"Well met, Mr. McCloud", Dai says to James, which utterly confuses him, since he did not tell him his name back at the map shop, or even knew that he could speak English at all. "And who might you be, good sir?", he asks the tall, scaly man with him.
"Oh, um… Christopher Annex, but most people just call me Beastman."
"A great pleasure to meet you as well, Mr. Beastman. My brother and sister are on their way here to retrieve us, along with the rest of Mr. McCloud's friends. In the meantime, do give us a moment of privacy, Mr. Beastman. I need to talk with James here about payment for this recovery."
Beastman honors them this privacy, but is skeptical that they're hiding something from him, especially once James tries to speak, but Dai tells him to shush, and instead communicates through telekinesis, away from Beastman's hearing range.
James sits down so he can speak with Dai at eye level. "Look, the payment won't be an issue, I'm just…"
"Never mind that, that's not important…", Dai thinks back to him. "Besides, Gen won't let me accept payment for this. Though a nice tip would be greatly appreciat… OW!"
"What was that?", James asks.
"Sorry, Gen's still linked up to me, and doesn't want me saying that to you. Anyway, this Beastman fellow. I would absolutely not trust this man, there's a great darkness in his soul, and he's liable to betray you at any moment."
"Believe me, I already know that", James thinks in a low tone, almost like he's trying to think quietly, so Beastman doesn't hear him, while showing Dai the scar that Antonio Guster gave him. "Me and my fellow racers are actually here to pick him up to try and get that darkness out of his soul, or wherever else it might be. We've got some scientists working on a cure right now, but we haven't heard anything back from them. Do you guys know of any ways to get this mess out of him?"
Dai thinks about it for a second. "I don't think we do, but we might know some people back on Shinar who can help us. It might take some time, but we'll stay in contact, and I'll let you know if we find out anything."
As he says this, they can hear a vehicle pull up to the tree that they're in. James climbs up to the edge of the nest and looks over the edge, where he can see Jody, Zoda, and San sitting in Gazelle's carriage, a good fifty to sixty feet below them. He once again goes back to trying to find a way to climb down this massive tree. However, before he can find the supporting branch, Beastman has already found it, the nature expert that he is. He takes out a grappling hook, and throws it around the branch that the nest is on. This gets James to come over to see what he's doing, and Beastman promptly grabs him around the waist, and leaps from the tree branch, repelling down the trunk of the tree.
James freaks out from his sudden descent down the tree, and is flailing in Beastman's arms, but Beastman has a strong grip around his waist, and is able to safely bring him to the ground, despite James's protests. "Beastman, what the hell, dude? Get consent next time! I wouldn't've struggled if you had just told me that was coming."
"Sorry James, but time is of the essence", Beastman says. "The thing that grabbed you is heading back, and I don't think you wanna be there when it finds out what we did to its kids. So we need to get out of here and fas… Hey, who's the cutie in your ride?"
Hearing Beastman say that instantly makes Jody cringe, and she recoils at the thought of him trying to get cozy with her. "Ummmmm, thanks, but I'm uhhhh… really not interested in…"
"Oh, sorry ma'am, but I was actually talking to this little lady", he says as he approaches San and sits down next to her in the Gazelle cart. San seems flattered by Beastman's advances and happily responds to him through telekinesis. Jody and Zoda move to the backseat to stay away from these two (though Zoda is nosy enough to try and listen in, even if they don't say much out loud), while James joins them in the front seat to steer Gazelle back to the ship. Finally Gen and Dai fly alongside the craft, and try to look deeper into Beastman's mind and soul to get a better idea of what's inside him.
As they start driving away, they hear some distant roars in the background, and the racers figure it's just some faraway monster that they can avoid if they just keep driving towards the ship. However, Beastman's ears perk up when he hears this roar, and he starts looking around, trying to figure out how close that noise is to them. James sees Beastman putting those numbers together in his head, and knows that if he can sense something coming, he's probably right.
James leans into the control stick and tries to get Gazelle to go faster, but suddenly the roar happens again, this time much, much closer. Before they can react to it, the Warbat breaks through the canopy of the trees and is right on their tails again, this time with rage in its eyes. It can still smell the blood of its offspring on Beastman's hands, and it's hungry not just for a meal, but for revenge.
