Menseio Station, orbiting Veria
Jonuth Kidravia’s Ship - Abi
12:20 Ship Time
September 10, 2019

[Wait, I just realized that you went through a growth last night!] I said as Vixa and I headed down to the landing bay. [How did that work? I imagine I was still in one of the medical pods, right?]

[Yes. Fortunately all of the hallways and teleporters are big enough to fit a medical pod, so after I set it to hover mode, Mason pushed it through the hallways. Each medical pod has an internal power source that lasts for twenty-four hours, so it wasn’t a big deal. You were outside of the ship for a little over five minutes before he brought you back aboard and got you back over to medical.]

[Cool, I guess I should thank him then,] I replied as I removed my phone from storage and navigated over to the app that Abi had created. Loading it up, I saw that she initiated the growth at 05:21:06. [I have 700 attribute points to spend, how long would the next growth take if I put all of those into Intellect?]

[A little over twenty-six hours,] she replied almost instantly. [14:12:38, if you want the specific time.]

[Really? I knew there would be an increase in mana regeneration, but I didn’t think it would be that much.]

[Your mana regeneration more than tripled once again and had you spent those seven hundred points immediately, then you wouldn’t have worried so many people or needed to spend time in the med chamber at all. Mana Shield would have stopped all momentum of the gauss cannon round, and it would have fallen harmlessly to the ground.]

[I wasn’t sure where I wanted to spend them,] I admitted. [I was thinking about putting all the points into Constitution which would give me a very high health pool and increase my physical damage reduction at the same time.]

[Intellect is and always will be the best attribute to put your attribute points into, particularly as Mana Shield continues to rank up. Your health would have gone up by a significant amount, to be sure, but it still wouldn’t be able to match the amount of damage you are able to absorb. You also have no way of healing any damage done to your body quickly, whereas you regenerate mana at such an incredible rate. Eventually your mana regeneration would get so high that you could probably stand in front of the ship that attacked last night and not have to worry about the gauss cannon at all. Missiles and such would still be a worry, but those can be easily dealt with.]

[True,] I replied, opening up the Adventurer’s Guild app and putting all seven hundred attribute points into Intellect.

When I pressed confirm, it was like a fire was raging within my body as the sudden, massive surge of mana ran through my system. It was all I could do to stay on my feet as it happened and I could hear someone calling my name, but it sounded as if the person was very far away. After what felt like minutes, the feeling slowly began dying down as my body got used to the increased flow of mana.

[Jonathan?] Abi asked, clearly concerned.

[I’m fine. I just probably shouldn’t have put in all seven hundred points in at the same time. Man, that hurt.]

She chuckled. [I was going to mention that, but I didn’t think you were going to spend the points right now. Still, you’re already an order of magnitude stronger than when we left Earth and that will only increase further while you’re here. Especially if I’m able to acquire all of the Skill Gems by the time we leave.]

[How is that going, anyways?]

[Pretty well. I’ve already made agreements with a number of prospective sellers and your sisters will be meeting with them over the next few days to purchase the ones we’re looking for. Familiars have already been found for the eight of you, and seven of each of Legendary Strength, Agility, Intellect, Stamina and Endurance have as well. Precognition, Legendary Jack of All Trades and Legendary Attributes are proving more difficult, but I’m confident that we’ll find most, if not all of those by the time we leave.]

[Sounds good,] I replied as I arrived back in the landing bay. 

The ninety members of my new, larger detail had been in the landing bay earlier, but they were learning as much as they could about the improved Grasshoppers in as short an amount of time as possible. They were in casual clothes at the time, but now every single one of them was in a set of armor that was better than anything my friends and I were able to wear, at least currently. 

They also had a wide variety of weapons. I recognized the big three of pulse guns, plasma guns and gauss guns, but no two members had the exact same gun. They were all customized in their own way, and there were many different designs. One thing was true for every five man team, however, and that was that there was always one heavy gunner and one sniper per team. The sniper always used a Gauss rifle since it was the most powerful and accurate from range, but the heavy gunners used weapons that ranged from gatling-style gauss guns, similar to those mounted on the new Grasshoppers, to something that looked like an energy version of an M60 or M249, bipod and all.

Every person in the new detail was lined up in three different formations, each of which were five rows across and six columns deep. It was clear that each row was composed of the five members of each individual team, partly because of the fact that there was one heavy gunner and one sniper per row. I say partly, because I recognized Zaszi’s team as well as some of the others, and they were all lined up together.

