So, their first night on the outskirts of The Scarlet Jungle sucked major balls.
They were only in their tent for about an hour before they heard some not-so-pleasant sounds around them and the H'Raka started whining so they did what they deemed to be the safest thing to do, retreat.
They packed up their things in record time and got onto Bolt's back, taking up into the sky and seeing exactly what was stalking them without them realizing it, something they can barely make out, something huge and looming. Yeah, they flew further away from the forest and set up camp atop a hill, tent strung up between two trees and Bolt tied beneath them, the wind swinging them and rocking them to sleep.
Well, it was rocking them to sleep until one of the ropes gave way and they awoke to a startling drop, not a large one, just a couple of feet, but enough that they were all hit with a nice dose of adrenaline big enough that they couldn't sleep properly, instead lying there in the dark with their eyes closed, praying that that alone will give them enough rest for their upcoming day.
Kara and Lena had eventually managed to get some beauty sleep but for Alex, who was the one to head outside and check that the rope wouldn't slip further, citing Kara's rope skills to be useless, it just wasn't in the cards so today, she's the grumpiest Kara has seen her sister in a long time.
They ended up flying back to the outskirts of The Scarlet Jungle at dawn, being careful to assess the area they touch down in before beginning their search for the samples they need, a feat that is much more difficult than any of them had thought it would end up being.
There are plenty of plants around, that's for certain but the majority of them are the ones they have already seen, the palm tree types and such, so there's not a chance in hell Astra will be able to use those because she already has access to them so she isn't going to be impressed if they show up with them.
If they want something different, they have to go deeper.
"Watch out!" Alex calls out, annoyed because Kara is walking pretty close to a line of plants, her sisterly protection only working to keep Kara physically safe because her tone is sharp and snappy in the way she knows upsets her sister but she can't bring herself to care even a little bit about that.
Lena pulls Kara a little closer to her by her sleeve, wrapping her arm around Kara's once she's close enough. "Don't worry about it, Alex, I have her and I won't let her do anything stupid."
"Why do you think I would do anything stupid?" Kara asks, jaw-dropping at the insinuation.
Lena holds her a little tighter, "Darling, you're the dumbest smart person I've ever met. You might have the brains of a genius, but you're kind of clumsy and it's one of my favourite things about you when we aren't surrounded by killer foliage."
Kara tilts her head in acquiescence. She can't deny that one in the slightest. "Ok."
"Glad we're on the same page," Lena says with a little smile, lacing her fingers with Kara's and double-checking the position of the sword sheathed to her belt loop. If she's ever going to need it, it will be in this place while there are all sorts of horrible things around that can hurt them so she's very wary of keeping it on hand.
Her hand rests on its hilt as they walk, careful to plan out their path with precise movements since they have to find ways to move where they can take Bolt with them and he won't get hurt. Some of this does mean that Lena has to use the sword to chop at the plants and move them aside with the blade but they have only had to do that less than a dozen times in the few hours they have been walking.
They were certain that they would already have the samples by now and already be heading back t meet the others but they have to keep going.
Astra's people must have gone in quite far because there's no way there are any different plants coming up any time soon.
"Do you think we should take back off when we reach another clearing? Get a bit further in by air to see if we can spot anything from the sky?" Kara offers, her eyes growing tired of staring at the same few plants that they have already seen a thousand times before.
"I don't think that's a bad idea, darling," Lena responds.
"See, and you thought I was dumb." Kara jokes, tapping on Lena's arm.
To her credit, Lena doesn't respond in any other way than pressing a chaste kiss to Kara's cheek, ending the back and forth with that simple action.
Alex stomps on behind them, eyes wary of every rustle of a leaf and every gust of wind and annoyed that Kara and Lena think they have time to be all lovey-dovey when they know for a fact that there are dangerous animals out here just as much as there are dangerous plants.
