I just wanted to say, that Marcus is wearing a t-shirt with one of those explorer/adventures vests that have all the pockets. It's too hot in India too wear a normal jacket XD
I've been waiting to do this chapter for a while, and I'm so happy to finally get to wright it X3
Eric stirred. The last thing he remembered was a blur of pain and water. He was swaying slightly, his chest was hurt less, but he was still quite sore. Actually, his head was being supported by something. He struggled to open his eyes, blinking in the dim evening light.
"Oh good, you're waking up. I was starting to get real worried." He heard Marcus say.
Eric blinked a few more times, he looked around and realized what had happened; Marcus must have dove into the river to save him, and then carried him away. Eric clutched at his own chest when a ghost pain hit him, he realized that he was wearing Marcus's vest. Marcus had ripped up Eric's shirt to make some makeshift bandages, Eric's eyes snapped wide and he freaked out. He squirmed out of the others arms and onto the damp ground, holding his arms across his chest in a defensive manner.
"Whoa, Whoa, calm down!" Marcus put his hands up slightly to show he meant no harm.
"Y-you can't just-now you-my chest—and-You shouldn't have!" Eric stuttered in a mess of words, not sure what to say. His face wide eyed with panic and his face red with embarrassment.
"What was I supposed to do? Leave the wound to bleed out?" Marcus asked carefully, not snarky.
"But…you're a known perv!" The blond sputtered.
"I'm a perv not a creep! Trust me, ogling was the last thing on my mind while patching you up." Marcus stated, trying to calm his friend down.
"Besides, I'm a perv to lady's, and you're a guy, right?" The black-haired boy gave a warm accepting smile and offered Eric a hand.
Eric blinked and thought for a moment and gave a small and sheepish, yet happy smile; "Yeah…" Eric took the hand and the other helped him off the ground.
There was a moment of verbal silence, aside from the stray sounds of birds and other animals in the jungle around them.
"So…ummm…where's my binder?" Eric rubbed his arm awkwardly.
"You're still wearing it, I used it to hold the bandages in place."
"Oh." Eric looked down his vest to see it, in his dazed panic he didn't notice it.
"So…could you please not tell anyone?" The Cheetah kid asked nervously.
"Wasn't planning on it, it's not any of my business." Marcus responded nonchalantly.
Eric smiled; "Thank you."
Marcus shrugged; "Just basic respect." And then he smiled.
Another moment of silence, though not filled with an awkward feeling this time.
"So I guess we need to follow the train tracks...Which we still need to find first." Marcus stated, unsure.
"I know Jades scent pretty well, I can follow that and lead us to her. Frida and Manny likely won't be too far from her." Eric responded with determination.
"Scent? OH, right! I forgot about the 'cheetah senses' thing for a sec there." Marcus exclaimed.
The blond boy smiled, his tail swishing behind him for emphasis.
"So what kind of dangers do I need to look out for in the jungle?" Marcus asked as they started walking.
"Basically, any snake, there are a lot of venomous ones in India."
"Fantastic." Marcus groaned.
"Poisonous bugs, like tarantulas."
"Ich."
"And Mosquitos can carry deadly viruses."
"I'm beginning to wish I had packed some bug spray into my pocket this morning." Marcus gave a half chuckle.
"And there are the larger animals, but I can calm down and connect with most of them. Though crocodiles are still very dangerous, I'm not very good with socializing with them. Jades much better with connecting to them than I am." Eric continued.
"Connecting?"
"Yeah, that's what Jade tried to teach Manny to do with the tiger the other day. I like to call it 'connecting.' It's sort of like befriending/calming down an animal though that weird mystical object that gives one their animal powers. It's an emotion kind of thing." Eric explained further.
"Oh."
"So, elephants, tigers, and leopards I'm pretty good at connecting with."
"Ok, if I see any of those I'll let you handle them." Marcus chuckled.
The two started to head upstream to where the train tracks were.
Manny groaned, his body hurt like hell. It was nearly pitch black, he was laying on a cold hard slab of rock. His cat eyes quickly adjusted to the dark; he was in what looked to be an old temple, clearly abandoned for decades. He sat up, groaning in pain as he did. Everything hurt.
He blinked and looked around, he saw something stir in the corner of his vision. His's eyes went wide. There was a tiger laying across from him, staring at him. He jumped up against the wall, quickly regretting it as pains hit him everywhere.
He stuck out his hands to extend his claws, but he couldn't, he looked at his hands and realized his gloves were missing. He looked down at himself and realized he was in his normal cloths.
"What the hell?"
It was like he was stuck half way in-between his Super form and his normal self.
"Aww great what the hell is this about?"
Manny snapped his attention back to the tiger when he noticed movement, a little cub wiggled out from underneath her head. It waddled over to him and made a weird breathy noise at him (a chuff) and tilted its head.
"You better not sick you mom on me…" Manny mumbled, well knowing the dangers of an angry mother.
The mother tiger also made one of those breathy noise's, it seemed friendly enough. Manny wasn't sure quite what to do, his body was in no condition to fight, and it's not like he was better off running into the dark jungle. Manny cautiously sat back down, the tiger cub scrambled over and sat in his lap.
"Uhh, hi there, hehe…please don't get me killed." He chuckled nervously.
The tiger looked over at him for a second before putting her head on the ground.
The boy settled in his spot, as much as his brain told him to be highly cautious, he surprisingly didn't feel in danger. And honestly, he was too tired to fully care or do anything about it in the first place. Manny blinked slowly, he could hear it start to rain outside. He laid his head back on the wall and began to drift off to sleep. He needed sleep, and his body was going to get it even if there was a dangerous predator in the room.
As it started get dark Eric could smell rain on the wind, the two were currently in a tree hiding in a tree, shielded from the rain by the canopy.
"So, Eric…I hear that your parents are coming to visit Kota Singa." Marcus asked carefully.
"Yeah…I really wish they wouldn't."
"I'm guessing that they don't know about you being trans?"
"No, they don't. I was a girl the last time they saw me, now I'm a boy. They get stressed about the superhero thing enough as it is, they might just try and drag me home over this." Eric groaned in annoyance and ran his hand through his hair.
"Your parents transphobic?" Marcus raised a brow.
"Well, my mom likely wouldn't care, granted she likely would still buy me dress's and such, but that's not so bad. She just likes making everything as pretty and girl as possible." The blond chuckled a bit, but then he frowned sadly.
"My dad….well, my dad has said some rude things about trans people in the past... He's quite a stick man to boot, it's difficult to change his mind, and my mom tends to follow his lead. She's never been good at making her own decisions, no confidence, she would follow whatever he said." He continued
"Oh…I'm sorry to hear that." Mark frowned.
"I don't know how I could hide it from them! I could still pass as a girl, but everyone at the base calls me "he" or "him," how would I stop that?" Eric stressed.
Marcus patted the kid's shoulder; "Well, I would tell you to be proud of who you are and just tell them, but I don't really know. I can't tell you what to do, I might just make things worse. I'm sorry."
Eric sighed, his tail swished in annoyance; "Man, this week keeps going from bad to worse."