As I walked forward, I also noticed that there was another group of ten standing next to the ramp of each Grasshopper, though they weren’t geared up like everyone else was. They wore suits, but they looked like flight suits more than combat suits, and the only weapon that each of them carried was a gauss pistol on their right thigh.

“Very nice,” I said as I stopped in front of Zaszi. “You know all this isn’t necessary, though?”

She shrugged. “I know you don’t care about stuff like this, but I thought you should see the people who will be helping to protect you while you’re here. We’re still in discussions with Xigios to get him to loan some of his people for when we get back to Earth, so it’s possible that most, if not all of them will be protecting you for the next six-plus months.”

“In front of you are groups Alpha, Beta and Charlie, and your sisters are being assigned groups Delta, Echo and Foxtrot. In each group are forty Watchdogs, as we’re temporarily calling ourselves, with a flight crew of five, gun crew of five and security force of thirty. When you need to go somewhere, Alpha group will accompany you while Beta and Charlie groups remain airborne, ready to deploy at a moment’s notice.”

“They’ll remain shrouded at all times to remain hidden, and as you can see, every person here is a Scyftan, which was done on purpose. Watchdogs, mode two!” she commanded.

As soon as she gave them the command, almost every person standing in front of me disappeared. The only people that didn’t were Zaszi and her team.

“Now that’s what I call a tactical advantage. Everyone scanned a dragon, I assume?”

“That’s right,” she nodded. “Some of the dragons and dragonkin came down this morning and kindly allowed themselves to be scanned. It took a little bit of practice, but now all of them can hide themselves at will.

“Nice. Should we get going then?”

“Sure. Watchdogs, mode one! Embark!”

They immediately became visible and ran up the ramps of their respective Grasshoppers. The pilots and gunners entered first, followed by the security teams.

“After you,” she said, turning to the side and waving me forward.

I entered the Grasshopper that my friends and I had toured earlier and saw that everyone was seated and ready to go. The rest of Zaszi’s team took a seat as we walked through, but she followed me to the teleporter and up to the bridge. I had to grab Vixa before entering the teleporter, but she came through with me just fine. When we arrived there, I saw that the flight crew were all standing at attention facing the teleporter.

“Jonuth Kidravia, meet your flight team. If you don’t want to fly, or are sleeping, these are the people who will take over. They were picked because they are able to act in any role they are needed to, but each of them has a preferred station. You’ve got Elidi Itenzes, a pilot, on the left and Amil Khenyn, a navigator next to her. Following them is Kurir Zox, who will be taking care of the weapons systems and Suna Yri, who will be managing the power control systems. Lastly is Xeth Iruris, who will be making sure things run smoothly. If there is a problem with the engines, he’ll do his best to fix them. If one of the other four get hurt, then he’ll fill in for them.”

“Nice to meet all of you,” I said, offering my hand to Elidi first and then moving down the line. Once I was done, I set Vixa down on the deck to let her explore.

They greeted me in return and then I was asked if I wanted to fly. I thought about it for a moment, but then decided to let the new flight crew take care of it.

“There is one thing, though. Can I get by, please?”

They immediately stepped aside which allowed me to walk towards the front of the bridge. Removing the Beacon from storage, I held it out and waited until the pedestal raised from the console. Once it did so, I gently placed it down and then stepped back. The arms locked into place and then the pedestal lowered back down slightly, but not before the Beacon started glowing softly.

“What is that?” Suna asked.

“Something that Abi made up for me,” I answered. “Think of it like an external power source. As long as it is secure on that pedestal and it is glowing, you’ll have access to all of Abi’s mana available to help power the ship.”

“Wait, doesn’t that make my job a little redundant?” she asked. “I mean the whole purpose of the station I will be using is to direct power to where it is needed most. If we’re taking heavy fire that might be diverting power away from the weapons and to the shields and sub light engines. Or if we’re on the offensive, it would be directing additional power to the weapons to be able to hit harder. With that thing installed every system will be getting as much mana as they could ever need.” 

“All true,” I replied with a smile. “The Beacon won’t always be interfaced with the ship, however, because it goes where I go. There are a number of other functionalities of the Beacon and it is Abi’s way of protecting me. You five are the permanent flight crew for this ship, right?”

