"Are we there yet?" Sprx's annoying whining cut through Gibson's concentration and he looked up, annoyed.
"Obviously, we are not there yet," Gibson growled. He sighed and turned back to the path. The jungle around them was teeming with life, loud birds and animals that seemed to be everywhere, yet the two of them could see none of them.
Chiro had given permission for Gibson to come explore the tiny planetoid as long as he had taken someone else with him, and unfortunately, everyone else was busy, so Gibson had been forced to ask Sprx.
They were searching for a mineral deposit that Gibson believed might reside underneath the asteroid's crust, but so far his scanner hadn't picked up on anything. They had only been on the planet for two hours, yet Sprx was already bored and getting on Gibson's last nerve.
"What are we even looking for again?" Sprx asked.
"A mineral called valerium," Gibson answered. "If we can find enough, I may be able to find a way to convert it into fuel for the Super Robot."
"This is so boring," Sprx complained, making no acknowledgement that he had even heard what Gibson had said. "Can I go back to the Robot?"
"Fine," Gibson snapped. "Go. But if Chiro gets mad, it's your own fault."
Sprx ignored him and fired up his rocket pack, flying up above the cover of the trees and back to where the Fist Rockets were parked. Gibson continued walking, glad for the silence. He smiled as he walked farther into the jungle, not realising that he had strayed from the almost nonexistent path that he had found.
It was never this quiet in the Super Robot except at night when everyone was sleeping. The silence was nice, it soothed Gibson's frayed nerves and he was finally able to hear his own thoughts.
The smile slipped off of Gibson's face and he stopped moving. It was silent. It was completely, utterly silent. What had happened to all the animals? He had been on enough jungle planets to know that when the birds stopped crying, something dangerous was coming. And if every living thing within a one mile radius was quiet, it must be bad.
He headed back towards the Fist Rockets, his inner compass leading him in the right direction even though he had lost the path. The longer the silence stretched on, the more anxious he became until he was running towards his ship.
The scanner whirred to life as Gibson passed a cave and the blue monkey stopped. He was torn. He really, really, really wanted to find at least some of the valerium, but his instincts were telling him that he needed to get back to the Super Robot. The scientist in him won out and he walked over to the cave.
It was pitch black inside despite the fading sunlight peeking over the horizon, but Gibson didn't need the light to see. He walked inside cautiously, drills out and ready. A soft glowing near the back of the cave drew his attention, and he moved towards it. His scanner was going nuts and he hastily turned it off so it didn't attract whatever he had sensed in the jungle.
The glowing turned out to be a huge deposit of valerium, the crystals letting out a strange light as they lay nestled in the walls of the cave. He pulled out his map of the planet and marked where the deposit was. There was too much to carry by himself, so he'd go back to the Robot and get some help.
Excited and impatient, he flew out of the cave with his rocket pack. He was so absorbed in his thoughts that he didn't notice the huge leg swinging towards him until it knocked him roughly down to the ground.
Gibson lay winded, gasping for breath as he looked at the thing that had attacked him. It was a huge insect, at least twelve feet tall and twenty feet long. It looked to be a cross between a spider and a centipede. It had hundreds of tiny legs and six huge ones near the front. Eight eyes lay on top of its head, and giant pincers protruded from its mouth.
His blood turned to ice and he was frozen. It moved towards him and raised another leg, and that was the shock Gibson needed to move. He jumped backwards, narrowly missing being impaled by the sharp end of the leg. He tried to fly again, but the landing must have damaged his rocket pack.
He looked with wide eyes as the creature kept coming, screeching and clawing madly at him. He turned and ran for his life, firing various lasers from his drills over his shoulders. At least some of them hit their mark, if the pained screeches from the bug were any indicator. He tried to freeze it in place, but his freeze ray seemed to have no effect except to make it even madder.
He ran faster, trying to find somewhere to hide when he felt something sticky latch onto his arm. He looked at it and felt his heart rate spike when he saw a huge spiderweb clinging to his fur. The creature grabbed it with two of his legs and pulled, dragging Gibson to the ground. It continued to pull Gibson towards it, and nothing he did to free himself was working. The web just got more tangled into his fur, and soon he wasn't able to move his arms at all.
He looked up when he was pulled to a stop right in front of the thing. It screeched again and raised one of its legs. Gibson struggled desperately to free himself, but it was futile. The leg swung down and knocked into Gibson. He flew through the air and landed against the side of a tree, hard. He hit the ground and was stunned for a moment. Something warm and wet was running down his fur and he saw a flash of red when he checked. The insect charged at him again and pinned him against the tree with its leg, slowly squeezing him. It wasn't enough to kill him, but it would definitely leave huge bruises.
