﻿Chapter 2: Sounds of the Forest


“This can’t be real…who would do something like this?” Jess muttered as she tried to process what was happening to her home. Even with her enhanced magnification binoculars, the most she could make out around the sites of destruction were the shapes of people fleeing and monstrous animals. But, animals did not seem to describe them right. No animal looked like the monsters she was seeing. 
 
Jess was focusing hard to make out exactly what she was seeing. Whatever it was, it was affecting the entire city. 


“Dammit dammit dammit, where are the police? I should head back…” 


She turned her view to the exit passage of Wild Gate Station. The metal doors were wide open and more of those monsters were spilling out. The majority of them sported long distended limbs from their seemingly headless body and were using them to move fast…too fast. Trudging behind them were their opposites, tall wide biped creatures with tree trunk like legs and a large sphere of an eye embedded in their head. Amongst them floated a figure that stuck out vibrantly, a large wolverine man, Head Ranger Maris. But not the same Maris Jess had nearly gotten into a shouting match with, earlier that day. Maris’ usual fur and tightly fitted ranger outfit were replaced. He now looked like he had been coated head to toe in a mix of red and blue paint or maybe ink that appeared to swirl and move about on his body. He raised a hand rapidly up as if he was going to wave to someone when the dirt was kicked up in front of him. An echoing crack of wood shattering range out.


“What the hel- AAGH!” Jess’ muttering was cut off as something slotted right between her butt cheeks, pulling her cargo pants in tight.

“HA! Gotcha!” A cheerful deep voice said right behind the oriole. Catching herself from falling over, she turned to see a familiar wombat crouched behind her. Felix Schmidt pulled back and stood up to his full height, a head taller than Jess. He smiled, clearly satisfied with the success of his surprise attack. 

“Felix! Gah, you nearly gave me a heart attack.” Jess turned and pulled her pants back to undo its wrapping of her backside. 


“And you said I’d never be able to sneak up on you, Jessie.~” He walked back a few steps and picked up the backpack that he had removed to aid in his stealthy maneuver. 

“This isn’t the time for jokes! We need to get moving.”

“Woah there Jessie, pump the brakes. I can understand you are upset that a big guy like me got the drop on you, but you’re the one that recommended we meet up here today.” He scratched the back of his head giving Jess a confused look, “We were going to go visit the ruins of an old diner I found, remember?”


“I- this- Felix, Locksmouth is being attacked by monsters!”

Felix blinked a few times and tilted his head, “Jessie, did you need to sit down? Been drinkin’ enough water?”


Jess shoved her binoculars into Felix’s hands just as the Wilds Service Checkpoint Kiosk lit up with a slow pulsing red light. 


“Attention! Locksmouth Residents and Guests. Attention! A state of emergency has been declared for the City of Locksmouth. Please remain calm and move to your closest Ranger Outpost. Rangers will be on site to provide aid and instructions. If you require assistance, please activate the Emergency Beacon function of your PET or this Kiosk and help will arrive shortly. Thank you. This message repeats…” 


“Believe me now?!”

“Easy there, Jessie. I believe you. But, monsters?” Felix raised the binoculars and looked out at the city. “...oh. I really wish you were just dehydrated…”


“So do I, Felix.” Jess kicked a rock hard up the hill hearing the kiosk play its broadcast for the third time. “Screw that broadcast! We need to get back into the city! People could be in trouble” 


“Easy there, Jessie. What are we going to do? Are you some secret agent and just never told me now?” The wombat looked around through the binoculars taking in the destruction already wrought on the city. “This looks like something an organized army should be fighting, not us.”


“No…well…I’m sure the police would need volunteers or something! And what is with you and the idea of a military? I know you love the past but-” Jess pinched the bridge of her beak and moved her glasses back into place. “You know what? I’m not getting into this argument with you again. Let’s just get back to the gate and try to slip in when those monsters are gone.” 


