A wild holler comes echoing down the hills that gird the lake; a path works its way along the downward slope, and it's over that packed dirt that a wheel thunders as it rolls downhill at improbable and definitely unsafe speeds. It's turning so fast as to be a blur, and when it reaches the brief patch of level ground by the lake's edge, it overturns and launches a glittering silver shape from the center, the ring itself plowing into the ground and bouncing to a stop without visible scratch or injury. The projectile itself, something with too many trailing edges and reflecting bright under the sun, still howling its delight, plunges right into the water, knifing straight as it does. There's much less of a splash than the improvised cannonball would have implied, and the voice cuts off as the shape darts underwater, slick as a squid. There's a confused moment where it abruptly alters direction and slams into a patch of seaweed, but then it comes up and breaks surface, fins flailing in its mouth.

The fins are from a pike, caught in sharp, regularly-spaced teeth inside a toothy maw. The rest is all monster.

It's pale-skinned, almost rubbery-looking at a distance, like dolphin hide. The head has the same general shape as a human, but the chin is less pronounced, and the eyes are blue dots with a black lid that sheathes over them horizontally, sliding back into place to reveal those dot pupils. Its maw closes on the pike and jerks - then a hand comes up and takes hold of the tail, and it tears the fish in two between teeth and grip, gobbling up half of the savaged fish in one gulp after. The throat visibly works, distending, as it wolfs down the meat, then the other hunk in one shot as well.

The water colors red. Fish blood stains its face for the moment before it dives again.

Under the water, it moves with deft ease; a closer look reveals that it has three fins that propel it through the water, twisting and turning to throw its slim, streamlined form through tight acrobatics, though the appendages have an odd gleam. It darts out deeper into the lake, into open waters, and seizes a bluegill that doesn't flee fast enough - this one goes down in one chomp while still underwater, and it comes back up to the surface with a fin still stuck in its teeth. It delicately picks it out with long fingers, releasing a definitely masculine sigh of satisfaction.

There's a strand of seaweed over one shoulder. What looks like a metallic hand slides up out of the water and flicks it off - revealing the 'fins' as metal limbs jury-rigged at the waist onto an a piscatorial torso through a silver, synthetic melding where the hips would be on a man.

For the moment, it's quietly floating at the surface, scanning the lake, lips parted slightly as it breathes. Behind that pale mouth lurks fangs, like a gar's, made to impale and hold slick, struggling prey. While afloat in the water it's a little hard to estimate size accurately, but it's definitely at least the size of a man, and definitely masses more.

What a lovely day to cut class. Rhaine had heard about this place some time back but hadn't gotten around to coming to the lake. While she had learned that a lot of areas were unsafe there were some that seemed relatively so. It were these spots that she had returned too but on this particular day she wasn't about to chance being discovered at her favorite spot.

After all she was skipping class although Ania would have liked it if she had applied herself more. She tried, though outside of Mathematics were she got perfect or near perfect marks she was a solid C student. Rhaine wasn't the brightest nor the dumbest but she tried.

“I'm sure Ania won't mind if I take one day off.” She said to herself. The warmth of the sun shining down on her. Then she dived remaining underwater for a fair amount of time given her lung capacity. She swam leisurely without a care in the world then heard a violent splash as if a student had been launched into the lake.

That startled her at the suddenness of it so she popped up to the surface. She had swam closer to the shore standing in waist deep water. About to call out she froze seeing something inhuman and savage not far from her as it gorged itself on fish.

Oh shit! Eyes went wide. It had not noticed her yet thankfully and the shore wasn't too far off. Maybe she could reach it before she was noticed. It was not much farther to the treeline from there. If all went well she could be gone before he even noticed her.

Don't look! Don't look! Don't look! She pleaded to herself as she slowly waded through the water to the shore.



https://s227.photobucket.com/user/Mox_D ... q.jpg.html

The sound of water parting catches the fish abomination's attention as quick as if she had slapped it; it turns to look at her with limpid, blue eyes, and that mouth opens wide and vertical, before it knifes into the water and torpedoes forward, jetting underwater until it erupts from the shallows besides Rhaine and shakes off the water with a twisting shake. Those big blue eyes, the pupils fat and wide, affix themselves on Rhaine. A deep, throbbing beat thrums out, two quick notes, and then it opens its mouth.

