Why Doesn't Gravity Work?!
Cheetu flicked the white thing away with his tail boredly. He was sprawled in the shade of one of the few trees in the savannah. The Chimera Ant liked running; the speed he was able to accomplish is a rush. He chortled at his pun. He didn't nearly like going this slow, but he'd been ordered by that lion to head off anyone trying to make an escape towards West Gorteau. This was definitely one of the most boring jobs he ever had in his short lifespan; the prey didn't put up enough of a fight. He glanced at the worn path a few meters away.
A figure flew past him, kicking up dust from their speed. He could hear them land in a controlled manner, and the sound of long hair whistle through the air die as they slowed down. They smelled female, and Cheetu couldn't help the nasty grin on his face. He loved hunting women.
When the dust settled, he saw his prey. She looked like those humans from those tall shiny buildings with not a wrinkle in her black fake fur. She was looking at something in her hand, and that thing was giving off a pitch that bothered his ears. What did humans call them again? Phony? Yeah, that sounded right. She swiped her finger across the surface after a quick glance at him. Why the hell was she ignoring him? She should at least be doing the same things the humans did when he was in one of their settlements. Screaming their heads off.
"Did you know your entire species has been ordered to be eliminated?" The woman asked idly as she swiped again with a glance. He had no clue where she was going with this. Her reaction had thrown him off balance, and not even in the infuriating way that smoke guy did. "The only survivors are going to be the ones spared by the Punitive Branch." She continued uncaringly before he could respond. "Unfortunately for you, I am not a member of that division." Cheetu watched her pocket her phony, and slide into a defensive stance with the sense that he was being insulted somehow.
"If you're able to hit me, I'll introduce myself."
It was official: this woman was worse than that smoke guy. He was going to enjoy ripping her to pieces. Cheetu batted the white thing towards her with his tail, and the moment that he was sure her vision was obscured, he sped at her with his fist raised. The Chimera Ant expected his attack to miss, or that it wouldn't have an effect on her. He could see that she had a similar aura to that smoke guy, so he would have a second attack ready when the first failed. So it was a surprise to watch this human fly back with his punch.
His ears twitched. The noise she made when landing was the same as when she got here, but it looked like she was uncontrolled in the air. No, he glanced quickly at his hand still balled into a fist, she managed to do something in the split second to go almost as fast as his attack, canceling out the power he had put into his punch. How did she do that? She was one of those rare humans- what's her ability? Speed? If that was the case, this fight might be more interesting than he thought.
The human finally stood up, brushing dust from her pencil skirt. "That was lucky. I would have gotten ruptured internal organs with that punch. You telegraphed enough for me to prepare." She said with a smile.
Cheetu sneered. "Thanks for the lesson, but you're gonna die in my next attack!" He hopped back and forth on the balls of his feet. "I'm the fastest out there, and you won't see it coming."
She nodded agreeably. "That's true." Cheetu frowned in confusion. Was this human giving up? That's no fun. "Up!" The human commanded with a suddenly stern face. Something was wrong, he felt strange. What did she do to him? Cheetu jumped back. Only he didn't touch the ground again. He looked down to see the worn path below him. He was slowly floating upwards. "But that won't matter if there's nothing for you to use your speed on. This fight goes to me. "
He was still floating higher, and no matter how foolish he felt, he tried to swim back down. His attempt only managed to halt his progress towards the sky. It also made the female laugh. He really hated her guts. "You suck!" He cried out petulantly, paddling faster and not any closer to the ground. Even his hair was floating!
"Hey! If I were to let you go, what would you do?" The woman called up from below after a few minutes. Cheetu's ears perked up.
"Really? You would?" He said excitedly. Maybe this human wasn't that bad. He stopped paddling, and flicked the white thing away again.
"If you give the humans you've killed a proper burial, and not kill any more- yeah." She responded with a pointed look at the not-so-hidden pit next to the tree Cheetu had been lounging beneath earlier. Oops.
The Chimera Ant scratched his head sheepishly. "What's a proper burial then?" Was there a special way for their dead? He thought they just put them in the dirt to let something else eat them. It was different from how the other ants handle their dead; they just ate everything, and left what was left to the lower ranks to finish off.
He watched the female give him a measuring gaze. "Individually buried gently with care and respect for their bodies, and a marker of some sort above ground to indicate their final resting place." She said without looking away. "Agreed?"
Cheetu thought about it for a bit. There were a lot of bodies in the hole he had made, he should know. But if he didn't, this human would use her rare ability to kill him somehow. He was lucky to get a chance at all, seeing how the female had started the fight and all. He sighed, "I hate doing work, but I'll do it."
And that was how he ended up working for Riakke… Sort of.
"Hey Morel! Do you remember that call you gave me a couple days ago?" Cheetu listened to the female chirp into the Phony. He could hear someone spluttering from the end of the annoying device through the high pitch it kept whistling. "Yeah, about that. I'm going to need an excuse as to why I'm bringing a plus-one back with me." There was a long pause where this strange human gave him a playful grin.
"WHAT?" crackled out from the end of the Phony. Cheetu's ear twitched. His paws were raw and bleeding from digging the many graves, hauling large stones from wherever he could find them, and using his talons to etch strange shapes into the stone again and again. He just wanted to call it a day and collapse in his tunnel. But he didn't want to chance getting killed for running away, he had a feeling the female could float him in the air whenever she wanted, so that option was out. He fell back on the packed ground of the desert as he listened to the human's conversation.
"I said I-"
"I heard what you said! You better have a damn good explanation for this Riakke!"
At least he wasn't going to be bored...
((A/N: Okay, so I might have been sitting on this one for a year or so... (Because I just couldn't get the ending to this chapter/one-shot *haven't decided yet* right) And I once again jumped fandoms again since I got stuck in the others. But I couldn't help myself! Cheetu definitely did not deserve to die like that (whoops, spoilers!) and I am going to change that right here!
On a final note, Riakke is a cannon character! (Genderbent, and unknown abilities aside) You'll see a reference to him about seventeen minutes into episode 99 of the more recent version of HunterXHunter.))