“No can do, at least not easily. Look.” Felix handed her the binocular back and pointed towards the exit doorway. Jess zoomed in on them again, the monsters and whatever Maris was now were gone and the doors were destroyed as the passageway around them had caved in. 


“Just great. We could try the other emergency exit, or…” Jess looked over at the kiosk, eying the pneumatic mail delivery system that runs between it, the city, and beyond. She shook her head. “No, not even going to try that. I’d have to be smaller and have a death wish.”

“Welp, looks like the decision has been made. The Ranger Outpost to the north it is! Let’s get ah move on,” The burly wombat turned and started hiking up the trail. Jess began to follow when she heard something large and heavy crash into the trees down the hill. 

“Oh no,” Jess hastily stashed her binoculars in her pack, “Felix! We have company! Run for it!”

At that moment, one of the long armed monstrosities burst from the undergrowth into the clearing, letting out a horrific snarl from its sucker-like maw. The sharp claws on its three toed limbs dug into the earth as it started to charge at the oriole and wombat. Jess leaped to the side as the monster rushed and crashed into the kiosk, smashing it apart as it picked itself back up.  


Jess landed hard on the packed dirt of the path and slid to a halt inches from the hill’s slope. Looking up she saw that the monster’s attention was solely on her. 


“Jess!” Felix cried, hurling a rock the size of a bowling ball at the monster to draw its attention. Unfortunately for Jess, the effort was a second too late as the monster lunged again and took a swipe at the oriole. With her legs barely under her, Jess turned and kicked, sending her falling over the edge and down the slope.  As she fell back, Jess felt the monster’s talons graze her as they sliced through her pack and shirt. 


Curling up, Jess slid and tumbled down, landing in a particularly dense collection of brush and foliage that softened her fall. A resounding CRACK soon followed as the monster slammed hard into a tree halfway down the hill. It twitched in its stunned state and let out a wet gurgle.


“YOU OKAY JESS!?” Felix’s head popped up over the edge. 


“YEAH! BARELY! GET YOUR ASS TO THE RANGER OUTPOST! I’LL BE RIGHT BEHIND YOU!” Jess yelled back, dusting herself off. Felix gave a thumbs up, happy to see his friend was no worse for wear despite all that just happened. The happy moment was short lived as the monster slowly regained consciousness, “MOVE IT!” Jess said as she turned and started dashing through the woods.


In a well-practiced pace, Jess jumped, dashed, and slalomed her way through the dense trees of the forest. In its dazed state, the monstrosity chasing after Jess was unable to keep up, allowing the girl to put greater and greater distance between her and it. Leaping over a footpath, there was a flash of light blue and red to Jess’ right.


“Oh no you DON’T!” An annoyingly familiar voice yelled, accompanied by the hisses and movement of more of those long armed monsters moving into the brush after her. Jess turned to respond when a wave of force whooshed past her, making her ears pop from the pressure. A second later a tree to her right exploded into splinters from an invisible blade of force.

“You have-” WHOOSH! SMASH! Another tree exploded in a similar fashion, “Got tO BE-” Jess turned hard as another heavy blade of pressure whipped by her and smashed a tree at its base, causing it to slowly fall over. “KIDDING ME! GAH!!” The tree slammed hard into the ground, missing Jess by mere inches. 

Jess sprinted hard through the forests. Her legs burned with fatigue, but she did not dare stop or slow down. After what felt like hours, she could no longer hear the sounds of breaking foliage or the horrific noises of those hunting monsters. Jess slowed her pace and stopped next to a particularly large tree. She felt the fatigue catch up to her making her hands tremble. She huffed and pulled out her water pack and took a long deep drink. The water felt cooler and better than any sports drink she’d ever had. Looking at the water pouch, she noticed that it had definitely taken some hits. The self sealing material had done its job marvelously, but the cosmetic mesh around it was slashed to pieces. 