"Yallo, younglin'!" It says merrily, in complete opposition to the brutal, fang-filled gape of its mouth. "Ya're from that ssschool up on the mesa, aren'tcha?"

The English is mangled but understandable, but the letter s is a mangled mess; the teeth aren't shaped right, and it comes out as a windy hiss through those daggerlike protrusions. There's still a bit of fin stuck on a fang in the corner of its mouth.

"I'm a traveler in need a' sssshome assishtance, yah?" It says, and paces her as she wades; moving at an easy trot, those metal limbs wading through the water easily. Each is thick and trunklike, some silver polymer that the water slides off of easily, corded with synthetic muscle and armored paneling. When he lifts a foot up higher to shake off a crawdad, the 'toes' are three long phalanges, webbed in between like an otter's feet. "The locale being all new to me 'n sssuch. There a sssalad bar? Buffet counter? Immigration bureau?"

The monster is travelling parallel to Rhaine, not cutting her off, but clearly able to outspeed her due to its approach, and too interested to bugger off.

It shouldn't have surprised her that it was quick. Many of them were and the few that she did manage to out run were only playing with her, spicing up their meal so to speak. One minute it was there and the next it emerged from the water right next to her with a suddenness that shocked her into paralysis.

She swallowed hard, revising the gender from it to him as it sounded masculine. Yet he did not pounce upon her straight away, as menacing as he was he addressed her. “Umm … yeah. I mean yes I am.” She managed, a bit wide eyed as she gazed at him. Her head turning to follow his movements yet the way he was moving would allow her to make a brake for the shore almost as if he were daring her too.

After that display in speed there was no way she was going to make it three feet let alone the ten or so she needed to cover.

“Assistance?” She blinked a few times imaging the wide variety of assistance that he likely meant. In any case it couldn't be good, right? “Y-Yeah … well to the first two. But only for the students. I don't know about the later. Or if such is supplied ...”

She took a deep breath then let it out. “You're not planning on hurting me. I won't run.” Not that that would do any good. Rhaine had been a mess of broken bones while here. Ribs, arm, a hand and even jaw. Severe injuries that someone were treated overnight. She still didn't understand it but had no desire to experience it once more.

"Exsssellent!" the monster exults, doing a little kip, its tripod legs bucking up to bounce it in place. "I'm not marooned on sssome backwater livessstock pressserve! I'ya been worried a moment."

The beast does a strange side-step - coming just close enough to drop its hand on Rhaine's head twice, jarring head-pats too hard to be comfortable - and then it starts for the shore without looking back for Rhaine. "Thisss one be fed and full, younglin', ya've got no worry with me. Poor tassste to eat the juvenile for yer kind, I hear! Human, methink? Ssstrange ssstuff, but I'll learn yar local cussstoms."

The good-natured babble contrasts badly with the subject. Its voice is sing-song, sharp ya sounds it throws in welling full-throated from the bottom of its lungs, only to trail off in hissing sibilants as it tries and fails to enunciate the letter s. The gait is just as bizarre - with two legs back and one forward, it balances on the former, brings the hindlegs up, and then bounds forward in a sharp little burst, only to pause as it shifts its weight again. The entire effect is somewhat ungainly and comical, except for the teeth and the casual agiility it had displayed in the water.

It turns back once it reaches the shore and waves one arm at Rhaine, enthusiastic. "C'mere, younglin'! Get yassself out of that water, ya've got no proper ssskin to keep out that cold. Ya'll go ssswimmin' and like to die comin' back out, ya? Ssshould ssstay dry."

Is it possible for a space fishman to have a country accent?

She flinched as that hand came down but to her surprise it was just a pat of her wet locks that had darkened in color. Still she was unable to hide her relief seeing that she wasn't on the menu. She considered the piece of fin wedged between those wicked looking teeth which made her more than glad.