"We can do that but you two need to stop, Kara draw your knife and Lena, your sword. I have my gun. We need to be ready, not just on edge but fully prepared for something to happen because the chances are, if you can think of it, it will actually happen." Alex ends her snappy rant with a sharp tug to the rope still attached to Kelex. Alex refuses to use just the remote now because she's decided that it takes less effort to just have him in hover mode and drag him along.
The tug sends Kelex flying forward quicker than she meant and he smacks into her back. Alex grunts and Kara has to press her lips together to stop herself from laughing while Lena silently chuckles to herself.
"Not a word." Alex demands.
Sensing that there isn't much tolerance left in Alex's system, they do exactly that. Even Bolt stays quiet, trudging along after Kara silently apart from his big snapping footsteps breaking all of the twigs his feet come into contact with.
Lena draws the sword again, not missing the way Kara's eyes darken at the sight of her with it, a lovely little reaction that is worth noting for when they are back on Earth. She pulls her sleeves further over her arms and takes her gloves out of her pocket. She'd totally forgotten that she'd packed them in the first place until a couple of nights ago when she'd decided to reorganize both hers and Kara's packs, Kara supervising because "I can't miss this view, Lena!" as she stared at her with a sappy look across her face.
They are leather gloves but, unfortunately, they are fingerless so not as protective as she would like them to be. Still, they are better than nothing so she slips them on, double checking her sleeves are pulled down properly, and then takes a swing at the plants blocking their path.
From the other plants she's chopped out of the way, she's found that they take a few good swings to get through them, the stems particularly strong and durable against any kind of force, it really speaks for what they endure further into the jungle, more specifically, what force from the inhabitants of the jungle do that have to put up a fight against?
This time though, Lena swings and the blade soars right on through, not a single bit of resistance. Using the tips of it, she pushes back the razor-like leaves and takes a closer look. They have all been snapped at the base already and from the look of it, they haven't been sliced with a blade of any kind in a similar way to how Lena's breaking the plants, they have been chewed.
"That brings me zero ounces of comfort," Lena mutters, pushing the plants to the side, finding that the entire bunch of them Lena was trying to get passed have been chewed off and then, she thinks, piled up here.
She keeps pushing them aside, confused about it until she notices something, something that turns her blood to ice.
"Oh no."
"What's wrong?" Alex snarls, not appreciating the delay or the fact that the only thing she can look at from the back where she's standing is the H'Raka's behind.
"There's a nest with some very scary-looking leopard-like baby animals in it. They're actually closer to panthers, black with purple leopard print and very big sabre teeth."
Alex rolls her eyes. "If they are just babies, why are you so scared?"
"Because I'm willing to bet that their parents are around here somewhere and any creature that makes a nest out of super sharp plants, are not animals we want to come across, let's hurry and find that clearing so we can get out of here!" Lena's whisper-yelling by the end of her sentence, her nerves rattled by seeing the animals, as cute as they are, she'd only like to see them again when there is a very thick pane of glass or a cage wall between them.
Kara is afraid too, but the dumber part of her brain, the part that is trying to convince her to pick up one of the animals and squeeze it because it's cute, is also in play. She shakes the thought out of her head. "I suggest moving very quickly, I have no idea what animal this is and that can't be a good sign because it means that the chances are, it's not documented, meaning that anyone who has come across it before, hasn't lived to tell the tale, get on the H'Raka now!"
Kara jumps onto Bolt's back first, Lena right after her and then Alex, pulling Kelex in tow.
They immediately start off at a good pace, Kara pushing Bolt into a decent trot so they are going faster than the average human run. They keep their eyes peeled for both a clearing so they can take off and any signs of the parents of those animals showing up.
For a while, they think they might have gotten away with it, especially as they realize that Bolt is actually really good at vaulting over the plants they were wasting their time chopping down before, but their luck does run out eventually.
An adult version of the animal they saw earlier jumps out in front of them, teeth bared and back arched ready to pounce onto Bolt, who rears up, causing them all to slip back and hold on for dear life.