“Those things really meant business.” Jess muttered to herself as she took out her PET. Slowly starting to walk forward she activated the screen. The group chats of her friends and coworkers were filled with panicked calls and messages asking about what was going on and who needed help. The Elementals chat was… the same as she left it. 


[TrailZapper: Guys! Are you all okay!? ]


Jess paused for a few seconds, but no one responded. She looked at the members list and saw that they were all online, besides Ember.


[TrailZapper: Whatever, respond to me or don’t. Something is attacking the city. They’re outside the dome too. I’m safe. Now you better get somewhere safe too. Please.]

Cycling through the other chat groups she realized Miles had not sent her any messages. Whatever was going on, news of it must not have reached Anchorsway yet. 


“Dammit, okay. Uhh…” Jess stared at the last message he had sent her, debating which would be worse. Telling him or hoping this gets resolved before he even realizes. 


[TrailZapper: Hey Miles, just letting you know ahead of schedule that I am alright.


BinaryBird: Wow


TrailZapper: Wow, what?


BinaryBird: That is the first time you’ve ever messaged me first to tell me that. Thanks Jess.]




Jess let out a sigh of relief. “One last message.”

[TrailZapper: Hey meathead, I lived. No thanks to the monsters. I’m a bit deep in the wilds at the moment. 


RuinHunter: Hell yeah Jessie! Good to hear!


TrailZapper: Will start heading to the Ranger Outpost soon. Meet you there. 


RuinHunter: RACEYA!


TrailZapper: You’re on!]


Jess stretched a bit. It had been awhile since she ran that hard for that long. With monster attacks now a thing, she really wished she took her neighbor up on those martial arts classes. Doing some rad Taekwondo moves would be really handy right now. 


“Okay Jess, just a short multi-kilometer jog to the Ranger Outpost, what’s the worst that could happen.” The oriole hyped herself up, took one heavy step forward and heard the ground shift and something break. She had no time to react as the earth collapsed out from under her. Jess felt something break under her as she landed on it. The oriole groaned and looked up at the sky as the air filled with dust and dirt. She began to lift herself up when something large and heavy fell off of the shelf it was tittering on above and slammed into her forehead, knocking her out cold.






________________






“Ehh. What a cloudy day. Forecast must have been off…” Jess thought looking up through the hole in the ceiling at the early morning sky. It must be just at sunrise, even if little of that sun was shining down. Down here. Wait, where is here?


Jess shot up from the pile of broken material and immediately felt the dulled pain of her experiences the previous day rush back to her along with her memories. “Oww. Damn, I was hoping this was a dream.” Jess rubbed her pounding head gently.


Getting up off her impromptu bed, she saw how lucky she was. The pile she had fallen on was composed of a now broken old wooden crate and several old blankets the once were stored inside it. Next to it was a rather large aluminum can, the label on it faded and falling apart. Jess rubbed her sore head some more and considered herself lucky that it didn’t end her little misadventure. 


“Okay, this isn’t good, but could be worse.” The oriole looked at her equipment starting with her PET. The broken open casing and exposed circuits told her all she needed, she had landed pretty hard on it during the fall. “One point for it being worse.” Jess pulled out her electronics repair multitool and flashlight from her bag with a sigh. 


“At least it is in one piece, one point for good. Maybe a half point.” Clicking on the red light of the flashlight, Jess popped the casing open and started looking it over. “Most of its circuits are intact, the power supply looks oka-ACK!” electricity arced out from a broken capacitor near the power cell and zapped Jess’ hand. Jess blinked for a moment looking back at her hand. In the split second before she closed her eyes in pain, she could have sworn her hand looked different. It looked like it was covered in wet paint or something. But her hand was normal now, feathery and fine. Was it a trick of the light? A combination of the red flashlight with the electrical arc of the PET’s power supply maybe. 


Jess pondered on it, donning a pair of sporty rubberized gloves. She had planned to use these for rock climbing, but they would work to keep herself from getting electrocuted again. Spot soldering, replacing, and reconnecting the intricate components of her PET, Jess took stock of her situation. 


