Alrighty, Chapter 8 up now, lets go guys!
WARNING: brief bloody descriptions that some people may find disturbing.
To describe the ache in Miko's head from the impact as a migraine would be a serious understatement.
Her senses only began to return when she felt someone violently shaking her, the last time that happening within the pod room flooding back to her head. This, and the violent fighting that had taken place, meant that her angry and sudden reaction was not entirely unwarranted given the events that had transpired less than an hour previously.
"AUGH, damn its Zahra!" She yelled out, her arms shoving her friend away. She recognized her teammate's body shape before her face fully formed through her vision, with said face being one of sudden alarm from her aggressive outburst.
"Jesus Christ! Don't have to be so hostile even with the headache. I've just been trying to wake you up for the last minute." She hauled herself back to his legs, brushing off her arms afterwards.
"Sorry, not like I fall from planetary orbit on a daily basis." Miko felt a tinge of guilt, knowing that Zahra, as the support, was doing anything she could to make sure that she wasn't killed from the impact.
Zahra simply smirked in response. "You're not the only one, by the way, you might want to see this."
Miko unstrapped herself from the seat and climbed her way to the back of the pod and passed Haneesh. The door they had entered from was opened from when Phil, Fives, and Zahra had exited.
What greeted her as she poked her head out was a hot and humid environment that reminded her of the muggy days in summer she had gone through. Trail of black, torn up-ground went for at least a hundred yards from when the pod impacted the ground, smoke rising from various points along the trail. Green trees taller than most of the houses she had seen were densely clustered with vines of varying length descending from the branches. Smaller plants filled in the gaps between the trees, ranging from small bushes to flowers. Miko turned her head to the sky, and saw that through the blue atmosphere several warships continued to fight hundreds of miles above them, one of them on fire and slowly tumbling towards the planet's surface that would become its and its crews' final resting place.
She had only one word to say to the situation, "shit."
Miko jumped out of the pod, landing in the blackened soil that was kicked up slightly by her impact. She turned around to see Haneesh currently going through some of the pod's contents, ranging from what looked like rations to medical gear. Five, paired with Phil and BITT, were currently investigating the surrounding jungle, something Miko soon joined them in.
"Damn, so I take a day to work late and I'm now in an alien world, just what I had planned." Phil muttered.
He turned to the rest of them. "Okay, so by the looks of things we got a lot of problems and few solutions." He stopped for a second. "The way I see it, if we want out of this mess we need to keep our heads level for now and come up with a plan."
"We have more immediate issues though!" Haneesh pointed into the sky, where several ships of similar style to those from the ship they fled from were beginning to descend into the atmosphere. They were trailed by sleeker, faster, and likely better-armed fighters that were at the same time fighting off the large number of bulker but no-less dangerous fighter craft that belonged to the pirates that had assaulted the ship.
"Everyone grab what you can carry, we leave now!"
Miko shot a glance at Haneesh, the boy absorbing the multitude of items laid across the floor into his gauntleted hand, subsequently turning them into digital items that could be pulled out later when the timing was better.
By the time her eyes turned back to the jungle, Five and the rest of her teammates were already making a run for it, Miko following suit a split-second later. Experience chasing glitches through environments like these helped her immensely, yet the unfamiliarity of the terrain meant she still struggled to keep her teammates within her vision. Through the noise of alien creatures, breaking branches, and the blasts and explosions correlating to the war that was waging above them, one sound of an engine drew closer over the canopy, growing more distant a second later. Regardless, she ran faster, that same roar beginning to draw closer again, like a predator coming in for a kill.
Before she realized it, an explosion sent her flying through the air and into a tree, the impact knocking the breath out of her. Yet even with her dulled senses, Miko was able to make out her friends coming back to engage whatever had lashed out at them, blasting into the sky with weapons in order to destroy the aerial threat. Whatever it was retaliated with bolts of orange laser beams that ripped into the ground and sent them scrambling to avoid the lethal shots. She wasted no more time after that, ignoring the pain flaring up in her back as she jumped to her feet, aiming her gauntlets straight towards whatever was attacking them.