They all look around, their eyes wider than they have ever been before as more pop out of the bushes around them, an entire pack of them by the look of it, a rather large pack because they are pretty much surrounded.
"Oh shit." Kara gasps, doing the only thing she can do, she pulls up.
Bolt does as he's told with barely any resistance, terrified and aware that the only way they are getting out of the situation is by going up.
They smash into branches of trees and get whipped by all kinds of vines, leaving tiny cuts across any exposed skin they have but they manage to get into the sky soon enough, Bolt whining unhappily at the whacks he took on his way up but still letting out a fiery breath of relief when they get up into the sky, something Kara has never seen a H'Raka do before but it still makes her giggle.
"You're laughing? We just almost got eaten!" Alex asks, her tone laced with disbelief and barely hidden fear. "What are you thinking?"
"I'm thinking that we just almost got eaten and Bolt was so relieved to get out of there that he just actually breathed fire, it's a shame you couldn't see it from back there!" Kara grins, keeping them hovering around just above the trees.
Lena peeks over the edge and down towards the hole in the canopy where they just burst free and her heart leaps back up into her throat. "So, you know how cats on Earth are really good at climbing trees?"
"Yeah," Kara asks, head tilting in confusion.
"It turns out that's true on Krypton too," Lena says, eyes pinned on the scene below her, the panther-like creatures scraping their way up between the branches and getting closer. "Pull up!"
Kara trusts Lena and she trusts that when Lena yells like she just did, she better jump to it and get the job done so without even thinking, she pulls Bolt up even further, making sure there is plenty of space between them and the animals below.
They sit there studying the creatures for a moment, watching the intriguing way they pounce up between the branches, obviously something they must do often and something they will have to watch out for when they land again. They don't want to be collecting the samples only to have a panther atop of them.
Kara only directs Bolt to move when the panther creatures start to leap up into the air, their jaws snapping and claws outstretched as they try to grab them, they are really angry, probably territorial based on the way they are snarling at them too. A couple of the jumps get much closer than they would like so it just solidified Kara's need to get them all out of there, she might have wanted to cuddle with the baby ones, but she doesn't want to cuddle with the adults, no way.
They fly over the top of the trees, eyes watching in a mild kind of wonder as the trees turn from green with the odd red one, to completely red, not a hint of green in sight unless they really squint down at the lower growing plants.
Looking out for plants that they haven't seen before, they have to really keep their eyes open because it's really difficult to differentiate between them from the height that they are at.
They are still looking out over a few different clearings, dropping down just low enough to take a better look around when they spot something that makes all of their jaws drop, something that none of them could have ever possibly predicted that they would stumble across.
"Holy fu—"
"Hey! Watch your language, Alex!" Kara cuts her off but she has to admit that Alex's words say exactly what she was thinking.
Below them, nestled in the trees and partially grown over by the surrounding foliage and vines, is a Kryptonian ship akin to the size of the Legion ship.
What's cooler than that is the fact that it looks like the things growing over it might just be the perfect plants for getting samples off of so they can just land on top of it, get the samples and then be on their way.
"I think our luck is back." Lena smiles into Kara's neck, her arms wrapped tightly around her waist since she helped her take it off not long after they took off again.
"I think you might be right." Kara smiles, spotting a great spot for them to land just above the massive doors at the back of the ship.
She brings Bolt down, a task made more difficult by his displeasure of being back in the jungle again, his natural instincts telling him that it's a bad idea and that there is danger lurking nearby.
Kara has to really push him to get him to land and it makes her feel kind of guilty that she's forcing him to go somewhere that scares him but there really isn't much of a choice here, they have to go and get the samples or else they will be stopped by The Rebellion before they can even make it to Kandor's centre to get the blueprints they need from her father's lab.
"Come on, my guy, you can do it, we won't be here long." Kara urges him as they make contact with the ship, Bolt's claws making a horrible scraping noise as they come into contact with it. "Just stay calm, buddy, we've got this."