“They are,” Zaszi confirmed.

“Alright. Then you’ll probably be flying around sometimes, even when I’m not on board. For example, maybe we’re in the middle of a massive fleet battle and we need more firepower so you and the other five Grasshoppers are sent out to join in the fight. Without the Beacon interfaced, you would need to be there to transfer power around the ship,” I told her.

“But in situations like that, we wouldn’t have enough mana to keep the shields up for very long, especially if we were targeted. With only a handful of people onboard, anything fired at us would cause the shield to drain a large part of our reserves.”

“You’re exaggerating just a bit,” Abi said, interjecting herself in our little discussion. “In a combat situation, you would likely never have less than ten people onboard one of these ships. You would want all of the ball turrets and stations in the bridge manned, and you would need someone who can move around the ship, making repairs or putting out fires. Aside from all that, I’ve got another addition to make to the Grasshoppers, but it will need to wait a few days while they are being built. Now enough of this conversation. You need to get going soon or Jonathan will be late for his appointment.”

Suna began to apologize, but I told her not to worry about it. I sat down on one of the seats that was up against the wall and strapped myself in, while Zaszi sat down next to me and did the same. Vixa also came over, apparently bored, and jumped up onto my lap. 

[Sorry about her,] Zaszi sent. [She’s pretty young, only one hundred and twelve years old, or somewhere close to that. She leveled up as high as she could in the dungeons on Earth before joining the Spectres. She was also hoping to spend some time with her friends in dungeons while we were here and so she could level up some more. Now she needs to be ready at any moment to help ferry you around or protect you, so she is understandably peeved. Especially since the Beacon effectively makes her useless whenever you’re onboard.]

[So get someone else to fill in for her until we head to Earth.]

[No can do,] she replied. [Every Spectre knew what they were signing up for. If you start giving one Spectre preferential treatment and refuse another, then they will grow to resent one another. Some of the Spectres had plans in place for when we got here, but unfortunately events happened that necessitates them coming back to work. They’re all in it together.]

I nodded and watched as they began powering everything up. From where I was sitting, I saw Suna lean forward as if something caught her eye, and moments later her jaw dropped.

[I think she just found out just how much power this ship has available with the Beacon interfaced,] Zaszi said with a chuckle.

I nodded before turning to look at Zaszi. [Do you know what Abi meant by additions to the Grasshoppers?]

[I do, indeed. There were some who were uncomfortable serving on a ship that essentially has a finite amount of power, so Abi came up with something. It will require her to retool some of her machinery, but the gist of it is that she’ll be creating dozens of portable fusion reactors, which will then be stored in her dimensional storage until they’re needed. You remember when I typed on that panel and all of the couches and tables and stuff disappeared and were replaced with med chambers?] she asked, to which I nodded. 

[Well once the reactors are ready, they’ll work in much the same way. If needed, one of the flight crew can use the panel in that compartment to put away all the furniture and take out one of the reactors. It will only take a few minutes to hook up to the ship’s systems, but there will be a constant source of power. All of the systems onboard are already built to work with regular power in case something happens to the mana core, so they can work on one or both sources of energy simultaneously.] 

[If the mana was being used to power the shields and the engines, for example, then the fusion reactor could be used to power the weapons. That makes her job pretty important.]

I certainly couldn’t disagree as I looked back over to Suna.

---

After getting clearance to depart, it didn’t take long at all to fly down to the planet where the Grasshopper was piloted to one of the largest and tallest skyscrapers in the city of Sotis. There were a number of different places to land, but we were directed to land on the roof itself. As we flew around the building, it was clear that it was the only area on the building that would be able to support the weight.

Once she touched down, Zaszi and I unbuckled and I moved forward to retrieve the Beacon. Putting it into storage I then picked up Vixa and the three of us headed down to the first deck so we could depart. Just before the ramp started lowering, all of the Watchdogs except for Zaszi’s team activated their camouflage. Zaszi and Zogyr led me down the ramp, with the other three members of their team encircling me. I had no doubt whatsoever that the other twenty-five Watchdogs were all spreading out, taking position around the edge of the roof.

There was a young Pygmaean woman waiting for us near a set of doors in one of the corners, so we made a beeline for her.

