ic Red Team: Jeopardy In The Jungle

[Avenger Assembled]

Neko sat down on a nearby log and began to groom herself, licking the back of her hand and rubbing it against her hair. It was a way to feel better, and a way to mask just how tired she was. She decided to let their prisoner sweat, trusting the younger students to interrogate him. She could smell the stink of fear on him despite his cover, and knew she could do things to him before he could flee or draw some other weapon. When Red landed on her arm, she patted the little bug affectionately before adding, "You can stay here otherwise. You might not like it, now that they are awake." She smiled again. 

[Poncho]

(GM Post)

 

It was easy to tell for those that were practiced- or those that could read minds- that the hunter was bluffing his calmness. But it was still a fairly inpressive showing as he turned and headed back to the jungle.

 

"Very well, very well, follow me then, right-o." He said. He cut a fairly effective track back through the path he had once sliced up chasing Kazra, especially as the mist dissipated and returned to normal light and weather.

 

His stoneiness was broken when they got to the empty clearing and the tire tracks where his rv had been parked.

 

"My caravan!!!" He yelled in a mix of abject frustration and rage. "My intern has stolen my caravan!" He stomped his foot on the ground. "Oh that little...you hire someone without much work experience becuase you're feeling generous and at the first sign of trouble they quit without even putting in notice! And they steal your caravan on the way out! That cost over 3 million dollars!" He said in fury. "Add that to what I had to pay to get this expedition in the first place and I'm so far in the hole I can get to China!" He continued to stomp his feet in anger as he paced around the camp, as if he was expecting to find his motorhome hidden under an abandoned pile of drone bodies or inside one of the empty dinosaur cages.

 

Kazra frowned.

 

"Who did you pay for this trip?" She asked.

 

"Those serpent people. The provided the technology, said I could hunt anything I found in this area. Said it was expressly allowed!"

[Dracostern]

Cerebral and Cerebellum 

 

"Serpent people?" Daniel questioned as the group made it to the camp...or what was left of it. It seems their enemy had been abandoned himself. There was a lot here to unpack, for the moment though it might be a good idea to follow the tire tracks. Sure this might not really be their business. But both twins had a bad feeling that more would come if nothing was done about this.

 

"I think we should follow the tracks." Iris spoke, informing the group of her idea. "I have a really bad feeling about this..."

[Avenger Assembled]

On her back, her hands folded above her, Neko rolled over and sniffed the air with a look that could best be described as sulking. "I don't like snakes. They make me jump." With an air of long-suffering and somewhat-bedraggled dignity, she stepped back into the shoes she'd kicked off when she flopped down. "The Serpent People are enemies of your father and sister," she said to Kazra. "Did they try and kill you, you think? Okay. I can look," she said, folding her legs beneath her as she closed her eyes. As she did, the jungle seemed to come alive with cats, peeking through the leaves and underbrush, peering around for any lurking snakemen. 

[Poncho]

(GM Post)

 

Neko's cats followed both the 'caravan' and stayed on the lookout for serpent people. The results were quite different, at least. There definitely weren't any snakemen in the area. That seemed reasonable; they would have likely attacked at the prospect of greater numbers, possibly using dominated dinosaurs similar to what the Hunter had used, but without reinforcements, it likely meant they had left him be.

 

Meanwhile, the Caravan sped off as it left the jungle area onto a grassy plain; hidden in the bend of the river and surrounded by forests, Neko's cats could barely reach the edge of the forest where they watched the RV pick up speed, leaving a trail of pink smoke behind it, before it faded away, likely through another hidden entrance and back into the Prime World.

 

Meanwhile, Kazra looked around, digging bullets out of trees and trying her best to collect any information.

 

"I wouldn't be surprised. They're always trying things, but they've been on a decline lately. I wouldn't say it's permanent; it's more that they go in cycles of being powerful and being weak. It's likely the entire reason they agreed to this guy and his entourage showing up was because they were hoping to get some revenge on me and my family. Especially with Dad getting up there in years, it'd be a great time to try and take him out once and for all, really drive a wedge into the people that look up to him. They might have assumed he would be with you instead of me, set the hunter on this course of action, hoping he'd just do what came natural and hunt him down." She paused to look at the hunter himself. "Which is exactly what he did when he found me." she paused. "...Honestly it's kind of a half-baked scheme, sort of reeks of desperation, doesn't it? How strange."

 

It was a logical theory based on what Neko had just seen; the total lack of reinforcements and the possibly escape tunnel back to safety. It might raise more questions though, and if Kazra was aware of those questions, she was pointedly not asking them, especially not in front of the 'visitor'.

 

"Anyway. We need to figure out what to do with this guy. Either he comes back with you or we keep him here, but it's not like we have a full legal system or anything." she noted, looking at the man who was absolutely not looking like he wanted to be put to tribal justice but trying to maintain his stiff upper lip. "So we'd probably just let him go to try and carve out his own life...not sure how long he'd last without air conditioning and all his little toys."

Edited July 23 by Poncho

[Dracostern]

Cerebral and Cerebellum 

Iris and Daniel looked at each other, it was best to wait for Neko's cats to come back and show them the way, assuming they had successfully followed the Caravan. It was safer then potentially getting lost in this jungle. 

Sure this might have started out as a training excerise, but now things were getting serious. Iris turned to Neko, their senior, and spoke. "Can you please contact the school? If possible? We might need some back up here."

If that couldn't happen that's fine. Iris just wanted to be sure.