Rhaine stood there in the waist deep water. Her mind attempting to process everything that had occurred in the last few minutes. Had he been marooned here … well, there was contacts here that could get him off planet she surmised though she really didn't have any experience with the in's and out's of the entities on the island. Rather she just assumed that there had to be some sort of community or way of doing things that she had not known about. Maybe Ania would tell her if she asked.

The way he moved had been comical. She might even be able to move quicker on land then him if she had her shoes on and didn't have to worry about all those roots and rocks.

Still she stood there working over things until he called out to her gesturing her forth. She blinked off her confusion.

“Coming.” She waded forth getting out of the water near her things so she could towel down. Generally it was warm enough unless a storm was rolling in so she should warm up quickly. Still standing around ripping wet did no one any good.

“You have a ship?” She asked but how else would he have been marooned unless someone kicked him out of it and stole it. She looked left, then right, mapping out the best route to take if she had to run before slipping her flip flops on regretting the fact that she didn't come here in shoes today. Flip flops would hardly do her any good if she had to run for it.

"Oh, had, ya can be sssure," it says with relish, wide gestures accompanying its words. It gesticulates a lot, communicating almost as much with brassy body language as with twanging word. "Couldn't pilot it! Never learned how, never got a licsssence. I plugged a direction in and off I went, and hopped in the ejection pod when that took me into an asssteroid belt. Pod took me here - ssstill buried back in the wood, ya ken - and I've rollicked through the forest and the dale sssince. Ssship's ssscinders by now, betcha."

On shore it does an odd trot in place, the lower mechanical torso actually rotating underneath its abdomen, and then the legs fold inwards and contract as the central nest of his synthetic limbs sets down on the ground. It leaves him looking somewhat like a potted Creature From the Black Lagoon. It finally notices the fin stuck in its mouth, and a long tongue flicks up and yanks it off without ceremony - the tip is forked, and the two tips work independently, grasping the fin at opposite edges before abducting it back into his throat in a blur. It doesn't even bother to swallow.

"I've found myssself marooned, ya see? I figure knowin' what nosssesss I be tweakin' will let me have more fun. What bullet I need be dodging, ya? I know the locality be human-majority, but what with all my ssscaly, creepy-crawl kin footing around? I ssseen all kind of creature sssneaking about in the wood. What be the gentleman agreement?"

A pause, and then the thing's mouth widens and opens for a beat. It almost looks like an attempt at a smile from a race definitely not designed for it; instead, all it does is display an intimidating amount of sharp, daggerlike teeth. "Oh, and my name be Aulopis. Grandsere Aulopis, even! I have daughters your age, ya?"

He had an accent similar to the monster she ran across that had been disguised as a human. It took her a second for the words to click in her head as if translating them from a foreign language to English but she followed well enough. With all those gestures it had been impossible not to look over her shoulder in the direction of the ship.

A mistake on her part. After she did so she imagined that he would pounce her right then and there but he didn't. He seemed rather relaxed, a mix of fish and machine that had her wondering about his origins. Was his species like that or had he suffered some terrible accident?

She paused at his question not sure how to answer. Afraid to answer almost as if doing so would provoke him into action.

“I'm not really sure myself. Generally humans are separated from non humans and I haven't seen any of the non humans working together.” She glanced away back towards the lake for a moment.

“Some girls are targeted … one even worked with Tidal.” Subconsciously she rubbed at the back of her hand that had been broken by Etolie. “I don't think they get in each others way. At least one other girl serves as a minion or Pet of one of them. I guess I got lucky too but not always.”

So he was a grandfather. She had never thought of these creatures having families. More often than not she was too distracted to pay that any attention. “My name, well it's a bit odd. A spelling error on my birth certificate gave me a surname different from my family. It was too much of a fuss to change it and since I only have to sign official documents with it it was no big deal. It's Rhaine Fischer. It should really be Rhaine Fisher.”

Aulopis's face flattens and his lips purse. A membrance flicks out from the inner side of his eyes, covering it in hardy brown for an instant. "Family mattersss. If they fucked that up, they ssshould fix it."