I didn’t understand a word she was saying when she began speaking, which was something that I planned to rectify as soon as possible. Zaszi responded in what I assumed was Pygmaean and then relayed what the woman had said, “Good afternoon, Khel Haneth. My name is Narin Kilic. My employer, Mr. Keser asked that I escort you through the building. He is ready to meet with you now.”

I was momentarily confused by the name that she was calling me by, but then remembered that Khel Haneth was the name I was going by while we were here. I asked Zaszi to tell her to lead the way. After a short bow, the young woman led us through the doors and into an elevator.

After the door closed, she hit the button for what seemed like the forty-third floor, and the elevator immediately dropped like a rock. I was expecting us to get some air with how fast it moved, but it didn’t feel like we were moving at all.

“Inertial dampeners are built into the elevators,” Zaszi said from beside me. “It allows them to move, much much quicker.”

That much was obvious, the elevator had stopped moving before she even stopped talking.

When the doors opened, the woman began leading us through the hall towards the center of the building. Because the view we had was of the outside of the building, none of us realized that the center of the building was actually hollow, with all of the business and offices being around the periphery. She led us to the other side of the building where we could see the name Kesers in large blocky lettering. Or what I assumed was Kesers. I couldn’t read it, either, but that’s where she led us and Zaszi didn’t stop her.

After Zaszi, Zogyr and another member of their team and I entered the shop, the other two members positioned themselves on either side of the door, likely making sure that we weren’t disturbed. We didn’t get far inside of the shop, however, as Zaszi told me to stay where I was until they had a chance to talk to Keser and check to make sure that the shop was secure.

“Wanna do me a favor, Vixa?” I asked, to which she looked up and licked my face. “I’m going to set you down on the floor. Stay here, but scan the room and let me know if there is anyone in here trying to hide, or that you think might be dangerous.”

She made a quiet noise and then looked towards the back of the shop. Her tails started moving like they did when a Phenidae was unsure of their surroundings, but a moment later she turned back towards me, making the same quiet noise.

[Vixa thinks it’s clear, I think.] I sent to the members of Zaszi’s team.

[It is indeed,] Zogyr replied. [Alright, you can come forward.]

“Let’s go, Vixa.”

The woman who had led us here was standing by an older man with dark hair that was just starting to go gray. About four foot tall, he was impeccably dressed in what looked like an incredibly expensive suit. 

Zaszi had to be the translator for the meeting, but Mr. Keser and I shook hands and he immediately went to work. Leading me into a room, he told Zaszi to ask me to remove my armor and then undress to my underwear. Once I was done, he had me stand in the middle of the room. I was expecting him to use tape measure like I had seen used on TV, or some sort of gadget, but he just circled me a couple of times and that was it.

“That’s it?” I asked Zaszi, who simply nodded.

“Keser is well known in this area of space. He has been doing this so long that he no longer needs to measure people. I would assume that Tessa or her father also gave him some instructions. He said you can get dressed again. He’ll have the suits ready to be picked up on the aforementioned date.”

I was dumbfounded, figuring that I would be here for at least an hour, not that I would be done in less than five minutes. After getting dressed, I suited back up again and then picked up Vixa. We said goodbye to the man, or more accurately, Zaszi said goodbye for all of us, and then the same young woman led us back to the elevator. She didn’t accompany us this time, she just waited until we were all aboard and then she turned to head back to her job.

The elevator ascended just as quickly as it descended once Zaszi pressed the button for the top floor, and within seconds the doors were opening and we were walking back towards the ship. None of the Watchdogs that were standing on the roof became visible until after the ramp closed behind us, and then they all did at once. It was a little unnerving, but would be a hell of a surprise if they ever needed to show themselves.

Zaszi, Vixa and I headed back up to the bridge so I could insert the Beacon back onto the pedestal and then we sat back down.

“So what’s the plan for the rest of the day?” she asked. “I know there isn’t anything left on the schedule until tomorrow.”

“I’m thinking about hitting up the menagerie. Kiri said that it would be a good place to scan a bunch of alien creatures. I’m kinda curious to see what is there.”

“I’m sure that your sisters would like to join you, but I think that you would need to wait until the other Grasshoppers are complete. That should only take another hour or two, though. Should I coordinate with the other groups?”

I thought about it and nodded. “I’ll see if any of the dragons want to join us. They might enjoy it as well.”

