November 9th, 4378:
"ALERT. ALERT. ALL HANDS TO BATTLE STATIONS. THIS IS NOT A DRILL."
The loud sirens on the Ark blared out into the civilian sector. On instinct, people began to panic. The space outside the window came alive as human and alien fighters shot their high-powered lasers back-and-forth, like a dogfight in WWI. The ship's defenses fired away at some of the alien horde, while some fired at much larger ships, which were the source of the alien fighters.
Hours pass, and the Ark was rocked with a multitude of explosions, all caused by the alien armada. The defenses were destroyed, humanity's last fighters were vanquished, their demolished husks floating away from the scene. The bigger alien ships concentrated their fire on the Ark, who's shields have gone down long before the fighters were destroyed. The emergency pods were activated in the military and civilian sector. People rushed to get to them, but gunfire began to sound throughout the ship in both sectors. Alien commandos had entered the ship, blasting away at the soldiers and killing any civilian that dared to fight back. The soldiers concentrated in the civilian sector, setting up defensive positions to keep the commandos out while helping to escort people into the pods.
Six citizens emerged from the crowd, being escorted to two pods by a few soldiers. One pod could fit three each, and there were enough to fit what was left of humanity. One of them, a little girl, was crying her eyes out, but no noises emerged from her mouth. The oldest, a woman with red hair, tried to keep the two going with her, the young girl and a boy, calm. The other three had to go without an adult, which made some of the soldiers wince.
Pods began to shoot out of the Ark, flying off at speeds the alien ships couldn't catch. But, by the time the six's pods escaped, the Ark exploded, splitting in half, causing all the air to escape. All humans on deck lost oxygen, dying almost instantly. Overall, only twenty-one pods managed to escape. Any human that survived were taken as prisoners by the aliens.
As the two pods went their separate ways, one of them flew into a new star system, one held by a M2 V Red Dwarf. Passing by two ice planets, dodging large asteroids in the only belt it had, getting a gravitational assist from the system's only gas giant, and passing another three rocky planets before its trajectory focused on the last planet, the closest to the star. Despite being so close, the three inside could tell it looked to similar to Earth, except with rings.
Their pod raced into the atmosphere. The pod lit aflame as it went farther and farther down towards the planet. After a few minutes, it finally broke through, crashing into a lush, green rainforest. The three inside were told to wait as the pod took samples and scanned the whole planet. The hatch finally opened, steam escaping as the pressure stabilized. The three people inside stumbled out, visibly shaken by the ordeal.
One of them was a boy with dark grey hair, light skin, bright brown eyes, glasses, and wears a black dress shirty and dark blue pants. He had forgotten to take socks and shoes with him, which sucks. The other boy of the group had tan skin and dyed pale lavender hair, and he wore a black baseball cap, a red dress shirt, and brown, baggy shorts with just as brown shoes. The last person was a girl. She also had dyed hair that hung down in two long braids, but it was a deep blue. She had emerald-looking eyes, glasses also included, and slightly lighter skin then the boy with the cap. She wore a bright green dress skirt, a white undershirt, grey stockings and gloves, brown shoes, and a pair of white ear muffs hang around her neck.
They were disoriented, but managed to regain their bearings after a quick stagger.
"You guys alright?" One of the boys asks with a heavy Russian accent.
"Yeah, I guess," the other boy tells him with a Hispanic accent. The girl only nods her head.
"Okay...well, we don't know each other that much. I'm Olenev," the original boy introduces himself.
"I'm Dylan, nice to meet you," the other boy introduces himself, holding his hand out to shake with Olenev's. The two boys look at the girl, waiting for her to introduce herself.
"...Takeda," she finally tells them. Her voice had a Japanese accent to it.
"With that out of way...where are we," Olenev questions.
"Well, it obvious that were not on Earth. Sure, it looks like it but Earth's been a desert for a long time. We wouldn't be able to fint this here," Dylan replies. Olenev heads into the pod, apparently looking for something. Dylan wonders what he was doing, until he comes out with a med-pack and a backpack, which he assumes was full of other important stuff, like food and flashlights.
"Alright. We should be looking for shelter. We have no idea what's out here, and there could be a big possibility we could be attacked by some super-predator," Olenev suggests.
"Wait, does that mean we have to build our own shelter!?"
"Uh...yeah. Lets go guys," Olenev tells them. He walks off, Dylan soon following behind him. However, Takeda stayed put. Olenev and Dylan stop and turn around to look at her. "Hey! Lets go!"
Takeda stayed still. Dylan and Olenev approached her. Dylan waved his hat in front of her face, but she continued staring up into the sky. Dylan put his hat on and followed her gaze, along with Olenev. What they saw gave them the reason why she wasn't moving.
In the sky was a giant, insectoid creature with four giant wings, a bendy mouth, one large eye that stretched to meet in the middle of its head, and a spike at the end of its tail. How could it fly with it being so massive? They didn't know. It kept opening and closing its mouth, as if it was breathing, but they weren't too sure. Olenev wished he had his camera, but he left it on the Ark. They finally broke off their gaze as the creature flew, or should I say hovered, behind a large hill. Olenev put a hand on Takeda's shoulder, telling her it was time to leave. She nodded, and turned around.
Only to come face-to-face with a set of teeth covered in saliva.