[Avenger Assembled]

Back into herself, Neko stood up and stretched big, digging her nails idly into a nearby tree as deeply as she could. "They ran away. Pathetic." Licking her palm thoughtfully, she added, "We don't have a way to go home without walking out. Remember the permission slips?" she asked. 

 

"Easier to find Kazra's father. Hey Englishman," she taunted, "maybe you get jungle justice, hm?" She smiled at that, showing her pointy teeth. 

[Thevshi]

Timeout

 

Lawrence had been rather quiet as he had listened as the English hunter reveled how he had gotten to the Lost World and what his general plan had been. It certainly did sound as if the Serpent People were hoping to cause some trouble for Kazra and her family, and possibly even hoping to get one of them killed.

 

As Iris asked Neko about trying to contact the school, the blond teen looked over to the pair. "It is not as if there is any easy means of communicating from here. But regardless, if it comes to it, I think I have a sense for this pocket dimension now, I can likely get us back to Claremont anytime we need to go, if it comes to it."

[Poncho]

(GM Post)

 

"Don't worry, you're still under our protection." Kazra said. "And I'm definitely not going to mess this up on my first attempt." she added quickly, waving her hand. "We can head back to camp where my dad and family are set up for the rest of your time here. With this foiled, I don't think the Serpent People are going to be too interested in trying again. At least right now. But now we do have advanced warning that they're up to something..." she mumbled to herself mostly.

 

"We can still finish your training exercise if you want, we'll just do it at camp." she spoke back up. "As for you." she looked at the Hunter. "...Well, I guess you can work off your debt at our camp. A little hard work actually hunting and working in these jungles instead of just sitting in your comfy RV and using all these guns...maybe you'll even come up with a new appreciation for it!" she said cheerfully, before turning to the students, the people she actually cared about on this trip.

 

"So if you all are okay with it, we'll move our camping trip, let you meet my dad, and we'll just keep going like nothing happened. This is supposed to be part of your education, right? And one thing to learn is to not let stuff like this interrupt your fun."

 

For his part, the Hunter was clearly dreading the idea of having to abandon his glamping, but between Neko and just how outnumbered he was, he couldn't even speak, just keeping himself very quiet.

[Avenger Assembled]

Neko followed the Hunter back to camp, at first not quite touching but keeping a close enough eye that he knew he was being watched. Gradually she moved back, the better to let him think there were no eyes on him. She did her part to pack up her things, and keep an eye on the new students too - and stuck close to Kazra, obviously still considering herself the former student's deputy. She hummed softly to herself as she worked, a Japanese song that wouldn't have meant anything to anyone left alive, pleased with herself but tired from her exertions. 

[Dracostern]

Cerebral and Cerebellum 
 

The twins followed everyone back to their camp. Daniel was relieved that everything was over...for the moment anyway...and now they could finally get back to training. However Iris was less sure of this. 

She had a feeling that these Serpent people might try to take some form of revenge, and so was going to get herself ready in case they did. 

[Thevshi]

Timeout

 

"That sounds like a good idea." Lawrence replied when Kazra suggested going back to her people’s camp where the rest of her family was. The blond teen followed along as the group started off into the jungle with the Hunter along with them.

 

As they went, from time-to-time Lawrence tapped into his temporal powers to scan the area round them with his cosmic senses, looking for anything that seemed out of place and might represent a threat. He also took the time to taken in what sights he could as they traveled.

[Poncho]

(GM Post)

 

And so the group went to the camp of Kazra's family. It wasn't exactly what they were promised, but it was fun in it's own way. The group got to meet Zandar, the great king of the Lost World, his hair turned grey but he still stood strong, with ropey and wirey muscles. He had a small group of travelers with him, traveling in the Lost World as a small family unit, at least for now.

 

What had been a survival exercise in the jungle- alone and relying on each other- instead became a more general lesson on the first hand living techniques in a place like the Lost World; with powerful predators but also wonderful new experiences.

 

No Snakemen attacked the group, no hits on Lawrence's awareness. It was, in some ways, a camping vacation, even if it still lacked any sort of electronics or other comforts.

 

Even the man who had been hunting down the group was quickly adapted into going along with the group of survivors and hunters. By the end of the week, he was as much of a tribesman as any of the others who had been there; if he went back to his home at some point, he'd likely revert to idle rich, but while he was here, he seemed to be enjoying the benefits and tribulations of a hard, rough day at work.

 

But eventually, all vacations- and training-, must come to an end, and before long, the students had reached the last day, and were sent back to Claremont, bringing with them the stories of what they had done- and possibly a little contraband-, of an adventure that had felt like it had taken months, but had only been a few days.

[Avenger Assembled]

The night before they left, Neko sat in front of the roaring fire that marked the center of the big celebration thrown for the students by their happy hosts. They hadn't solved all their problems, not by any means, but they'd saved the day - and each other - and their guide, so all in all one could call it a success. The fires were burning bright, reflected in her eyes, her tail twitching hypnotically back and forth. The younger students were safe in others' hands but she wasn't thinking about that by now - or much of anything else besides the reality. 

 

Erik, Min, the others. The therapists at Claremont, she thought. They all think you did something to me to make me like this. To make me laugh at bloody jokes and burn with anger so hot when someone hunts girls in the woods. She blinked her eyes, and seemed to see the second Crimson Katana come out of the fire. 

 

But that's not true. You are a monster. But you taught me to hunt. To kill. To be strong when everyone is weak. 

 

She blinked her eyes and seemed to be staring into the Katana's face. If I ever meet you again, you will die - again. But you taught me the truth. You taught me - to be strong.