Overhearing our conversation, Abi let us know that it would take just over an hour and a half to complete the manufacturing of the other three Grasshoppers, so that meant that I had that much time to kill. I didn’t really have time to do much, so I headed to my room, removed my suit, and then grabbed both my pulse rifle and my gauss pistol. It had been a while since I had practiced with them, and we had an actual range now, so it was a good time to keep up my skills.

I sent to my friends to see if anyone wanted to join me for an hour or so, but Mason was the only one who took me up on my offer. Before I headed to the range, I found Imuna and the other Phenidae and then dropped off Vixa so she could play with them and the kids that were around. I wasn’t sure whether or not she would be allowed at the menagerie, but she would have fun for the next little while.

Mason was already there when I arrived, but that was only because he didn’t have to make a detour first. He was already in his room when I contacted him, so it only took a few minutes for him to grab his guns and get down there. He was looking all over the place when I first arrived, and I asked him what he was looking for.

“Ammo and power cells,” he replied. “Back at the base, there was a quartermaster that would give ammo and other things to people as long as they were cleared for it. I don’t see anything like that here.”

I chuckled. “That’s because you’re not looking in the right place,” I said as I walked over to one of the stalls.

Each stall had a tablet affixed to it, in addition to a mana sensor. I picked up the tablet on the stall I selected and then pulsed my mana at the sensor, causing the tablet to activate. Turning it to show Mason, I walked him through everything. After selecting two power cells and a couple cases of standard gauss pistol rounds, I tapped on the confirmation button and they appeared in front of me.

“Oh. So why are you back already anyways?” he asked as he picked up his tablet and repeated the same process. “I thought you would be gone for an hour or two.”

“So did I,” I said as I slapped the power cell home, set the power level to low and then fired a few three round bursts downrange. “Apparently the tailor that I went to see is extremely good and doesn’t need to measure people, at least not in the normal sense. He just walked around me a few times as I stood there and then told me that it would be ready for final fitting and pickup the afternoon of my date with Tessa.”

Mason was using his pistol first, and he stood there loading it as he replied. “That’s usually the way things are when you go see people who have been doing that as their profession for decades, even on Earth. So many people come in and out of their shop that it becomes easy to measure them just with the eye, especially if you use yourself as a reference point. My grandfather was a tailor.”

When he was done talking, he raised his gauss pistol up and fired off a half dozen shots as quickly as he could.

“I remember meeting him a few times. I totally forgot that he was a tailor,” I replied as I checked out his grouping. The first two were a little off, but he compensated with the following four as he put them through the bullseye. The target was only ten meters away, but it was still some nice shooting.

He nodded. “My uncle worked as a tailor as well, so he got the business when my grandfather passed. He’s wanted me to come work with him, but I’m just not interested in that. I mean, I like looking good in a nice suit, but I don’t think I would want to measure people and create new suits day after day.”

I laughed. “I can see what you mean. I wonder how Keser has done it for so long and is still sane. At least, I think he’s still sane. I don’t know. Zaszi had to translate for us since he apparently didn’t speak Scyftan and I can’t speak Pygmaean.”

He fired off a few more shots and then looked back over to me.

“It’s simple, he enjoys his work. It also helps that he owns his business and is probably well known if he is the person Tessa’s father goes to. If he wants to, he can pick and choose who he wants to work with and I’m betting that he shares a lot of the workload with his employees. The benefit of being his own boss is that he can also take off as much time as he wants if he starts getting burned out. I doubt that he gets burned out though. He’s probably made enough money to retire many times over by now and if he didn’t enjoy the work, then he would’ve sold the business or given it to his children or grandchildren, if he has any.”

I nodded and fired off a few dozen three round bursts, moving from target to target at various ranges before I removed the power cell and set it down. I inserted the same power cell into my gauss pistol and then grabbed one of the cases of ammo. To load it, I ran my finger down one row of bullets and everytime I contacted a new one, it was loaded into the gun. Moving into a firing position, I double tapped the trigger five times. The first two groupings weren’t very good, and neither was the last one, but the third and forth were right on target.

“This is so much better than other ranges,” Mason said. “Well, indoor ones at least. They’re usually not this long and there is no way they would allow us to shoot rounds as destructive as this, or the pulse rifles with anything but a practice power cell installed. I bet if we looked, all the impacts at the end of the room will have already been repaired.”

