Meanwhile, while Cherry chose to torment a crippled, paralyzed half-way man with her blood mutant genes, General Luke and the Gifted Students steadily made their way through the desert and headed into the forest where Cherry, Huntress, and Murdock had a short debut from.
The reason for this was because Luke still had a map layout of where Ace and Sky's bracelet signals came from, so he saw it wise to check their first.
Though excited to be out of the base and in the open, new and dangerous world, the Gifted teens were hungry, a little exhausted, and sort of worried for themselves and their welfare. For one, none of them had actually gotten a real shot at using their powers to the fullest extent apart from Jason, so they weren't giddy about battling the unknown that was supposedly lurking and waiting for them in the wild.
Luke led the way with Hurt, followed by Zain, Michelle, Lilly, and lastly Jason, the outcast of the group. They each walked with a slur and their posture clearly screamed, 'I AM TIRED, TAKE ME HOME.' Meanwhile, General Luke, who wasn't even Gifted like any of them, was at the top of his feet, moving at a pace that was difficult for a few of them to follow.
"Man, for an old guy…" Zain panted heavily while whispering to Hurt, "He sure is fast."
"I am not old," Luke replied. "I only forty-five years young. The wrinkles and white hair are caused by stress and having to bear with your generation."
"Sorry, Sir," Zain apologized with his head down.
"Hey Zain, why don't you do us a favor and transform into some mutated horse or camel," Lilly demanded, "My feet are killing me and I refuse to walk anymore."
All the others stared blankly as her and replied with scoffs and sneers while moving ahead of her. Since no one paid further attention, she childishly pouted as she followed along slowly.
"Don't worry guys," Luke spoke, "We're almost at the forest. They'll be plenty of shed there and maybe some water."
"Oh, no need," Hurt replied while forming a nimbus cloud in between his palms. "Part of my powers is being able to manipulate any kind of weather. I can provide water for all of you." They each nodded like hungry little children and speedily gulped every drop that was given to them.
"We're here," Luke replied while pointing at the edge of the forest. "Once we get there, be on high alert. That red gas did not only make birds larger." Luke held his large gun tightly as he led the Gifted teens into the forest. As soon as they got in, they were welcomed by a cool, refreshing breeze and the different smells of the new and weird types of mutated vegetation.
Different sounds of animal life echoed through the thick canopy with sounds, some being beautiful and others being too strange to explain(literally). The different spotlights in the forest made it look almost magical, but it also made it look like something from a horror movie.
"Stay on guards, guys," Luke remained them one last time. As they moved through slowly and carefully, they came across pieces of shattered plastic and glass, clearly showing that humans were around not so long ago.
"Just as I thought." Luke stroked his chin while observing the damaged bracelets, "Those two must have received their ransom video as well and destroyed the bracelets as soon as they got the chance."
"Means we can't track them anymore, right?" Michelle asked.
"We can't digitally, but we can physically." He then noticed marking not so far away from where he was. "Notice the disturbance on the forest floor," He said, "These are clearly human footprints."
"Oh yeah," Jason spoke but with fear, "Then what do you call those?" He pointed at two different sets of footprints, but instead of human-like prints, these ones looked like they mere made by giant chickens. From what they saw, the prints had four toes, each with sharp claws at the tip, a large underfoot that was halfway the original size.
"Over here," Lilly pointed out in another direction, "Here they are again but…"
"There's another human print here as well." Zain interrupted. The Gifted students all looked at Luke wondering what it could have meant. The not-so-young military general looked around the forest for a while, and that's when he noticed a few signs of a something he hoped to be a theory.
"Look over there," He pointed to a particular part of the forest that had tree trunks, broken branches and disturbed dirt all over. "See how the branches and trunks were cut or smashed down. And also here," He went on his knees and felt the footprints. "Those footprints from earlier are here too but whoever or whatever made them kept moving around."
"Over here," Michelle spoke. "The same prints from earlier. They're here too. What could this mean, General?"
"There was a fight here and judging by how the human footprints suddenly moved further into the forest, I reckon they escaped while whatever made these moved deeper away from the human, or followed them."
*Ping*
The sets of armor each one them wore, apart from Zain, pinged with a notification from its digitized components. As they opened them, the read messages that showed two things:
[A: Hostile Lifeforms detected. Switching to Defense Mode.]
[B: Human settlement Twenty kilometers away.]
As soon as they read the first notification, their suits tightened around their bodies as pieces of protective metal propped up on their chests, mid-section and shins. The helmets on their heads flashed red lights while the glass screens showed an infrared vision. The Gifted students, minus Zain, and Luke stood at each other's backs while Zain transformed into an over-sized, extremely muscular bear with claws as long as those of a sloth.
"Sir, what's happening?" Michelle begun to panic slightly. "What the heck is happening with the suits?"
'This is an inbuilt self-protection feature that will force the suit to fight for you if you won't or can't. Be careful, if you're not ready, it will leave you completely wrecked."
"AH CRAP!!" Jason shouted. "We're surrounded."