Then he smiles and throws his hands up again, as if to toss away the moment. "But hey, humansss! What do I know? Maybe ya'll like throwing each other away." He reaches up to pat Rhaine on the head again, but his arm is too short. Instead he translates it into a superbly awkward wave and a beaming, toothy-wide smile. "Independent then, aren'tcha. Ya're not namin' a patron. You fight them, don'tcha. You're a fine one - Fisher. Don't regret ya're guts."

He squints to say the name, but manages to get it out without mangling it, like he has the rest. There's also a strange emphasis on it, eyes nictating again.

"This Tidal, then, ssshe knock around my bend of the wood, eh? Out in the lake and the river? Tell me more, wouldja? What ssshe like? I ssseen a buncha weird kak out there in the ocean, but that school, it takesss the cake. Figure that be a ssstory and a half, ya?"

This time she doesn't flinch though his touch falls short. She considers what he said then shakes her head a little. Maybe things would go better for her if she told him about Ania. Maybe there was some strange arrangement that she didn't know about. “No, I guess I'm lucky in that.” She held up two fingers. “Mistress and Master look after me though I haven't seen the later in a bit. He lives somewhere near this river I think. At least both times I've come across him he's been near here.”

She was stretching the truth there a little. Master was farther away then she let on. He was close, if he was still around, but not close enough to run off to should things turn ugly. So far though he confused her, unlike many of the others that she had chanced upon.

“Tidal is a strange one. A rotten one. Not the worse but close. I thing that tentacle thing was worse but it's the difference of a few broken bones. Which ones are more important? Anyway I was lured to a beach by Etolie. She was mean, at least until Master and Mistress went after her.

“Tidal was at the ocean. The pair had isolated me on a rock out there and did some strange stuff. Altered my skin with chemicals. Etolie even smashed my hand with a rock and broke it. They even had something else with them.”

She paused and thought. It might not have been likely that he knew the animals of her world. “Some sort of Kraken or squid. See that tree over there? About that size if not bigger. It had all sorts of tentacles and ended up braking my jaw.

“I've never gone back to that beach so I don't know if she's still there or that thing. I rather not find out. In any case I don't go to the beach any longer. Less chance of encountering giant creatures like that if the water doesn't get that deep.”

The wide, toothy smile falls away. Now Aulopis just stares at her, close-mouthed. Two masters, not none. And it'd taken all of two visits by the one master to break her to its will. She's no fighter, and she'd chosen submission rather than death. They even mutilated her, and she still called them, even this far from their presence, by their slaveholder titles. No, she's not what he had thought at first.

"Ya head bone and then ya leg bonesss," the fishman answers, easy as breathing, while he ponders what to do with this one then. "One ya can't live without, and the other ya can't eat without. All the ressst ya can get around, but thossse ya want."

Three things had hunted her. One near the beach, some kind of animal. He'd look that way next. Easy to suppose nobody would care if he ate the thing if it was breaking students that the rest so industriously look to enslave, for what reason he couldn't imagine. Don't they have geneforges around here? Why not just grow a slave, instead of hunting younglings not even their own species? These other tourists confuse him.

"Tell ya what," Aulopis says on a whim, his mechanical limbs deploying beneath him, raising him to well above Rhaine's height again; an easy six foot six, even with the synthetic knees bent at a good angle. "I wanna sssee this beach ya got the calamari at. Then ya go on yasss way. Pukka, girlie? Let ya 'Lopisss go get the wheel, I'll be right with ya."

That odd turn of phrase dispensed, he turns and starts back into that loping pace, going around the lake to where he'd left the Halo. That gait looks significantly less comical at a higher gear - it lopes like a cheetah, bounding ten to twelve feet, landing on a rear leg, and then pushing off with the forward pair in great leaps, in fact at one point rebounding off a tree instead of turning. The ash he'd leapt from groans and shakes hard, leaves falling to the ground below.