The spider removed its leg and let him fall, but it struck him again before he could hit the ground. It let out a strange rumbling sound and Gibson realised that it was laughing. The thing was playing with him, like a cat played with a mouse. It had no intention of killing him anytime soon.
The thing circled around him before attacking again and again and again, and by the time it was done Gibson was a mess. He had at least a few broken bones and a concussion, more bruises than he could count (which was incredibly high) and had lost a lot of blood from various cuts all along his body, but none so bad as the gash on his head.
The spider thing crept closer and Gibson could tell that it meant to kill this time. He struggled to stay awake, to try to find something that could help, but he was tired, his head throbbed and his throat hurt from screaming so much. His eyes started to close of their own accord and the last thing he saw before blacking out was a flash of red fur.
()()()
Sprx let out a loud whoop as he flew through the air. The view from so high was incredible! He could see the Super Robot in orbit around the small planet and the Fist Rockets waiting in the clearing where he and Gibson had parked them. He landed lightly, running over to his rocket and getting in. He looked guiltily at Gibson's ship but pushed down the guilt and started his ship.
It flew into the air and Sprx decided to stay on the planet until Gibson was done. He hated to admit it, but Gibson was right (as usual). CHiro would be furious if they found out that he had left his brother alone. So he'd wait until Gibson came back, they would go back to the Robot together, and no one would ever know. It was genius!
He flew around in the air, performing complicated flips and spirals and dives. He was actually pulling out of one such dive when he noticed it. He flew closer to get a better look. Crawling through the forest was a huge spider-like monster. It had huge fangs, lots of legs and eight eyes on the top of its head.
Sprx felt a jolt of worry. The thing was practically silent as it ran through the trees and Gibson was all alone on the ground. He shook his head to clear it. Gibson would be fine, he had his rocket pack and drills. Sprx let his Fist Rocket hover in the air and climbed on top of it. The wind whipped through his fur and threatened to push him off of his Rocket, but that was exactly what he wanted.
With a yell of delight, he jumped off of the Rocket and plummeted towards the ground. At the last second he fired up his rocket pack and landed on the top of a tree. He grinned at his frantically beating heart and looked back to where he had last seen the spider creature, intent on teasing the thing while he waited for his little brother to finish, but it was gone. Sprx frowned. There was no way that it could move fast enough to get out of his line of sight in such a short amount of time.
A loud pain-filled scream cut through the relative quiet of the jungle and Sprx felt his heart drop. He recognised that voice. He jumped off of the tree and flew towards where he had last seen the creature, screams permeating the air every few seconds. Luckily, it had left a relatively easy to follow trail and within minutes Sprx found it.
The thing was standing above Gibson, though the blue monkey was almost unrecognizable. His fur was almost entirely covered in red and his arm stuck out in an odd angle. He wasn't moving and the creature was raising its leg, preparing to deal the deathblow. Sprx's heart stopped for a second and before he was aware of what he was doing, he had swooped in and grabbed Gibson just as the leg crashed to the ground right where he had been laying.
The bug screeched in anger and followed, but Sprx was too high for it to grab. He headed to his Fist Rocket, still hovering obediently where Sprx had left it. As quickly as he could, he opened the top and bundled Gibson inside. The blue monkey didn't stir the entire ride to the Super Robot, and his breathing was sporadic and shallow.
Sprx felt a little bad about leaving Gibson's Rocket, but he had had no choice if he had wanted to get Gibson to safety. He turned on his communicator and sent a transmission to the Super Robot.
"Sprx, what's up?" Otto's voice came through.
"Otto! Gibson's hurt, bad. I need you to prep the medical bay, now."
"On it," he said before the connection cut out. Sprx flew faster and made it to the Super Robot in only a few minutes. He connected his Rocket back to the Robot's arm, and carried Gibson to the med bay. The whole team was waiting by one of the beds when Sprx burst in. He laid Gibson on the bed and Antauri and Otto immediately got to work.
Chiro, Nova and Sprx waited anxiously off to the side. Otto joined them a moment later and sat down in a chair.
"There isn't any damage to his mechanical parts," he said. "All injuries are to his biological body. There's nothing I can do for him."