She lets Lena and Alex slide off his back before doing so herself, taking her pack from Alex as it's offered to her and sliding it onto her back, making sure that it is clipped properly at the front before taking out her dagger from where she has it stabbed through her belt loop.
Kara holds it loosely in her hand, facing the blade out from her body. "Alright, we can take some of the vines, some of the bushes growing over to the left and there looks to be a few types of flowers over behind the bushes, let's see if we can take a sample from each and then we can head off and leave this cursed place behind us."
"Sounds like a plan," Lena says, digging through her pack for a few little containers she has saved from some of the food they have from the accommodation. She's had them stored for specifically this purpose. "Once we have the samples, we'll put the containers inside Kelex and we'll cover his top with something so they don't fly out with the speed of Bolt's flying."
"Let's get on with it then. "Alex says, making her way to the vines first.
The sample gathering is going to take all three of them but it's mostly just going to be Kara with her knife. They can't touch any of them themselves because they have no idea what any of them will do so they just simply have to do everything as delicately as they can, something that they aren't the best at doing when they aren't in a life-threatening situation.
Together, they work quickly, cutting through the vines and finding pockets of seeds inside them, perfect for what Astra will need. It does make them a little nervous that they will be handing them over to The Rebellion and it could change history with them having these types of plants but with the planet already well on its way to dying, it won't make a big enough impact that they have to worry about it massively.
Lena very carefully closes the lid to the container and deposits it into Kelex's hollow centre. "One down, a bunch more to go."
The bushes are harder, what they really need is seeds or something akin to it but all they can really get is branches and twigs. "What if we see if we can get some of its roots?" Alex offers when they don't seem to be getting anywhere.
"Maybe," Kara frowns. "Lena, can you chop it with the sword, please? Maybe we can get a tiny section of it with roots intact."
Lena takes the sword out again and does just that, managing, with pinpoint precision to break off a tiny twig of the bush with its roots still attached to it. Kara picks it up with the blade of her knife and drops it into another container which is then stored with the other one.
"Just the flowers now. Let's just take the heads of each." Alex says, hand hovering over her gun that is on her hip, getting more and more nervous the longer they are out there.
Kara chops four different kinds quickly and drops them into more containers, popping the lids on and then letting Kelex look after the probably very dangerous samples. Lena takes part of a bag they had grains stored in previously and uses duct tape to secure it over the hole where the Kelex head should be, stopping the containers from being able to fall out.
"All done, half a dozen is plenty so we can go now and—"
A loud snap of a branch off to the side of the ship they are standing on makes them all freeze.
Their heads whiz around so they can get a good look at what made the noise but before they can identify what made the noise, there's another snapping noise from the other side, and then somewhere behind them and then they are once again surrounded.
"Did these panthers follow us all the way here?" Lena panics, grabbing hold of Kara and Alex quickly by the sleeves and trying to back them up towards Bolt so they can get out of the maiming distance of the animals.
"I guess they hold a grudge," Alex says, turning suddenly to run toward Bolt, who is looking around him, the anxiety palpable with the way he's franticly turning around.
Kara tries to calm him so Alex can get onto his back, first and then Lena but only Alex manages to get on before he tries to fly off. Luckily, Alex knows how to fly so she keeps him grounded, his feet not getting more than a couple of feet off the floor before he's back on his feet, this time running.
Alex tries to get him to stop but the panthers are getting closer and he's just getting more and more agitated as the seconds pass.
He jumps off the edge of the ship right beside where they first landed, taking Alex by surprise when he does a full U-turn and dives inside the ship. Kara and Lena come sprinting down to them, following Bolt's lead and dragging Kelex behind them by the rope.
They drop down onto the ground below hard.
Lena cries out as her ankle twists but Kara's arm around her waist quickly drags her back and in through the open door of the ship, which looks sketchier than an abandoned school after dark.
Lena is then deposited on her ass just inside the door and she squints through the dark to see the mighty dragon-like H'Raka curled up in the far corner of the room like a dog hiding from thunder. Wuss.