The best way to describe it was a sci-fi helicopter of sorts, two large engines on the sides providing the vessel with its primary means of movement. Beneath a boxy nose resided a triple-barreled turret that blasted away at any techs that it could get a clear shot at. The main armament sat behind it, a set of two missile pods with four tubs each that was without a doubt the weapon fired at her. Towards the tail end was a second pair of smaller thrusters that probably provided in-flight stability, judging by their constantly adjusting. Beneath the two wings where the main engines were attached rested a sliding door that was opened up, giving the teenager a clear view of three men standing within it, one of them sliding out a triple-barreled rotary cannon from within the ship's bay and into a position where it could fire on her.
Her reflexes obtained from years of hardcore video gaming moved her clear from the area where she had landed as said every tree behind her was ripped apart by the laser minigun. She didn't stop running, the gunner traced her movements, tearing through several other trees caught in its destructive volley of fire until she moved beyond its field of view and behind the aircraft, all the while scrolling through her gauntlet until she found her desired tool. As soon as she was clear of the cannon fire, she tapped her gauntlet, and in a bright flash of light her red-feather-blue-legged-ostrich-of-a-bird Ally stood where a tangled mess of plants had stood previously. She bolted onto the back of her companion, running her hand through her pet's feathers.
"Ally, I need to get into that shameful excuse for a helicopter, think you can get me close enough?" Miko stated as she pointed at the opened door, which was now re-aligned with her position. The gunner lined up its sights with her, Miko swearing she could see a smile on the killer's face.
Ally replied with an enthusiastic caw before she launched herself towards the door at such high speeds that they closed the fifty-yard distance between them and the craft in under a second. The gunner of the cannon had no time to react adequately before the red bird slammed into him, sending him hurling into the craft's walls with a scream of alarm. Miko jumping from her mount and summoned her hammer, slamming it into one of the pirates and launching him through the open door on the craft's other side.
"Motherfucker!" The remaining pirate yelled, his right hand drawing a combat knife. The pirate sliding back when the purple-haired girl slammed her hammer into the floor, the entire craft being shaken from the blow. The pirate slashed the blade towards Miko, but she moved clear of the strike, allowing Ally to drive her head straight into the pirate. It sent the criminal crashing to the ground with a grunt, the impact force having knocked him unconscious
An energy bolt sizzled past Miko's head, one of the craft's pirates having stepped out of the pilot's seat in order to engage the intruder. He managed to snap off one more shot with his pistol before a short burst of emitter rounds impacted his body, not killing him outright but leaving him stunned. That was all Miko needed, slamming her hammer into the pirate's head with as much force as she could muster with her small body. It was more than enough, the pirate's head was instantly blown apart, blood splattering out and covering parts of the teenager's clothing. She suppressed the feelings that welled up from the gruesome sight, instead grabbing a grenade from a pile of them lying in the ship, the weapon reminding her a lot of a M67 hand grenade from the US army.
Ally was still waiting by the door when Miko leapt atop her, yanking the grenade pin out with her teeth before hurling it towards the opened cockpit door, the second pilot having by this point decided to try to address the problem. She saw him for maybe a split second before she and her companion flew from the door, desperate to get clear off the deathtrap.
What followed was the sound of an explosion, turning her head to see the cockpit window shattered and the whole craft spiraling out of control before crashing into the trees in a fiery explosion that ignited the surrounding forest like matches on kerosene.
Ally landed as Miko watched the fiery display for a second, almost missing that her teammates showed no interest in being anywhere near the fiery wreck. They sprinted into the forest, Ally being prompted to follow suit in their attempt to lose their pursuers, the sounds of alien engines, weapons fire, and explosions having become more and more frequent during the span of the fight.
Miko's fluffy companion had no issues weaving through the vast network of trees and vines that covered the terrain like grass in her front lawn, expertly twisting her way around the brown-barked vegetation and catching up to her friends in short order, who kept running, unwilling to slow down for a second even as the noises of war slowly grew more and more distant until they could barely hear them over the noises of the jungle.
