Ashes, after undergoing maybe a bit more training than I expected, has become an excellent partner. He always manages to take down an extra animal for food, and I’ve discovered that tamed Chainlions are very fond of sleeping next to you. As freakish as this things look, after the second time, I didn’t mind having a death machine right next to my metal table in the corner of the room. He’s already become a better hunter, and after a few days, this guy even took down another Chainlion before it got to me. If I’ll be honest, Ashes is a better pet than any I could find on Earth. To me, it’s almost impossible to find a better pet anywhere. Moral of the story, Ashes is a very good pet.
Squiggles seems to be in a bit of a lighter mood than usual. His new project took a couple days, but he managed to print me some custom tailored armor pieces, like a chestplate, kneepads, shoulderpads and elbowpads. He even made me a helmet, but I never really wear it because so far I haven’t had a need for it at anyway. I asked for him to print me a crowbar, but he told me that not only did he have no idea what that is, but he wouldn’t anyway because I’m doing ‘just fine enough with my pipe-tool.’ A scientist like me just wants to be a Freeman every once and a while, you know? Otherwise, the days here on Apollyon have begun getting a lot colder. Some of the plants are dying, but since we’re in a jungle, the trees are mostly fine. Thank God for evergreens.
I on the other hand have made some good strides on my ‘fitness program’. I’ve been able to drag food back to the ship a lot easier as of late, and have even found that I’m faster. That’s mainly because of all the times that I found a PACK of Chainlions prowling around for food. Not even Ashes would mess with that, and for good reason. These things have been getting way more vicious lately, and to be fair, I don’t blame them. Food is harder to come by, for me atleast. Ashes has no issue pointing out various animals nearby with his keen sense of smell. I’m proud of that cute little four legged panther/lion, yes I am.
Straddling out the door every morning is becoming more of a routine. Even Ashes wakes up at the same time I do. We usually come back with enough food for the both of us, and Squiggles seems intent on two things. Eating from that wreck of a hydroponics bay, and for me to stop calling him Squiggles. Not a godamn chance. Today, I hope, is going to be a good day. At least by my standards.
When I woke up, Ashes was still sleeping. Squiggles was in the corner of the room, focused intensely on his newest project. He calls it ‘a way off this awful planet’. Apparently his method of doing that is sitting at a console nearly all day and all night tippy tapping away at something I probably don’t understand, while wining about the ‘crushing gravity’. I will admit though, his chances of dying of some strange disease are rapidly escalating each day. Even with my partial M.I.T education, I couldn’t figure out both what he was doing, nor a way to protect him from Apollyon’s wrath. I groaned and lifted myself into a sitting position, then shaking Ashes lightly. The colossal green cat grumbled, before going limp again. Annoyed, I shook him a little more, and he growled, climbing to his six legs and making his way to the door.
“Don’t use that tone of voice with me, mister.” I called. Ashes didn’t understand what I said, so he just glared at me. Fine, be that way. No treats for a week when we get back to Earth. I got to my feet, headed over to the table in the center of the room, donned my grey painted armor, grabbed my pipe wrench, a few deer (or atleast, their Apollyon lookalike)-jerky strips as snacks, finished with a nice 3D printed bag and headed out the door. Ashes followed behind, happily wagging his tail. This was odd to me when I first domesticated them, but I guess Chainlions had that in common with dogs. We stepped out of the ship and turned to make our way to Floyd’s Tomb. Cautiously, we entered.
“You remember what we usually get, right? A McHam–” my sentence was cut off when a loud crackling emitted from a tree infront of me. I stopped, and watched a tree to my left. It began to waver. I knew what was about to happen. “TIMMMBEEERR!” I yelled foolishly. The tree collapsed to the ground. As of then and there, Floyd’s Tomb is no longer a path to finding food. I really did like that little clearing. The water tasted pretty good. Ashes wimpered. I guess the tree scared him. Poor guy.
I turned on a heel. Ashes and I made our way out of the tomb and back into the main area infront of our defacto home. What the hell happens now? I thought for a moment, nbeginning to pace, when I stopped. I had a genius idea. Turning opposite of where the ship lay, I saw the drop off of our little hill. Below us were miles and miles of jungle. How are we gonna get down there? Well, I’ve got that covered.
I returned to the bridge of the ship. Squiggles looked upset that I was back already. “Why are you here? Isn’t this the time I get some silence?” I grinned and approached his little table. “Usually, yes, but I need three things. You need to print (a term I had to explain to him, since his species didn’t call the 3D Printer by the name we call it.) two things, the strongest rope you have, and a kinetic pulse pistol with a retraction function.”