The wheel is exactly what he advertised it as, a big circular wheel eight feet tall and a foot thick around, all gleaming spage-age polymer and unscratched despite the rough use he'd put it to on arrival. Handles on the inside, five in total, fit comfortably into the grip of his hands and limbs, and then he jerks it to the left and the outer ring begins to rotate - accelerating the entire contraption forward at increasingly unsafe speeds, the fishman inside cackling in adrenaline-fueled glee as it goes up a slope and achieves three full seconds of airtime before it comes back down with a thudding bounce. It looks like it would have crushed anything it landed on, let alone Rhaine.

The contraption rolls to a halt beside the schoolgirl, the spreadeagled fishman inside peering down at her with a wide, toothy grin as he hangs from the hand and footholds. "C'mon, ssshow me the way, younglin'!"

She had gone wide eyed, a bit of fear at the mere memory of that place. Then she calms down a bit. Tidal seemed tied to the ocean. A mere-creature of sorts and that thing, that squid was no danger on the land. Nor could. it sneak up on her in shallow water.

Pukka? What did that mean? She tried thinking, maybe it was a species thing. “Alright.” She didn't even think about what he meant by the halo busy with gathering up her things. Slipping on her flip flops and folding up the blanket that she returned to the wicker basket she brought that had contained a few snacks one of an unusual nature and her towel.

She had seen him moving along reevaluating her changes in having been able to get away on foot. The distances he sprang were equivalent to four or five of her strides and he did this effortlessly. When he came back it was in that wheeled contraption that landed near her startling her into jumping back.

Crimson eyes looked over the alien vehicle which had to be far faster than she could move on foot and had to be quicker than his unusual gait. “Do I get on?” She didn't think they would be bothered either way, the sound keeping others away being that it wasn't attributed to a student or two being alone while out in the wilderness.

Either riding on the thing or walking alongside it she brought him to the beach. There was a fair bit of jungle they had to move through before getting to the coast. Moving along a windy beach he brought them to the spot.

“I'm not sure that she's around. I haven't been back here. You can't win against these things. And by you I mean me. If I had to bet the only variable would be that squid thing. If there were a handicap and even then ...” she trailed off not really sure how to evaluate his fighting prowess and the squid's. Against Tidal who appeared human-like she gauged that he was stronger, at least he had a greater intimidating look about him and yet Tidal was crueler.

“Take this left here. Hug the coast line. See that small path there that hugs those rocks. Just on the other side hidden from view is the beach.” She pointed at the rocks that made up the cliff that blocked their view of the beach sandwiched between two cliffs affording it some privacy from the view of others. Of course one could swim out and around that cliff if they didn't mind getting wet but the area was too close to where she saw the squid for her to even consider getting into the water.

"Ya on point," Aulopis agrees readily, offering an arm down to the girl. While he hadn't really looked to jolt around much mid-ride, it definitely didn't come with creature comforts - he was hanging from handles on the inside of the ring like a monkey, out in the open air, or a spider in its web, splayed out. He yanks Rhaine up beside him, secures her with an arm around her waist, and starts the Halo up again. It roars out a screeching whine and rockets forward, hurling them from divot to slope to mogul with casual ease; Aulopis has to be deliberately aiming for every upward slope he can find, because they spend a disproportionate amount of time airborne, while the huge cyborg cackles in glee. His skin is smooth and oily, slick to the touch, but rigid under the surface somewhere.

The distance blows by; Aulopis's chosen form of transportation moves as fast as a car on the highway, if considerably less safely. When he finally hits the soft soil near the beach, the spinning gyre fouls up in the moist clay and starts to sink instead of speeding over the surface, and he just laughs and lets the engine die down instead of digging himself a hole with its revolutions. Dropping Rhaine to her feet and hefting the Halo up out of its rut, rolling it alongside him casually as he trots for the beach. "Getsss the blood runnin', don't it? Wake up every morning with a ssslalom run through the wood, get me a meal on the way. Nothing wrong with picking up your roadkill, eh?"

His cheer at odds with his conversation, he picks his way down towards the water, then glances about. "Think this is where you split, younglin'," he says, serious for a moment, the laughing chatter falling away. "Old Aulopisss can care for hissself, but ya're not a fighter. Fair 'nuff, ya go on yar way now. I gotta bone to pick."