I chuckled. “No bet, I know they have, they’re repaired almost as soon as they happen. Maybe if you had one of those ball turrets on the Grasshoppers you could eventually get through, but it wouldn’t be easy. There is three meters of solid crystal at the back of the room, not including the bullet trap

“Those things seem like they would be pretty nasty,” he agreed. “I know they don’t fire as fast as something like the GAU-8 Avenger, but they’re so much more destructive.”

I nodded. “I learned more about them with the data dump at the end of our tour,” I said. “The rounds are about forty percent bigger and the velocity is roughly six and a half times faster. They also have a wide selection of ammo types just like these pistols do. Imagine firing something like a HEAT round at four thousand rounds per minute from one of those ball turrets. If they were trained on a single spot, they would be able to create a hole in even the toughest of ships. Apparently they’re extremely effective though, in space and in atmosphere. Regular rounds would go right through a fighter making only small holes, but you know how HEAT works. When that stuff hits a fighter or a missile, bad shit happens.”

“I can’t,” he replied.

I was confused. “Can’t what?”

“I can’t imagine something firing HEAT rounds at four thousand rounds per minute. Not at the speed they would be traveling. I mean, the GAU-8 Avenger primarily fires high explosive incendiary and depleted uranium armor piercing rounds, but I don’t think either of them would come as close in terms of destruction.”

“Well, maybe we’ll be able to try it out one day. I’m curious to see how well the GAU-8 would work in space.

---

We continued shooting as we talked, but before long Abi told us that the three additional Grasshoppers were ready to go, so we could go to the menagerie now. The two of us headed back to our rooms and equipped our armor, before heading down to the landing bay. There were a lot of people there waiting, including my parents, Selalea and the dragons and even some people I didn’t recognize. The Watchdogs were nowhere to be seen at first, but then I noticed that they had already loaded into their respective Grasshoppers and were just waiting to go.

I headed over to chat with Zaszi to ask how this was going to work since she was responsible for setting it up and found out that everyone would be evenly dispersed between the six Grasshoppers. Permission had been given to fly over the menagerie rather than travel by ground, so people were able to choose whether they wanted to take it slow on the ground or go through it a bit faster in the air.

I personally didn’t care either way since I can scan just as easy from a ship hovering a few hundred meters over an animal as I can if I was standing next to it, so I elected to stay on my Grasshopper. Besides, it got me out of my suit. That was always a bonus.

Groups of Watchdogs would be deployed on the surface while camouflaged to protect anyone on the ground, and two of the Grasshoppers would remain overhead, ready to provide air support, should it be needed. Everyone else would be loaded into the other four Grasshoppers where they would be able to view all of the animals from the comfort of the third deck.

Once everyone was sorted, we got onto our respective ships and got moving. I made a quick stop on the bridge to interface the Beacon and then headed back where, surprisingly, only my friends, parents, sisters and Zaszi were waiting. She waved me over to the panel and then walked me through restricting the security measures. Once that was done, people were able to use the teleporter to move up to the third deck and it began filling up.

All of the tables and chairs were removed except for those along one wall, and a number of screens appeared around the room. After a moment they activated, offering us a nice view as we flew through space and began entering the atmosphere. Flames from re-entry blocked our vision for a few moments, but soon we had an amazing view of the island we were headed to.

It was a pretty big one that easily took up the same amount of space as an island like New Guinea, which happened to be the second largest island on Earth. Not all of the menagerie was on the island, as a portion of it covered a good two hundred thousand square kilometers of ocean. While the Grasshoppers were certainly capable of traveling through water, we were focusing on the land animals and birds. If we had the opportunity to return, perhaps we would check out the animals in the ocean instead.

When we were finally in position over the entrance to the menagerie, the Grasshoppers fell in behind the one we were in and we began moving at a slow five kilometers per hour. No one could see us, of course. All of the ships were shrouded, but it was funny to think that the people below had no idea that there were four ships hovering a mere two hundred meters above them.

I had inserted my earpiece after I took off my suit, and Abi gave me the frequency so I could hear all of the Grasshopper pilots coordinating with each other. I knew that the other two ships were hovering a short distance over the parking lot while the people aboard them used portals to disembark, so the ships didn’t need to deshroud. People would eventually see much of the Grasshoppers, but we didn’t want that to happen so soon. 

