Sometimes people believe something so strongly, but most of the time the reality is that it's not all it's cut out to be.
Zhao Wei understood this principle with extreme clarity as he sat on the empty fields, his body so rigid and still he might've been suspected for being part of the topography. It was killing him, staying still like this. It was different to just lazily lounging around and doing nothing. Deliberately trying to force oneself to stay absolutely still required tough mental fortitude like nobody would believe.
Somehow the brain was naturally wired to make the body do the exact opposite of what a person wanted to do at the most inopportune moment. It was like being scolded by your mother and suddenly thinking of something funny while in the middle of it. No matter how hard one tries to stop their laughter from coming out which would no doubt prolong the scolding and no doubt the beating that came with it, their body maintains it's need to screw with them.
His choice of place this time was made in order to avoid any more casualties. Well... not so much the place as the direction he was heading if he was being honest, and not so much a choice as much as it was landing here and deciding to sit in the small crater his body had created in the landscape.
"Dear God... asleep or awake you always wreak havoc don't you?" A voice rang out behind him. He didn't need to turn to recognize it was Thirteen's voice... Well, not so much that he didn't need to as much as it was that he was deathly frightened that he'd put too much strength into the turn and snap his own neck. This kind of imagination would be the ridicule of most normal human beings, but under the circumstances he was under, it was... unfortunately, more than a valid thought.
"How rude... I haven't wreaked havoc all week." Zhao Wei replied indignantly.
"It's your first day awake..." Thirteen replied.
"Chi Chiii Chi Chii chi chi" Panda added, the words that more or less said, [It's 6 a.m on your first day.]
"I don't want to hear that from any of you!" Zhao Wei said as he tried to stand up and face them, forgetting the reason he sat down in the first place. To him it felt like standing up normally, but his standards for normal had been greatly altered as he had, by doing that, sent himself several meters into the air.
This time he was lucky as he just shot directly upwards and landed back down, deepening the hole he had first made. "Who's the stupid child who broke Grendolyn's prototype by matching it against a beast in battle when Grendolyn only asked for a test swing!?"
"Mm!" Thirteen's lower lips shot up to meet her upper, slamming shut so quickly, those who heard it could swear that they sounded like the iron doors of a bank safe.
"And I wonder, which animal was it that had continuously created permanent footprints into every vehicle we have!? Including Grendolyn's one whose floors are made of freaking steel!?" Zhao Wei roared.
Panda's ears perked at the accusation but she pretended she didn't hear anything. Myra looked at the trio and thought silently in her heart as she looked to her right to see the path of destruction that Zhao Wei had clearly caused as he made his way here.
'You're all equally destructive.'
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
30 minutes ago.
His shackles were off. Somehow, he expected some form of elation at this point, a weightlessness of some form. But the glaring aspect of not having the shackles anymore was an emptiness like he'd never expect.
As much as those things were weighing him down, their weight in away kept him alert, always at a hundred percent to make sure he wasn't crushed by his own growing abilities. That made him sharper, even while hunting, knowing that every fight he went into, he was going in with a handicap.
Now suddenly there was less of a need for him to safely take every step, a lack of the caution which had kept him alive so far. And that just made him feel naked for some reason.
He shook his head to get rid of the thoughts, he was stronger now, he didn't need to get rid of the caution, he just had more options now... that's right, it should be right. He told himself that over and over but at the end, he couldn't help but have some lingering doubts.
But he had no time to address them as someone had given a knock at the entrance of the cave. It was quite a simple thing, simply a stick and a hollowed out block of wood the apes used to announce their visit. But these little advancements really impressed Zhao Wei despite their simplicity.
Since it was just a small cave he didn't even need to move to see two apes waiting for him. And since it was for apes normal apes in the first place he was unable to stand.
[Hi, I'm Matt and this is Greg, we'd just like to get acquainted.] The smaller of the two spoke, reaching his hand out, palm facing upward, maybe as a form of greeting?
*Sigh* He understood that maybe something like this was a long time coming, he was going to have to acknowledge the conversations at some point. He just wished he could ready his heart for the realization that it's owner was quite literally able to converse with monkeys. Maybe when his friends used to call him a monkey, they weren't trying to tease him. They were just telling him the facts.
He reached his hand out to reciprocate, not really sure what to do about the gesture, so Zhao Wei simply tried to shake it. "Hey, I'm Zhao Wei, I know I've been here for some time, sorry if this is the..."
"RIPPPPPP"
'Oh Crap!'