Aulopis bares his teeth, and this time it doesn't even look like a facsimile of a smile. "Still hungry, ya? You go now."

Then he turns, hefts the Halo up, and bounds away through the rock towards the beach.

She eyes the alien tech before being hauled aboard trying to figure out how best to secure herself. She barely has time to wedge the basket between her legs before they shoot on. “AIIEE!!!” The suddenness has her sliding about steadied by his grip. She ends up grasping a pair of those rings.

While it is no faster than a car on the open highway, nothing like those speeding NASCAR. They are constantly in the air, her stomach lurches and more than once terrified crimson eyes are gazing down some distance only to slam down crushing vegetation and causing her to jolt upward before they bounce up once more.

Don't get sick! Don't get sick! Don't get sick! The mantra runs through her head. She's reminded of those amusement parks, that dead fall that drops you only for you to bounce up a few times before the ride settles down.

But there is no settling down. It's hard to get a baring of where she was at first then manages to point out a path seeing the slab of rock off the beach when they had been aloft. Most of the time she points out a direction. To her credit she doesn't get sick but is rather thankful that the ride is over when they reach the beach.

Getting off she sits the basket down and settles down for a moment with the world spinning about her.

He was really doing this? She glanced towards the hidden beach then back at him.

“I … I don't think it has any bones if it's like a squid from my world,” she manages though she knows what he means. She watches after him for a while as he hoists that rig and moves forward. She does not follow but oddly finds herself waiting. Five minutes. Ten.

She doesn't know why she waits or is concerned but she is. Remembering quit well what that thing did to her in the past. No telling if it were still there or not. After half an hour she concluded that either he was dead or still searching for it. The ocean was big and it may not be in the same area.

At that point she returned to the dorm thinking back to the unusual encounter. Some days later when the weekend hit she returned to that same spot, carrying her basket of provisions. Instead of flip flops she has slip on shoes not that it would matter and not that she thought she would need them but she did learn from little over sites.

Laying out her blanket she set her things aside only taking a little walk near the lake. What possessed her to have a look around had been uncertain. Was she looking for him? Curious to see if he had indeed survived. Had she been inviting other dangers upon herself? That tree thing was in the area, right? Both times she had managed to elude it though neither had it been from her own efforts and the second time she couldn't actually say she eluded it but had been rescued.


Sticking close the the edge of the lake she began scanning the region before laying her eyes on a familiar site. He was alive.
“Hay, old man.” Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! There had been no sense addressing him as such, provoking his ire. He was a different species and she couldn't tell for certain with his age and all. But he did mention grand kids, right? She waved in his direction to get his attention.

The smooth white body floating over the surface of the water like a castaway log jerks, and then that pale, hairless head comes up, blinking at Rhaine. It's Aulopis, alright - and as he pushes himself higher in the water on his trailing, mechanical limbs, he looks like he's been in a scuffle. There's a long line of puckered scars down his left shoulder, and an actual chunk out of his tricep on that side where something had just taken a piece out of him. For all that, though, he looks completely undaunted. "Ay-up! Younglin', be dangerousss to knock on the door 'round here. Glad for the visit, though, gimme a trice."

He ducks below the surface, and slides below the water swift and slick - bursting out closer to the shore like a heron in reverse. It turns out the scars on his shoulder are the only wound on him, and the rest is untouched; certainly, his mobility is unhindered, as he does the awkward, slow lope that suffices for a human's walking pace. Aulopis bounces over to Rhaine's picnic blanket and looks at it, blank.

"What, ya planning to sssleep out here?" he says, tilting his head. "Ssstraight glaikit, that, I ain't about to keep ya from earnin' a chomp from all the other galootsss about ssshould ya be that daft."

The basket he's a lot more curious about, actively sniffing as if he can catch the scent of the food in there, though he doesn't open it; from the faint glee on his face, in fact, Aulopis is having fun guessing what's in there instead, as his brow wrinkles in thought.