Alex and Kara start pushing the door shut. It's rusty and old and it takes a lot of heaving before they even manage to get it to shut an inch and the panthers are heading their way.
"Alex!" Kara calls out, panicked beyond belief.
"I know, just keep pushing!"
They work together, putting as much strength behind themselves as they can as they try with every fibre of their beings to protect themselves.
They're here. Alex spots one of the panther-like animals leaping towards them and with her quick reflexes, whips her gun out of its holster and shoots at it. It falls back and whines but the bullet doesn't pierce its skin. It makes sense really, their nest was built from razor-sharp leaves so they must have thick skin but this is insane.
She shoots again when another one comes near but it's only a temporary fix and they're getting angrier.
Kara almost has the door shut, just a little more and they'll be safe. Two more come and try and get close, but Alex can't shoot both. She spots vines behind the panthers, the same ones that were in the ravine, the same ones with the pods that release pollen so thick they couldn't see. Alex shoots a pod. The door clicks shut.
They pant, now in the thick darkness of the ship, safe but not completely. Now they face the unknown.
Lena goes to rifle through her pack to find her flashlight but it's still outside, still on top of the ship. She doesn't have it with her. "Kara, my pack is still out there." She says, pressing her back to the wall, scared.
"I don't care, you're in here. Thank Rao we all made it." Kara says, unclipping her pack and fumbling for the zipper. There's a glow-in-the-dark strip inside that helps her find her flashlight and she clicks it on, shining it around the space for a moment before directing it at Alex, Lena and then Bolt, checking on all three of them.
If having a very bright flashlight shined into their eyes wasn't enough to make them half-blind, having the light reflect off of Kelex and then into their eyes then is, little white spots appearing before their eyes manage to adjust again.
Once she's certain that everyone is relatively ok, just the minor cuts from their less than graceful exit through the trees earlier, Kara shines the light around the space, mapping it out in her head and moving tentatively forward towards the cowering Bolt.
"Hey, buddy. You're alright," she carefully runs her fingertips over his monstrous head, attempting to calm him down since he's actually quaking.
"Great, we have a massive flying dragon and it's so scared that it's shaking," Alex says, helping Lena up while Kara works on Bolt.
Kara doesn't say anything, just keeps petting him until she feels that he has managed to collect himself a little bit. Once he has, she steps away from him and shines her flashlight down the massive hallway beside them, trying to make sense of where they are.
"Oh, we're in the cargo bay of the ship, if we can get to the front of the ship then we can get some electrics on and from there, we can figure out our exit strategy so we can get out of here. We have the samples so all we need to do is get to a good place where we can take off and head back towards the others again." Kara announces.
"What about my pack?" Lena asks, tenderly trying to put weight on her twisted ankle.
Kara shrugs. "Well, I don't think we really need it, you can share my stuff for the few more days we're here and then we'll be back on the Legion ship on our way home so we can get by without it."
"What about my books though?"
"I will buy you as many books as you want when we get back just so you shut up," Alex says, her grumpiness back again.
"I'm holding you to that," Lena's lips quirk up devilishly.
Alex shrugs, "I don't care, I just want to get back to the others alive, I'm not dying over a couple of books."
Lena nods, "Fair enough." She can't really force them to go back for her pack but her heart does ache a little when she thinks about what's inside it, Kara's spy beacon that was entrusted to her by Kara's aunt. She promised to keep it safe and she hasn't been able to keep that promise. She can feel guilty about that later though, they have to figure out a way through the ship to the control room first. "Wait, won't we be tracked if we turn the ship's electrics on?"
"No, the navigation system doesn't kick in until the ship is readied to take off, which we won't be doing, so we can turn the lights on and plan out what we're doing undetected, it won't be an issue," Kara answers, edging her way further down the hallway. "What might be an issue is that the door was already open when we got here."
Lena sighs. "Are you telling me that there might be wild animals on this ship?"
"Potentially." Kara grimaces.