Miko guessed it had been ten minutes of non-stop sprinting through the dense jungle before her teammates finally stopped running the group showing signs of exhaustion from the running, all of them except for BITT of course. Their heavy and irregular breathing stemming from exhaustion and adrenaline was paired with the fact that they leaned against whatever they could to support themselves. The hot and humid air only added to the visible amounts of sweat running down their faces, another sign that they were getting close to the risk of suffering heat exhaustion.
"We need to-." Fives couldn't fully finish his sentence between the heavy breaths he was taking. "Keep running."
"Why don't you guys use your companions?" Miko's face turned into an irritated grimace, unable to believe that they had missed that simple logic. Then again, with the spur of the moment they probably did not take the time to do so.
"Point taken." Her Hispanic teammate replied, now scrolling through his own gauntlet until he found Alpha. The teen's large, robotic pet that lacked Ally's speed and agility yet easily outperformed her in any field that required brute strength or durability, and to a degree, higher intelligence. His giant friend soon materialized in front of him, starting with the small back legs and working their way forwards, much larger and bulkier front legs soon touched the ground as the large, orange central eye that rested between two metal pieces and that made up the vast majority of his head appeared, the long-slit like pupil falling on his friend as soon as he was fully formed.
"I would - love to - explain where we are." Five tried to explain calmly through his heavy breaths, and failing miserably in the process. "But right now - we need a ride - as far away from those explosions as possible. Don't knock down - any more trees, then you need - to."
Even with the complicated and confusing situation before him, Miko could tell that Five's robotic companion could hear the distant explosions, perking up its head in an attempt to get a sense of direction from within the jungle environment, one that she knew that was entirely unfamiliar to the large robot. Five climbed into his back, Haneesh, Phil, doing the same a second later with BITT also latching on magnetically. Zahra joined Miko on Ally, who wouldn't be able to handle much more weight between the two girls.
Fives tapped his companion's side, probably telling him to go, as Alpha took off into the trees afterwards.
Miko rubbed the side of her pet, her entirely-digital feathers being soft enough that at times the teen felt tempted to sleep on her bird companion. "Okay Ally, Follow Alpha."
Ally immediately followed her owner's instructions, lurching forwards suddenly enough that Zahra's grip around Miko's waist tightened substantially, not in an awkward sense luckily.
Much of the remainder of the period of time spent on their companions was spent in silence, their focus solely on keeping their senses tuned for potential threats. This was not to say it was quiet, far from it with the constant noises generated from a myriad of animals Miko did not recognize. This, and the noises caused by some unusual four-eyed mammal-type animals fled in the wake of a pair of digital animals, along with the heavy footsteps of their animalistic friends, the occasional caw from Ally, or much more frightening noises. Which were either the growling of some unseen apex predator that feasted on unsuspecting victims, or the distant humming of an engine from one of the two faction's craft that continued to ruthlessly hunt them down. The teenager couldn't make out much of the jungle from her fast-moving mount's back, the trees that stood over a dozen meters tall were largely reduced to blurs from the speed that only a bird like Ally had the reaction time to ensure they did not crash into. The vines were an unpleasant feature, primarily when she occasionally felt one smack against her body whenever Ally wasn't aware of them, leaving not being unpleasantly painful but also forcing her to hold on tightly to her mount unless she wanted to fall off. The occasional insect-like creatures hitting Miko did not make her feel any better, some of them reminding her of mosquitoes as they crawled all over her body with no regard for the speeds she was traveling at. Their only intention being to quench their endless thirst for blood or whatever bodily fluid they fed on, which she would promptly deny them by either swatting them off of her or outright smacking them into a gooey mess that she wiped off on either herself or Ally.
Miko had lost track of the time when Fives prompted Alpha to stop, but quickly checking her gauntlet told her that it was 4:00 PM back on Earth, but darkness was already descending on them.