The four of them watched as Antauri cleaned and bandaged the many large cuts on his body. He wrapped Gibson's head in gauze and set the broken arm. What usually was an incredibly painful procedure didn't even cause the blu monkey to stir, and Sprx felt his worry deepen. How bad was he hurt that he didn't even wake up when his arm was reset?
Finally, his fur was cleaned of the blood, his wounds bandaged and his arm set in a cast. He lay still on his bed, the rising and falling of his chest being the only movement he made. Chiro and Antauri motioned for Sprx to follow them and he did, head hanging low.
"What happened?" Antauri demanded when they were out of earshot of Nova and Otto.
"It was my fault," Sprx mumbled. "I got bored so I left, and then I saw a giant bug monster but I didn't go back for him. And then I heard him scream, and he was like that," he motioned towards the medical bay, "when I got there. I had to leave his Fist Rocket."
"Sprx, I told you to stay together!" Chiro fumed. "This is exactly why you don't split up when in unfamiliar territory. Gibson could have died! He still might!"
Sprx looked up sharply and saw that his leader was completely serious. He opened his mouth to defend himself but all that came out was a strangled "I'm sorry".
"It may be too late for 'sorry'," Antauri said sadly. He wasn't angry like Chiro was, but disappointed, and Sprx felt that it was so much worse. The two of them headed back to where Nova and Otto waited by Gibson's bed and the red monkey went to his room. He closed and locked the door and fell onto his bed. Tears fell from his eyes and Sprx didn't try to stop them.
Gibson could still die, and the last thing they would have said to each other was an argument. This whole thing was his fault and if Gibson woke up, he swore to never fight with him again.
()()()
For three days the Monkey Team was on edge, snapping at each other, fighting over stupid things and wallowing in worry. Then, on the fourth morning, Gibson woke up. Nova was with him when it happened. She watched excitedly as his eyes opened slowly. He blinked and looked right at her. She held her breath, waiting for him to recognize her.
"Nova?" he said, and she nodded. "How did I get here?"
"Sprx brought you back," she told him. "He had to leave your Fist Rocket on the planet, and we're still in orbit until we can send someone to get it back."
He sat up slowly, noting the various injuries on his person. He was a little dizzy and his head throbbed, which meant that he had a concussion like he had feared. Nova handed him a glass of water which he drank gratefully.
"I'll be right back," she told him before running from the room. Not ten minutes later the whole team, minus Sprx, crammed into his room.
"How are you feeling?" Antauri asked.
"Fine, considering," Gibson answered. "Although my concussion begs to differ."
They stayed and fussed over him for a while, bringing him food and books to read while he was bedridden. The whole time, he kept flicking his gaze to the med bay door, not that they could tell, what with his black eyes. He wanted to see Sprx, to thank him for the rescue, but the red monkey never showed.
In fact, Gibson never saw the pilot, even after he was out of bed and had retrieved his Fist Rocket. His arm was still broken and he still had a slight concussion, but he was back to doing experiments and blowing up his lab, and yet Sprx never once crossed paths with him.
A few weeks after they had left the atmosphere of the planetoid with a huge supply of valerium, Gibson came to the conclusion that his older brother was avoiding him. Of course, he didn't like that.
Gibson crept into Sprx's room, sitting down on the bed and waiting. He wasn't there for long before Sprx came in and flicked on the light. He froze and they stared at each other for moment before the red monkey accepted defeat and sat on the bed next to Gibson.
"Why have you been avoiding me?" Gibson asked, and Sprx looked away.
"I couldn't face you," he admitted after a while. "Not when it was my fault that you got hurt so bad."
Gibson's eyes widened a little. "It wasn't your fault, Sprx. You're the one who saved me."
"But if I hadn't left you wouldn't have had to face that thing alone."
Gibson shuddered at the mention of the spider creature. He hated insects. "It wasn't your fault," he said firmly. "If you had been there it could have been both of us who had gotten injured, and I'd much rather it have only been me."
Sprx's mouth opened in shock and he looked up at Gibson. "Why?" he asked. "Why aren't you mad at me?"
"Because you're my big brother and there's no reason for me to be angry with you." He wrapped his arms around the red monkey and Sprx returned the hug. They sat like that for a few moments before pulling apart.
"Thanks," Sprx whispered.
"Thank you for rescuing me," Gibson whispered back. They smiled at each other before Gibson went back to his own lab. Sprx sat on his bed, lost in thought. He would have fallen asleep, but at that moment, a small explosion rocked the Super Robot and he heard Gibson yell a very loud "Fuck!" Sprx smiled.