AN: Sorry for the wait! This chapter is shorter than most, I'm still trying to get back into the swing of writing after leaving it for 5 months. Again, huge thanks to Coincidencless for Beta-Reading!
Kaisa slowly came to, lying on the floor of the escape pod. The mental fog slowly clearing, he suddenly flinched back from the radio in front of him. That sound, the grating robotic screeches. And whatever that thing said, about 'new subjects' and 'hunting', was quite evidently targeted towards him.
Pulling himself up to the chair, a soft blip coming from his PDA distracted him from his thoughts. Giving the device a quick swipe revealed a full transcript of the message, complete with garbled text and all, serving only to further prove his suspicions. Mustering his courage, Kaisa gingerly peered through the porthole attached to the underside of the pod. He was positive that he saw a flash of purple beneath him, but upon closer inspection, whatever it was had disappeared. Simply putting it down to paranoia from the transmission, Kaisa once again pulled open the hatch and dove down into the depths.
According to his fabricator, he required a sheet of silicon rubber to create a knife, which in turn required a few Creepvine Seed Clusters. A simple sweep of the eyes revealed said clusters within some sort of kelp forest. As he neared the tangle of vines an inhuman growling slowly became audible, increasing in volume the closer he swam.
He pulled as many seeds as he could fit in his storage from the vine and then turned to swim back to the pod. As he did so, something purple shot from the kelp behind him, its teeth ripping cleanly through the side of his arm and releasing a cloud of blood. Kaisa released a muffled scream, sending a kick that landed solidly on the head of the long-nosed creature in his panic. Something shiny flew out of its mouth and lodged itself in the sand, but he paid no heed to that. All he cared about was getting away as quickly as his suit allowed.
Kaisa frantically swam away, the thing seemingly reluctant to leave the safety of the kelp. Once back at the pod he pulled a medkit from the respective station and applied the bandages held inside, the chemicals contained on top immediately setting to work. Letting out a sigh of relief as the fluid congealed over the wound and the anesthetic kicked in, he was also happy to see that the suit itself had self-repaired as expected, albeit slower than what he was comfortable with. What really mattered was the knife. Even this most basic of weapons gave him some form of comfort, or the idea of an ounce of control, or just something familiar. He never realized how much he needed something he recognized, something from his past life.
Once his arm was recovered sufficiently to be used for swimming once again, Kaisa ventured out once more in search of materials for a battery. These were surprisingly easy to get, so he had a scanner in no time. From there, a whole plethora of information was opened to him. Almost everything he could see had something about them to be told, Flora and Fauna alike. The one-eyed fish were called 'Peepers', and were edible. As were Boomerang fish and Bladderfish could be used to make filtered water. Garyfish were salty, Hoverfish were chewy, Rays were poisonous. The facts may not have been good, but they were useful. Kaisa's survival began to seem just that bit more likely
Xelicic was relieved when he heard movement from the bulb once again. The thought that he had managed to scare the creature to death had only recently occurred to him, and thankfully never came to be. Seeing it approach the bubble on the underside of the bulb, his instincts kicked in and he near instantly warped away to the kelp forest and from there, the mushroom forest. Here he was greeted by around three Shockers, circling him in a slightly fearful manner until one of them asked, "Are you the living one?"
He rolled all four eyes, promptly dismissing their concerns by actually providing a reply, as opposed to the response his lesser counterparts would give. "Yes, I'm the living one. I'm not going to kill any of you." This was a question he was commonly asked by the sapient species, as there wasn't exactly an outside factor to differentiate Enforcers from each other apart from size, and even that was a stretch.
They all visibly relaxed, the circling ceasing and the patterns flashing across their prongs slowing down. Xelicic would have greeted them if he was able to, but names weren't exactly easy when they consisted purely of patterns of lights. Questions flashed across the prongs of all three Fauna. "What… What happened to the Wide Dunes? What is the Space-Swimmer doing in the water? Why is it bigger than the first one? Xeli, we want answers."
Xelicic shrugged, responding with an honest answer. "I don't know. It did something to the Wide Dunes; I don't know what. Just, stay away from it. I don't know what it's done, but I can't risk it being something similar to the green illness." All three of the Shockers grudgingly agreed, the risk overcoming natural curiosity for now.
Once they felt that all their questions had been answered, the Shockers quickly lost interest in Xelicic and began the swim back to their respective territories. With almost perfect timing, Melatisma burst into existence with a panicked look in her eyes. "Xeli, the… the swimmer landed on…" Her voice cut out suddenly with a shudder, both tentacles whipping the water into a frenzy in her upset.
Xelicic swam forwards and rested his blade on hers in an attempt to calm her. "Mel, just slow down. Tell me what you saw." He clicked in a soft tone. Seeing Melatisma this distraught was incredibly rare; even after some of the most brutal periods of Hunting he'd ever experienced. She was always calm, always collected. None of those words described the creature in front of him.
She released a shrill screech of distress, barely managing to say between all the clicks and screeches "Just… Look," before warping away. Xelicic followed, suddenly freezing in place as he looked upon what was in front of him. Where his home used to sit, where he and Meli had spent countless hours together, the place he had spent so long nurturing, was gone. Obliterated, crushed by the hunk of metal stretching towards the horizon. The Wide Dunes was completely wiped out, the occasional rise in sand was the only indicator of what the biome used to be. Pieces of metal scattered the area, with far larger chunks of the Swimmer seemingly broken off and lying around the dunes.
A look at the faces of both Warpers would have shown only pain. Looking to each other, they gently embraced one's head on the shoulder of the other, their arms wrapped around each other and blades lying flat on the other's cloak.
"Meli, it's okay, we can get past this. We just have to learn to live with it," Xelicic clicked quietly to her
"I know. It's just that - "Melatisma's voice cut out in a sob. Intertwining tentacles, they slowly sank to the seabed where they stayed, grieving for the memories and home they had lost.
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