The sky screamed.
That was the thing I registered along with the heat and the smell of burning metal as I plummeted through the atmosphere.
"Well," I thought, watching the clouds whip past my visor like cotton candy in a blender. "This is going to be embarrassing."
Most people in my situation would probably be panicking, flashing through their life's greatest regrets, or praying to whatver cosmic deity they subscribe to.
I for one just felt a vague sense of annoyance.
I remember a flash of green light, an ambush and a rude interruption to my supposed nap time. Now here I am letting gravity introduce the ground to my face.
My suit, a sleek second skin of silver and violet, pulsed with a warning light. I didn't need to read the dampeners to know that it was toasted– meaning I can't float.
*CRASH
The impact carved through the canopy of trees and made a trench through the jungle and stopped just at the edge of a cliff, barely holding due to a vine that got stuck between the metal and a boulder.
Dirt, wood, and glowing moss erupted into the air.
Then, silence.
A long moment passed.
I woke up in darkness, with a log ontop of my torso.
I shove the burning log off my chest and sat up.
CREAK
The small cabin creaked as it balanced at the edge of the cliff. I realized I have to leave immediately before it fully tilt and fall.
I ran towards the entrance and clinched my four fingered hand into the debris blocking the entrance and punched through it.
I jumped out, just before the vine holding it up snapped and it fell in the the darkness.
I watched it fall for a moment.
"Ugh…" I groaned, and cracked my neck.
"Status report," I murmured.
The voice that usually whispered helpful information in my ear was gone, replaced by static. I watched as my HUD flickered and died.
"Great. Just me and my charm, then."
I stood up. And up. And up. At eleven feet tall. I towered over the surrounding vegetation. Looking down at my hands— light purple, strong— flexing it.
I blinked as I tried to remember more than my crash, and touched the back of my head feeling blood. I looked down and saw deep purple coating my fingers.
"Rude," I muttered, dusting ask off my shoulder. "Shooting a man down is bad manners. Doing it while I'm asleep is just tacky."
I looked around. The forest was… aggressive. Everything glowed. The plants pulsed with neon blues and purples. It was pretty, in a choatic, untamed sort of way.
I took a step and the ground lit up under my feet.
That was when something snarled from the shadows. A pack of six-legged, black creatures with oily skin and too many teeth slunk out of the ferns. They hissed, sensing an intruder.
I tilted my head, my cat-like ears twitching. I looked at the snarling beasts with the same expression I give to a yapping puppy.
"Down, boy," I said, my voice deep and smooth.
One of the creatures lunged. I didn't even flinch. I simply raised a hand, fingers twitching slightly. The air around the beast seemd to get heavy, slamming the creature into the dirt as if a giant, invisble hand had swatted it. The beast whipered, pinned by nothing but gravity itself.
The others froze, then scattered into the dark.
"That's what I thought," I yawned, rubbing the back of my neck. I feel a headache coming on. "Now, where's the nearest service station?"
I shake my head and looked for more injuries and indeed I found more in my body, specially my torso, it wasn't gushing blood entirely, probably internal.
My ears twitched to a sudden noise in the far distance. I can't quite place it, sounds…
"Primitive."
I started walking. I didn't really know where I was going. The sound didn't belong in this singing jungle.
It took me more than an hour to find it, at this point the light has already pentrated through the dense forest.
The foliage gave way to a clearing dominated by a strange, boxy structure. It looked primitive, made of metal sheets and wood, like a child's treehouse built on the ground.
But it wasn't the building that caught my eye. It was chaos.
Loud, cracking sounds—primitive weapons, guns— echoed through the trees. Smoke drifted from the buildings doorway.
I stepped silently behind a massive tree, peering around the bark. The headache more intense now.
Hairless monkeys or as my people call them "Misntok" meaning virus. I recognized the species vaguely. Tiny, fragile, pink and brown things wrapped in bulky clothes.
They were shouting, their faces twisted in angle and fear. They were holding rifles, pointing them at the building.
"Get them out! Flush them out!" one of the tiny men yelled, as they toss to what I believe to be gas into the building.
Then, the targets ran out.
My eyes widened slightly behind my cracked visor.
They were tall— taller than humans, but shorter than me. Blue skin, stripes, tails whipping in panic. Children.
They were running, stumbling over roots, terror etched on their faces.
Leading them was a girl who looked older than the rest. She was fierce, shoving the smaller ones behind her, hissing at the soldiers as she points her bow towards them difiantly.
I paused and leaned forward, genuinely intrigued for the first time since I woke up.
They looked like me. Well not exactly, of course. They were blue and I was purple. They were also smaller. But the structure of the face— the high cheeckbone, the wide, feline nose, the large, expressive eyes, it was undeniably similar.
"Well, look at that," I whispered, a smirk touching my lips. "Distant cousins?"
The soldiers raised their weapons. The tiny humans looked like toy soldiers compared tot the blue girl, yet they held the power of fire in their hands.
They were cornering the group against the wall of the schoolhouse. The girl, the blue one, nook an arrow prepared to fight back a couple of juveniles also did the same protecting the little ones behind them.
It was a massacre waiting to happen. A tragic, ugly, boring little slaughter.
I looked at them terrified, they look like me. Then I looked at the Misntok– small, loud, and annoying.
I sighed, scratching my head. I really wasn't allowed to get involved in planetary matters. Protocol, or whatever it was called, probably frowned on this.
"But," I murmured. Flexing my fingers as the air around my began to hum with invisble power, "I do hate bullies. And those little ants are ruining the view."
I stepped out from the tree, my eleven-foot frame casting a long, terrifying shadow over the soldiers
"Hey!" I called out, my voice booming effortlessly across the clearing. "You guys are being way too loud. Some of us are trying to recover from a crash landing here."
The soldiers froze. The blue girl looked up.
I grinned, and the air crackled.