He was angry at this point, but I explained what a belt was and what kind of hook I wanted. He moaned, and slipped off into the next room. Not too long later he returned with my new belt and grappling hook. I cobbled together the parts, and attached it to my new belt. “Thanks, Squiggles.” He shriveled a little at the name. “My name is Li’Vhen, you invertebrate.” I shrugged him off and turned to Ashes.
“You gotta stay here, okay sweetie? Who’s a good kitty? Who’s a good kitty? It’s you!~” Ashes purred and crawled toward my ‘bed’, laying next to it and closing his eyes. Easy peasy, here comes the hard part. I trekked back outside and made my way back to the clearing where our hill dropped off. Manually, I pulled the hook out of the grapple gun and latched it onto a branch, hooking the gun on my belt and rapelling down the hill. When I reached the bottom, I retracted the hook and turned to face the dark reaches of the jungle. Food, that’s what I’m here for.
I began making my way into the treeline, pipe wrench at the ready. I passed through the trees for some time. What appeared to be slightly-larger-than-knat-sized mosquitos began to bite at me. I slapped most of them off and continued. This place was actually kind of dark, the leaves were so thickly layered that they blocked out nearly all sunlight. It was insane, this place was so hot because of the sunlight and yet most of it lived in the darkness. Eventually, after about 10 minutes of hiking, wrench ready to knock out the teeth of any creature in my way, I found something that really caught my attention. A large pond. Then, I got an ingenius idea. I reached for my grappling gun, and then my deer-jerky, and slapped the deer-jerky on the end of the gun’s hooks.
[45 Minutes Later]
My bag was full with fish. I had hid the motherlode, and God was I proud of it. So much food. Once Squiggles gets the ‘refrigerator’ working, I probably won’t have to go out hunting for a week. This only gave me a better idea.
I began my walk into the darkness of the trees, my eyes took their dear sweet time to adjust. Again, mosquitos bit at me, and I even scratched myself accidentally against a twig or two. About several minutes in, I heard a crack sound. Turning around, I found nothing there, and made it a note to walk slower. I did, and another two minutes later, another crack sounded. I swivelled like a computer chair and discovered three, Chainlion-sized animals. Five eyes (two like literally any species on Earth and three smaller ones above it), dark green fur with black blotches, and dog-like ears (only a bit longer). I guess these were the Wolves.
They didn’t seem to like me.
I turned and began running as fast as I could, and I could hear them following at more or less the exact same pace. I sped up, and they did too. My heart was beating out of my chest, it was a miracle I didn’t trip on anything as I blazed through the trees with fucking Cerberus at my tail. Eventually, I reached the hill, and fumbled for my grapple gun. I could hear them fast approaching, and quickly, I aimed up into the treeline and fired. By my arm, I was jolted into the air and up the hill, and the ‘wolves’ (let’s call them ‘Spiderdogs’ because of their eyes) watched as I ascended to the Heavens.
Merry Christmas, you filthy animals.
It wasn’t very far back to the ship. When I entered, I fell onto my ‘bed’ exhausted. My stomach was growling. Time to get cooking, I suppose. One thing I can tell you is that Apollyon’s fish tasted a hell of a lot better than Chainlions or ‘Deer’ could ever could dream of. And they were startlingly larger. Well, most of them were.
After Dinner, Squiggles summoned me to his table. Ashes curled up neatly on my sleeping table, and began to purr in content. God, was I glad to have a pet in these trying times.
“What’s up?” I asked. Squiggles watched me with curiosity, before nodding solemnly. I guess he had something important to say–he never calls me over here. Not even for a ‘research breakthrough’.
“I’m not surprised that you survived. We abducted other Humans before you, and somehow none of them managed to survive our… infrequent mishaps. Ship failure, stasis pod failure, a rare speciment breaking containment, but you… you survived a planetary re-entry and then proceeded to hunt for your food, beating down some of the deadliest creatures I’ve ever seen. When the Pirates returned with their best men, you obliterated them. It may not seem like it, but I’m impressed.” That was shocking. I never would have thought Squiggles would give me a heartfelt talk. But then he followed up…
“Whenever we capture a specimen, we take whatever they have on hand, as well. I’ve unlocked the auxillary storage room. Whatever’s in there, you deserve it.”
Now THAT was what surprised me most.
I shook my head, and turned, making my way down the hall to the door labelled “Auxiliary Storage”. The door opened, and inside were an array of things. What most caught my eye were three items in particular. They didn’t belong to me before, or ever, but they sure as hell did now.
A nice pair of almost perfectly tinted shades, which looked badass.
An MP3 player with headphones.
And to top it all off?
A Sawn-Off Winchester 1887 with a large lever loop (I know my weapons).
I’m gonna tear up this place.