"Probably not the same rotation speed as Earth." She thought as she disembarked from Ally's back, vigorously smacking another one of the dark, two-centimeter long insectoids that continued to come after her.
She jumped off her mount, moving towards Alpha and the other boys when Five noticed her approaching, at that point deciding to speak.
"Why did we stop? I thought those lunatics were still hunting us down."
"I don't hear them anymore, not over the jungle at least, besides, we need to find somewhere to hunker down until these guys stop searching for us, or until it quiets down at the minimum."
"You got any ideas?"
"Actually, I do." Five pointed towards the ground, where Miko noticed a thin crack that upon further inspection, looked to lead into an underground cave. What laid beyond it was concealed beneath a cloak of darkness.
"You're suggesting we hide in a cave?" Her left eyebrow went up an inch.
"Think about it." He explained. "They will protect us from the weather." Five pointed towards the sky, dark storm clouds rolling in, followed by a flash of lightning and then the boom of thunder in the distance. "I'm going to bet that even with their fancy technology, they can't detect us underground with enough rocks between us and them. Hopefully, we pick one that doesn't house freakishly large predators, but overall, I'm not seeing many other choices if we want to last longer."
Even though Miko did not like the idea of sleeping in a cave like some animal, she understood that Fives made a number of good points, and nobody else seemed to object to his simple-yet reasonable plan. Plus, it wasn't like she had any better ideas, so she figured it would be in her best interest to trust her partner not to get them killed.
"Okay, so where do we start?"
We need to find a decent cave first." Five explained, motioning towards the crack in the ground. "That would not really work since we would risk dealing with flooding, plus we can't even get in there."
Phil abruptly spoke up, all eyes immediately falling on him. "I don't think we can take any risks, maintain radio silence at all costs, since I'm willing to bet these guys can trace our signals."
The rest of the group nodded in agreement. Even if they had fought some of their pursuers, that was just one aspect of their capabilities. As of yet, they had not seen any of their logistical systems, nor knew of their tracking capabilities. The way Miko took it, for all they knew they could possibly teleport, find them from the carbon in their breaths, or fling them with the power of their minds.
Miko remounted on Ally, her face turning back to Five. "How should we do this?"
"Check everywhere you can, but don't wander too far, our GPS systems are worthless without a satellite or an idea of the layout of this world. Meaning that if you're lost yell out until you get a response. I know that could draw in those pirates and aliens, but I would rather be together and running from them than separated and as such at risk of being picked off one by one."
Miko nodded in response, turning to see Zahra doing the same thing. "Okay then, I'll make sure to find you guys if we come by something useful."
"Alrighty, see you guys soon."
"Don't die on me." Miko said with a slight grin, yet the attempted joke did not seem to raise anyone's spirits, their eyes falling to the ground.
She took a heavy breath, "Seriously, don't."
Miko prompted Ally to leave, tapping the side of her companion with a "Let's go girl." Her red friend took off into the woods, with Miko taking a last glance at her friend and partner.
Hope you guys are enjoying this story so far, damn, got to love spell check tools...
Anyway, at this point in the story depicting each Techs' personalities is unlikely to happen too much since realistically some behavior can be costly when being hunted down. This will hopefully change as they become more used to their new situation in life and after they get off of this world. (SPOILER)
Okay, so now might be a good time to provide a better idea as to what I'm planning. This whole storyline will be broken up into 3-5 stories, each on over 100k words each. The first story, which is what I am posting right now, surrounds the Glitch Techs being thrown into this universe and their efforts to escape the planet while being hunted. I won't spoil too much for the other ones, since those are still being worked on, but expect some darker themes as we move forward including character deaths (maybe real maybe not), suicidal themes, physical torture, (nothing M-rated), and maybe some ships. (Not really sure about this one)
Simplified, I've got BIG plans for this, and if anyone wants to potentially influence this story and its direction I am more than happy to take input from those willing to speak up.
For everyone else though, thanks for reading, and as always, Cheers!