“So this is all real. Monsters are attacking the city and the people in the surrounding area. The easy entrance back into the city is blocked. Gotta meet Felix at the Ranger Outpost. Felix! Right!” Snapping the casing on her PET closed, she powered it back on. The screen displayed a quick reboot sequence and came back online. Jess tapped on the messenger application and a toon-like head of Dásos popped up. 


“Apologies, Jess Gabel. Your PET has been blacklisted from the communication network.” Her PET chirped as the toon Dásos head changed to one bearing a sad expression. “Please, safely return to the Ranger Outpost at Wild Gate Station to get your PET reauthorized. Have a nice day and remember to do like Dásos!” Dásos’ head winked off her screen. 


“Dammit! What the hell Maris!” Jess resisted the urge to spike her PET into the concrete floor. Blacklisting her from the Wilds Service emergency network was one thing, but Jess didn’t think he had the kind of authority needed to blacklist her from the entire communications system. That shouldn’t have even been possible. Jess silenced her PET to be safe and put it in her backpack. “Another point for worse. Two to one half. Great.”


Looking over her pack and herself, she noticed her PET wasn’t the only thing damaged. Her pack bore a clean slash through it from that monster. Its own self sealing material kept everything from spilling out this time, but another hit like that and it wouldn’t hold together. Looking inside, the integrity of her backpack did not seem to have helped much; a lot of her gear was trashed. The heaviest and most badly damaged of which was her personal heating unit, which was promptly dumped out next to the pile of rubble she fell in on. Jess was surprised even more when she looked over her clothing. It bore numerous slashes, rips, and holes from her dodging the swipes of those monsters and the wooden flak from the exploding trees. Jess pulled off her outfit and put them in a pile. Not the first time she had been in nothing but her understickers in the Wilds. Just, the last time it was for a particularly lewd dare. A happier and sillier moment than now, the look on Ember’s face when she- Jess killed that line of thought, she had enough to worry about than what thinking about Ember would conjure up. 


The oriole quickly donned her Wild Service provided thermal suit.  Luckily for her, the suit had avoided destruction thanks to it being shoved at the bottom of her backpack. She didn’t hate the suit for its style or anything. The skin tight suit left little to the imagination, which was not a bad thing. It did, however, rob Jess of some of her fun when it came to messing around in the Wilds. It was a full body suit that was tear resistant, thermal regulating, and water resistant. Perfect for any excursion in any environment. Which is why it was referred to as full body training wheels by wilds exploring purists like herself. However, it was handy for when things turned sour. 


“I’ve had atomic sour candy that was sweeter than this.” Folding up her clothing, Jess noticed something that made her stomach drop once again.


The upper back of her shirt had a massive slash in it. The creature that attacked her and Felix must have hit her deeper than just a glancing blow with one of its talons. She quickly reached back to feel for the wound as she pulled out her small first aid kit with her other hand.  She could be in a prolonged state of shock or something that was keeping her going despite the injury. she needed to…  Jess didn’t feel any blood. Nothing. The spot on her back that should have been badly injured was at most lightly scratched. Something was up. Jess’ stomach growled as she realized she had not eaten for a long time. Pulling out a self heating MRE ration, Jess pulled the initiator string on the heating element and muttered to herself as it warmed up her meal.


“Lucky is one thing, but this is getting weird. Did reality break or something?” Jess looked around the room, illuminating the darkness with her red flashlight. It was a large rectangle of concrete and metal. There were several dust coated metal shelves lined with decaying wood and rusting metal boxes. It looked like an old storage room. Upon seeing what she could best guess was once a cot with the remnants of a pin up calendar above it, things made a little bit more sense. What remained of the calendar showed different pre-splice women sporting revealing swimsuits. “An old apocalypse bunker! Felix would love to see this place.” 


