to find it. After a comprehensive anatomical examination, Sniffles types in coordinates for a pair of mechanical arms to install a device of communications into the beast. As a man of science, he knew senses made a species intelligent. Due to the apparent lack of eyes and external ears, Sniffles implanted a system that translates visual and optical cues into wavelengths readable by an animal using sonar as it's primary sense. If the beast was truly intelligent, then it would quickly adapt and use the system to understand the new environment.

...

Sniffles walked by it everyday, to see what the beast did with itself. He sat at a stool examining the beast. It seemed to examine Sniffles as well. Watching him intently, even when bobbing his head side to side. Sniffles notice that the beast's supposed head was actually a cranium, and a psuedo-jaw supported by tubes running from above it's breast. Over the few weeks Sniffles had Black-Dagger in his captivity, Sniffles fed him a slab of goat daily, gave it water daily, and even checked the communication system weekly, but nothing provoked the Dager-wrist to interact with Sniffles.

On day 21, Sniffles glared at the Dagger-wrist one last time. If the Dagger-wrist wasn't responding in the three weeks it was held captive, it might not be able to speak at all, and it should be returned to it's home planet. Sniffles turns away, depressed. "Blue one, turn your visage towards me. I demand to see you speak to me."

Sniffles turns around, awestruck. "That's a good Terroan. Now free me so I may return to my mate, you CHON variant." the Dagger-wrist commands.

"Did you speak to me?" Sniffles asks.

"Let me out." He demands, ignoring the question posed by the blue anteater.

"Did you not here my inquiry?" Sniffles demands.

"Fine, I shall free myself then, Terroan." Black-Dagger humphs, embedding his daggers through the plexiglas. He presses down hard on the fascade, and it shatters.

And that ishow Black-Dagger escaped.