All three of them yelped in surprise and quickly backed away from the mouth, which soon took the form of a cow-sized reptile that looked similar to the Komodo Dragon, except with small, beady eyes, large frills, and a short, stubby tail covered in spines. The predator broke into a sprint, causing the three to run the other direction.
"Its just like that alien movie, but much more terrifying!" Dylan spouted as he held his hat close to his chest. Takeda noticed a large tree, with grooves deep enough that she could slip up the tree no problem. She jumped onto it and started climbing. Seeing her, Dylan and Olenev followed her up the tree. The three managed to get up to the branches before the predator caught up to them. It sniffed the tree before looking up at the three.
"Haha! Take that you...thing! You can't climb!" Dylan insulted the creature. The creatures response was to open its frills, which creating a shrilling his before it spat out a lob of its saliva at him. Dylan ducked just in time for it to splatter onto a large branch behind him.
"Gosh darn it Dylan! You angered it!" Olenev shouted at him.
"How was I supposed to know it was gonna pull a Jurassic Park!" As the two argued, Takeda noticed a vine that stretched to another tree. She poked the twos backs to get their attention. Without saying anything, she pointed towards the vine. She slowly approached the vine, grabbing it with both hands before she slid down it, landing on a branch on the other tree. Olenev and Dylan followed suit, but didn't expect the creature to fire its spines right at them. One of the spines almost launched Dylan's hat off from his head, but it luckily missed. The two finally reached the tree, but the predator caught up to them. It silently watched the three, which looked at it with confusion and fear. That was when Olenev felt a sharp pain in his leg. Looking down, he could see that one of the spines got a lucky hit.
"Oh...that's great," he whispers.
"We need to wait until that creature goes away before we can work on it. One of us may accidentally drop it and get eaten by the thing when we go to retrieve it," Takeda says.
For the next few hours, the creature waited, settling itself comfortably on the ground, waiting for his dinner to come down. At the same time, Olenev passed out due to the pain. Seeing how nothing was getting done, Takeda finally decided to try and pull out the spike. She worked slowly, not trying to alert both Olenev and the predator. Before she could finally pull it out, the pain suddenly returned, and Olenev let out a pained scream, which woke up the creature. She put her hand over his mouth, putting a finger to her lips. He let out more muffled screams and yelps as she finally loosened the spine from his leg and pulled it out. Dylan reached for the medkit, taking out bandages that he handed over to Takeda. She wrapped Olenev's leg in it before a noise below caught their attention.
The creature finally lost patience, and was proceeding to clamber up the tree. Dylan gasped in shock and tried to go higher in the tree, but Takeda flew down another vine, carrying Olenev with him. Dylan followed after. The creature finally got to the top, only to see the three sliding down the vine. A scowl formed across its face, before it used its claw to cut the vine.
The three screamed as they hit the ground, which lit up in a beautiful array of blues and greens. Takeda shook her head as Dylan searched for his hat. He finally fount it, only to see it crushed under the predator's foot. He yelped and backed away as it began its approach. Its frills opened back up again, making the shrilling noise from before. Seeing as how it would catch them if they were to run away, Dylan and Olenev hugged Takeda tight in fear, causing her to blush. Before it pounced on them, a large, wood-like structure came out of nowhere, slamming into the beast and sending it flying. When the creature hit a wall, it shook its head and roared, only to be surrounded by a wooden cage created by the same structure.
Taking the opportunity, Dylan picked up Olenev and he and Takeda ran off.
"What...was that?" Olenev asked them.
"I don't know, amigo. I never thought the trees here were sentient," Dylan joked.
"Lets...just find a hole in a tree. It would be easier right now than to build a shelter," Olenev told them.
For the next hour, the three looked around the rainforest. They finally come across a giant tree. This tree was so large in fact, that it dwarfed the hill the flying creature went behind. Its leaves looked more temperate than tropical, but they didn't care. They soon found a hole in the tree, and went inside.
It was dark, but it would at least keep them out of the way of predators and bad weather. Dylan gathered sticks, making a fire that illuminated the inside of the hole. Dylan was sad that he lost his family and hat on the same day, along with the other two. Now that they could actually think without being eaten by large predators, they began to reminisce about the Ark and their families. Did they make it? Olenev was beginning to think that his didn't, since he didn't see them anywhere.
As darkness falls, a rainstorm wandered into the area. As the rain created a sort of soothing sound to them, Olenev and Dylan laid their head on a log that Dylan fount and went to sleep. Takeda didn't want to sit with them, so she laid her head on a much smaller log. She put her ear muffs on, and finally went to sleep. They hoped tomorrow was a much better day.
From the shadows outside the hole, something observed the three. It slowly emerged, revealing a human!? She had coily chestnut hair, round blue eyes, what looked to be diagonal lines painted across her left eye, and she stood at seven feet, making her tower over the three, who stood at only five foot nine. A small smile formed across her face, knowing her work is done for the night.
And then her body starts morphing, until she finally emerged as an Earth tree...specifically an oak.
IT'S DONE! YES! Alright, I hope you enjoyed.
This story was a request from Gabriel, who suggested the idea after hearing about Scoria 34 and how the twenty to twenty-one pods could've opened up whole other stories. I don't really understand why he wanted mythical beings though...
Anyways, this is Sporedude135, signing off...