Looking down at her MRE to check how it was going, Jess’ eyes went wide as it felt like she was running her hand under near scalding hot water. She had failed to notice that the MRE was damaged and she was holding a part of its exposed heating element. “FUCK!” Jess dropped the MRE as it let out a little beep indicating that the meal was ready. Jess looked at her hand to see how badly she was hurt and instead saw that her hand and forearm were a vibrant orange and up to her shoulder looked like it was made of black shiny ink. Jess grabbed her arm feeling it slightly warmer than usual under her touch as her heart raced.


“You’re welcome,” A new voice said. Jess frantically looked about trying to identify the source of the voice. “Please calm down, this is getting awkward,” The voice continued as the ink seemed to spread onto her other arm, giving her the appearance of two inky gauntlets with the orange shrinking down to a mote of vibrant orange dancing around in the black. “Let us start over. Hi, how are you?”

“What the absolute Hell!” Jess yelped as she watched the orange splash of color move about.


“You sure love swearing recently, Jess,” The voice continued as the orange mote swirled. 


“I think I should be allowed some leeway! Who the hell are you!”

“You can call me Metra! And please relax. I’ve done nothing but help you,” The orange splash of color swirling around Jess’ hand that was just holding the exposed heating element to emphasize her point. 


Jess took a deep breath as her heart stopped pounding in her ears. “Thank you? Thank you. Okay. Metra, you’ll have to forgive me because well. Things are a bit fucked up right now.”

“Certainly seems so. Not every day you get attacked by monsters.”
 
“Right. So, uh, do me a favor and answer some questions.”

“Shoot,” Metra said as Jess took a seat on a still intact container and retrieved her MRE off the ground. Jess broke the MRE’s seal to let it start to cool off as her stomach groaned again. 


“Who and what are you?”


“My name is Metra, as I said.” As Jess followed the orange blob it paused for a moment, “I’m not the orange light, Jess. That is entirely for your convenience.”


“You can read my thoughts!?”


“Jess, I am not actually talking with a mouth here. I speak directly to your mind and you can think right back to me. But feel free to talk out loud if it makes you feel comfortable.”


“...Right. Sorry. Please continue.”


The light resumed its lazy bouncing movements, “Well that is going to be tricky, because things start to get hazy after my name. I am from another world, or maybe dimension? It is called Canvas. My people call ourselves Inklings. I do remember those two things clearly.”


“What do you mean by hazy?” 


“That is the thing. I do not remember what, but I know I am forgetting a lot of things. It is like…You know that feeling when you wake up half asleep and you go about doing something. You know at least who you are, but everything else is not grounded and you make weird decisions because your mind is thinking partially with dream logic? Yeah, that’s been me ever since I got here and ran into you all those years ago.”


“And why have you only now decided to be here? Like physically…wait a second,” Jess pointed an accusatory finger at the orange mote, “You’re the reason I wiped out on my bike back when I was still in school! I knew that wasn’t just some puddle in the road! And…that wasn’t a surprise flu I got right after, was it”


“Apologies for that. I have been more or less half-wake, dazed, confused, and exhausted since that day I arrived here on Earth and joined with you. I did not mean to take as much prana as I did. I guess it had been awhile since I joined with a host.”


“Woah woah, hold up. You’ve joined with other people? Who? And what the hell is prana?”

“Maybe? Yes? No? Again, It is like trying to remember a dream here. I’m not even sure what the word ‘prana’ means right now. Just that it feels right for what it was.”

Jess huffed and took a bite out of the cooked protein meal of her MRE, “Lovely. Don’t suppose you know what is going on?”


“Nope! But I can say I am definitely here now and ready to help! As I mentioned, I have been helping quite a bit lately.” The ink on Jess’ arms slid back into her, making her shudder. The act felt somewhat pleasant and Jess was unsure if that was a good or bad thing. With the inky material gone, Jess inspected her hand. It sported a new, mostly superficial, burn that some aloe could treat easily. 