Once we were a decent distance away from the start of the menagerie, each of the Grasshoppers descended to about one hundred meters above the surface of the planet. They would easily be detected if they went any lower, so we stayed at that height while we slowly made our way through.

People pointed out different animals as we went by, but there were so many of them that it was honestly a little hard to keep up. I was scanning every creature I possibly could, as were a lot of the other Scyftans onboard. None of the animals we came across were all that interesting though, as it was primarily the attraction for children where they could interact and feed baby animals. Once we got passed that, that’s when things got more interesting.

The menagerie really reminded me of Jurassic Park when we came across the first wall that separated parts of it from others, though these walls were much, much beefier. We could see why as the largest land animal I had ever seen was down there, just sleeping next to the wall.
We paused for a minute so everyone could get a better look, and the camera focused on it zoomed in to help facilitate that. Surprisingly, Abi was the first one to talk.  

“You’re looking at the Riotanian Merovess, one of the largest carnivorous animals ever discovered in this galaxy. Those of you from Earth can see that it resembles what the ankylosaurus was thought to look like, though it is many times bigger its body is less armored. You can’t see because its mouth is closed, but it has razor sharp teeth, some of which, like its incisors, are almost two feet long.”

“Though they have a strong enough bite force to kill with their jaws, that isn’t how they operate. The bulb on the end of its tail may look like nothing but a bludgeon, but it’s got something deadly within,” she said as one of the monitors changed to show the tail.

There were holes dotting the surface of it, and the video showed a merovess using its tail to strike an animal almost as large as it was. A second before it made contact, spikes coated in some sort of viscous fluid protruded and impaled the side of the large creature. It tried fighting back for a few moments, but within ten seconds it had fallen over, dead.

“A merovess is able to produce a highly effective neurotoxin which is able to kill even the largest creatures in seconds. They were nearly hunted to extinction by those who sought to use it to kill people and dungeon monsters alike. The merovess below you, named Junih by the Riotanian people, is the youngest of his species. In a few hundred years, he will be the last one alive. He was loaned by the Riotanian government about twelve years ago, and will remain here for the next eighty-eight years. At that time, he will be returned there to live out the rest of his life.”

Many of us were in awe that such a large land animal had grown to be so large, especially one that seemed to be a carnivore. By looking at it, none of us had a clue. Tamara Ridley did say that there were only six animals she knew about that were class S, I wondered if the merovess were one of them. I made sure to scan it as it rivaled even Selalea’s dragon form in size, and even though the toxin was a pretty big deal, I wanted to see what sort of forms I could eventually create using it.

The ships began moving after a little while, and we found out that the merovess wasn’t the only animal in its enclosure. There were herds of animals that were grazing in fields less than a kilometer away, though none of them were even close to as big as the merovess. In fact, the largest animal that lived in there was an elephant-sized mammal that primarily stayed in the river that cut through the area.

I scanned them all anyways, deciding to sort through them later, but about fifteen minutes after we passed the merovess, there was a sudden commotion around the ship and everyone started crowding to the back of the room so they could see what was going on. I asked Abi to show what everyone was watching on the screens, and suddenly I heard Elidi, my new pilot’s voice over the radio.

“Holy shit!”

When the view on the screens finally changed to show me what everyone was going nuts over, I saw the merovess barreling down the valley to where the animals were grazing. All of the animals in its way immediately started stampeding as they tried to get away from the massive creature. Most of them did get away because they started running as the ground started to shake, but some weren’t so lucky. They were crushed under the merovess’ feet, but it kept on running, heading towards the pool.

The mammals living in the river were much slower than the rest of the animals around them, and though they tried to escape as well, it became clear that they were the target. The merovess opened up its maw and grabbed onto one of the animals, shaking its head back and forth while simultaneously slamming its tail into three more, killing them instantly without even using the spikes hidden within.

It seemed like its rampage immediately came to an end after he threw the animal into the air. Before it could hit the ground, the merovess snapped forward and caught the creature in its large maw. It only took ten or twenty seconds to eat it and then he moved on to the rest of them. Within a little over minute, it had eaten what had to be ten to twelve tons of food, if not more, and trampled many more animals along the way.

He leisurely made his way back up the hill to his resting spot, and that's when the smaller carnivores came out to feast. They were clearly scavengers, and dozens of the small cat-like animals converged on the area as they fought over the free meal.

“Holy shit is right,” I said under my breath.