Beastman halts his cerebral conversation with San and opens fire on the Warbat with his plasma rifle, landing shots right on the beast's face. Zoda and Jody also start firing on this monster with their pistols, and while they're firing, Zoda can't help but chuckle.
"You ever thought we'd be doing something like this together?", Zoda asks Jody, while continuing to pump plasma into this massive, slithery beast.
"Not even once in my worst nightmares", Jody replies as her shots seem to hit the Warbat more accurately than Zoda's erratic, rapid shots. "You tell anyone about this, and I'll have you arrested for slander."
"You keep saying that, but you haven't gotten me yet", he says with a coy grin. "Methinks you enjoy the chase too much."
"You know… maybe letting this thing eat us won't be that bad…"
"Jody, there'll be time for melancholy later, keep firing at that thing!", James barks from the front seat. The Shinarians are at first trying to hide from this situation, but then San flies in to try and distract the beast, maybe in an effort to impress this big, strong man talking to her. They're all non-corporeal here, and they each take turns flying around the beast's head to try to distract him.
As they're flying over the ground at such high speed, Gazelle notices the ground fracturing underneath him due to the strong air currents coming off the vehicle and the unstable ground beneath them. Using his sensors, he can get a grasp for what the planet looks like underneath the fragile surface, and he gets an idea. He takes control away from James and begins steering for himself. "Hang on guys, I think I can ditch this guy, but it might get a little bumpy.
He tilts the front of his frame downward to dig into the ground. At the speed that they're going, Gazelle's frame digs into the ground and starts tearing through it easily. The rest of the racers hang on tight as they quickly start to wonder if this plan is going to get them killed, since digging into the ground like this is slowing Gazelle down tremendously. However, before the Warbat can catch them, Gazelle breaks through the surface of the ground, and dives down into the brightly illuminated tunnels under the surface of the planet.
At first, the Gazelle-mobile is in freefall in these caves, but Gazelle deploys a set of wings, allowing them all to glide through the tunnels with ease. The others look around in awe at the strange, orange glow of these tunnels. The heat in these shafts is even more stifling than it is on the surface, so these might be magma chambers, and the glow is coming from super-heated rocks that magma came in contact with. Even with this increased heat, life still exists in these tunnels. Small hairless mammals scurry along the walls, looking for insects and places to hide from larger reptiles.
Their awe is cut short as the Warbat bursts through the overhead ground, and begins pursuing them again. With Gazelle at the controls now, just trying to get them away from this beast, he's able to make more precise turns and react quicker to all of the twists and turns of this intense labyrinth. Everyone in the craft is sweating even through their heat protection. However, this is part of Gazelle's plan. He keeps leading the monster through this intensely hot tunnel, banking on the fact that with its larger surface area and the fact that it lives above the surface normally, it can only handle this heat for a short time, before getting worn out. Gazelle also flies the craft dangerously close to a couple of low-hanging stalactites, causing the Warbat to fly directly into them. With a few well-placed turns, the Warbat is worn out, and has to escape through a very convenient hole above them.
Before they can figure out where to leave, so as not to have the Warbat follow them, James looks down, and points at something down on the floor of the tunnel, a few hundred feet below them. Way down on the floor of this cave is the ship that they flew in on. Turns out the ship wasn't on as stable ground as they would've hoped, and it still ended up falling into the inner chambers of the planet. Considering the Warbat is probably recovering on the surface, waiting for them to emerge for another game of cat and mouse, the racers instead fly down to check on the ship, weathering the harsh heat to see what their chances of getting out of here on this ship look like.
When they reach their craft, it's on its side, with huge dents and scrapes along the sides, implying that it probably tumbled down the walls of the cave down to where it landed. The racers all disembark from the Gazelle-craft, allowing him to transform back into his normal humanoid self. He grabs the edge of the ship, and pushes it with all his might, trying to get it back on its landing gear. It takes a lot of energy on his end, but he manages to right the ship, and at least allow them to get on the ship, and see what the real damage on this thing looks like.