“So you stopped me from getting hurt. Thanks. But I think I’ll need more than that to stop those things out there.” Jess finished up her breakfast and applied some aloe from her first aid kit to her hand. 


“I can not make you invincible, in fact I am doing something else. I have a way with the forces of energy! When I know a source of energy is about to hit or come into contact with you, such as those monster attacks, heat sources, electricity, stuff like that, I can absorb most of it. But that energy is not going to waste! I, and thus you, can put that stored energy to use!”

As Metra spoke, Jess packed up her things and walked over to the ancient entrance to the bunker. Trying the door she found it was rusted shut. “So when you say, put it to use,” Jess reeled back her fist and watched as it was coated in inky material again, her fist up to her mid forearm was orange and the rest black. The orange swirled about along the edge of the two colors.


“You have got it, Jess! Give it a go!” Metra cheered. Jess punched forward and to her surprise, WHAM! The now dented metal door flew forward off its hinges and clattered into a tree a dozen meters in front of the bunker’s entrance. Her inked over fist gave off faint trails of steam from the energy transferred in the hit.


“Wow.” She looked at her fist as the ink receded back. 

“Wow? No compliments and fawning over my abilities? No, ‘Thank you Mistress of Energy Manipulation, I am in awe of your power’? Fine fine. Those will hopefully come later.”


Jess rolled her eyes. “Thank you Metra. Now let’s get going!”




________________




The cloudy sky only seemed to darken as the day went on. Even though Jess was on alert for any prowling creatures that now occupied these woods, the sounds of life in the forest eased her worries, if only slightly. It was a fact that you only learn from being out in the wilds away from the busy established camping sites; A noisy forest is a safe forest. Animals do not chirp, chitter, and yelp much if they believe there is danger around. Jess’ innate oriole senses gave her a similar edge, but she was amongst the masters of sensing danger and self preservation.


A cool wind passed through the trees, giving another sign that a storm front was getting ever closer. Picking up her pace, Jess noticed the trees began to thin out as she approached a large  clearing. An old large art deco style building was positioned in the clearing’s center. Centuries of decay and the encroachment of nature had left most of the building falling apart and a large tree growing prominently out from one side of it. The metal and concrete frame of the building remained mostly intact. The gleaming steel and red paint of the building, however, had turned to rust and faded maroon. The majority of its windows had long since been broken, except for sections of glass that were as thick as bricks, for structural and more likely aesthetic purposes. Metal wiring of what was once its sign clung to the building, denoting that whatever this place’s original name was, it was a diner. Jess smiled- this was likely what Felix wanted to show her. A shame he didn’t get the chance to do so yesterday.


As Jess approached the diner she heard fainted worried voices. People! Jumping up onto the remnants of one of the building’s many windows, Jess saw a meerkat woman, a goat man, and a panda man huddled around a portable heating unit. At the same time, a section of the ancient concrete of the wall crumbled noisily under Jess’ boots, alerting the trio to her presence. The goat turned first to see her and screamed.


“AAAH! Another one!”


“Hey! Woah! Holdup! I’m a human!” Jess called back and held her off hand up as she climbed up and through the diner’s window frame. “Relax, I’m not here to hurt you.”


“You could be infected! I’ve seen this part of movies before! Stay back!” The goat continued in panic before the panda gave him an annoyed look and smacked him on the back of the head.


“Cut that out, this isn’t a zombie movie. Sorry miss…” The panda stood up and dusted himself off. Looking the three over, Jess noticed they were wearing thermal suits and vests denoting them as part of the Wilds Service. 


“Jess! Call me Jess. I should apologize, I did jump up here. With everything going on, I don’t blame you for being jumpy. I take it you’ve encountered those monsters?” Jess moved further in and sat on the remains of what was once a booth seat cushion. 


