The forest that inhabited sector one became immediately full of sounds and activity from the local fauna as soon as the sun arose. The Captains team felt rather on edge from all the noise. This either meant that it was just a naturally active part of the forest, or there was a large predator of some kind stirring up trouble.
The flip side is that the high activity could be signs of the remaining survivor. While still weary, there was an obvious glimmer of hope in the team's eyes upon that realization, especially when all that activity seemed like it was drawing nearer.
"Captain, do you think it could be the last survivor? They might be in immediate distress." One of the crew chimed. The Captain pondered for a moment and signaled his crew to shift direction towards the commotion.
"We will only investigate. Unless we find the last survivor there, do not engage with whatever we happen to find." The team let out acknowledging grunts in unison as they all shifted together with a quickened pace.
They managed to find a small clearing amongst the trees, perhaps not even 200m in diameter. They had to pause here as it sounded like the bustle of the forest was right in front of them. The entire team fell silent in anticipation, their weapons drawn just in case.
The gradual build of inaudible noises grew into the recognizable hoots, calls and squeals of individuals. The team instinctively ducked down when the obscenely large bodies of monkeys launched out of the tree line in front of them. They looked like they were headed in a specific direction.
One caught the captain's eye in particular. Its tail was coiled around something and he recognized the figure of the remaining survivor immediately.
"There!" The captain pointed towards Marcie for his crew to identify. His shout had grabbed the attention of the monkeys too and they immediately stopped their travels. Some of the monkeys started to get excited upon seeing there were more of this creature they had claimed as a prize and wanted their own trophies.
Marcie winced at the sudden jerk movement her captor made when redirecting. She was just barely hanging on to her consciousness when she looked towards the shout of a man below. She tried to take a deep breath in to gain some calm and sense of energy despite the constriction around her body.
"H-help~" She managed to muster up, but even calling out like that exhausted her. But her one small call out was not even really needed. The moment the Captain laid eyes upon her, his actions had immediately prioritized getting her out of the monkey's grasp.
The team had engaged with the primate creatures without hesitation with the Captain and one other targeting the monkey who held its captive. The teammate whipped to one side of the monkey in order to get its attention and squeezed the trigger of their weapon.
Bullets sprayed upwards towards the animal's face and it tried to shield itself with one of its arms in vain. The captain raced towards its back as he pulled out a strange bastard sword. Imbuing it with his own energy it began to glow with sparks of orange and yellow and emitted an intense heat.
In one fell swoop, the Captain severed the monkey's tail at its base, cauterizing it at the same time. The monkey let out a screech before being showered by more bullets in front. It only took moments for the animal to fall lifeless to the ground.
The captain had immediately turned his blade off and allowed the air to cool it down while he ran over to where Marcie now lay on the ground. The tail had luckily cushioned her fall but now she was a bit contorted amongst it.
Marcie's grunts and whines only hastened the captain's retrieval as he tried to carefully detangle her from the coils. She reached out to him as much as she could muster.
"Hey darlin, I got you now. You're gonna be okay." He cooed as he carefully cradled the woman in his arms. He weaved quite elegantly through the chaos of the battling rescue team trying not to jar Marcie more than she already had and brought her immediately to a stretcher where his team's medic was treating other injuries in the back.
"Oh my heavens!" The medic shouted alarmingly and rushed immediately to Marcie's side. He hovered his hands over her body and they began to glow a green light. The woman that laid before them was completely mangled and covered in dirt and forest debris. From what you could see past the dirt, most of her skin was covered in bruises and welts. Her breathing was heavily labored and she herself was barely responsive.
The medic and the captain shuddered at the sight and while the medic was performing emergency treatment with his healing abilities, the captain was trying to get her to drink something akin to a light blue tonic.
"Captain, it's a miracle this woman is still alive." The medic increased his output but Marcie's healing was not going as quickly as it ought to.
"She should be healing way faster than this. Either her body is damaged way more than it looks or there is something else going on." Both men felt a sense of urgency in that statement. Marcie had just barely managed to swallow some of the tonic which should have at least taken care of the surface injuries but its effects were not as potent as it should have been.
The men continued to administer first aid until she was stable enough. The sounds of the conflict happening only meters away began to feel fuzzy and hollow to Marcie. She could feel the pain of her injuries lessening slightly during the treatment but she was perhaps much too exhausted to even really notice.
Occasionally she would come to a bit and whisper thanks between her labored breathing to her rescuers. At some point, outside of her notice, the forest had once again become silent and all she could hear at that point were the mutterings of people that she couldn't clearly see.
At one point, she faintly grasped the vision of the man who pulled her from the tail and quietly cooed a thank you in his direction before losing consciousness once again. Without her being able to witness it, the Captain choked up and returned her sentiments with a small affirmation.