“Them and w-worse,” The Meerkat woman said, rubbing her hands together in front of the heating unit as another cool breeze swept through the area. “I’m Anna, these are my teammates Silvester and Luka,” She motioned towards the goat and panda respectively. “We’re part of an ecology team with the Wilds Service. What’s left of it anyways.”


Luka leaned against the diner’s counter, “We were a team of 5, but as we were stopping by a documentation point of interest, we were attacked. Our team leader and navigator were grabbed and dragged away by those monsters as we all tried to run. I wanted to go back for them but-”

“BUT THEY WERE POSSESSED!” The goat blurted out, “Those monsters or something infected them! They were skulking after us when the monsters left!”  The goat trembled as he raised a water bottle to his mouth to take a long drink and continued, “They looked the same but were coated in gray slime!”


“We managed to escape and well…Colin, our navigator, was turned into one of those gray things, like Silvester said. We got lost pretty quickly and by pure luck found this place as night fell,” Luka added. “Please tell me this is some weird accident or something. All of the communications I’ve gotten from the Wild Service headquarters are nonsensical.” 


Jess took a deep breath as she prepared herself. “Well, bad news and good news. Bad news, Locksmouth is being attacked by monsters and we are just seeing the ones that escaped the city. Good news, we can find some safety at the Ranger Outpost and I know the way.” Jess got up and walked over, placing her hand on Anna’s shoulder. Silvester flinched, expecting Jess to do something malicious. Opening his eyes, he looked around and saw nothing had happened and relaxed.
. 
“So pack up your stuff, a storm is likely going to hit soon and we want to be at the outpost before then.” The trio nodded and began hurriedly putting away the little equipment they had taken out the night before. Jess turned and walked over to the concrete wall near the entrance away from the ecologists.


“Metra, want to explain what the hell they were talking about?” Jess muttered softly to herself.


“Uhhh…”

“Metra,” Jess said more sternly.


“I really have no idea, Jess. Inklings can use other creatures as hosts and so I guess those Grays…Grays, okay wait. Yes. Right.” 


“Going to share?” 


“Give me a break here. I just remembered it. There are different types of inklings. Most are grays, they do not have much in the ways of powers like I do. Lucky for you, huh?” Jess rolled her eyes at the comment. “Really making me work for those compliments, huh Jess. Ahem, Inklings like me are called… Elites, that is right, Elites. All sorts of abilities and more vibrant colors too. So I guess their friends got taken over by Grays.”


“Skimming over how your people are more and more involved in this invasion. What do I do if we encounter Grays? Do I have to worry about being possessed too?”

“With me here and fully awake, you have twice the defense against them! Just try not to go too crazy when fighting them. I assume you want their hosts to be okay after all this.”


“Good to know I guess.”


“Can I at least get a ‘thank you’ for that?”


Jess pinched the bridge of her beak, “Thank you, Metra.”


Metra was not able to bask in the admiration of her host for long. Jess’ attention snapped back to the rest of the world when she noticed something unsettling. The forest was quiet. Quiet except the sounds of something or things moving through the underbrush in the distance. The noise was heading their way. Jess turned to look around the edge of the wall near the entrance that she was leaning on and looked out into the forest. It was hard to make out everything, but the swirling red and blue ink form of Ranger Maris, or whatever was possessing him, was easy to spot. 


“We’ve gotta go, monsters are here,” Jess took off her backpack and threw it to the panda who nearly was knocked over from the surprise weight. “Head out the back and keep heading in that direction, I’ll hold them off for a bit and come find you.”


“Hold off wh- shit, right. Anna, Silv, come on.” Luka hefted the two packs on. Anna was about to pick up the now inactive heating unit when Jess raised a hand.


“Wait, leave that, I’ll start a fire to scare them off.” Jess said, trying to sound like she knew what she was talking about. Anna nodded and ran after her coworkers.


As the ecologists began running off into the woods, Metra chimed in as she inked over Jess completely, “Start a fire?”



