About 10 hours later, the sun began rising on the horizon and Leviathan did as ordered, "Jack, wake up". she said, but due to Jack's awareness, he was already up before Leviathan even finished saying his name.
"Good morning", He yawned. "What's for breakfast...Oh right", he sighed before opening the roof of his Vulture and stepping out. Paladins could stay for about 168 hours without eating, which was equivalent to one earth week or in this case, 2 days and 28 hours on X4442.
However, just because they could fast for a week did not mean they wanted to. It had been about one full X4442 day without eating, which meant that the Paladins had gone 2 hours less than 3 earth days since their last meal. "Leviathan", Jack called, "Next time pack some food in the Vultures". He ordered.
"That could be arranged". Leviathan nodded from the bridge of the ship. Jack closed the roof of his Vulture and set out towards where he last saw the tracks of his team. He sighed as he passed the grave he had dug the day before, he still felt guilty for what he did even though it was technically not his fault.
Looking at the remains of the blue horned figure, he noticed that the smaller prints he had seen originated from there, he then followed them to the tree which had been unlucky enough to suffer Tahir's anger. "Hugo must have done that thing with the eyes again", he mumbled. "It is the only logical explanation as to why he would carry that thing".
Jack had been told by Lira that the blue figures were the enemy. However, when Hugo had communicated with them, they had said the complete opposite. Jack's gut told him to trust the beasts, however that could be just his animal side talking. The diir beasts and the blue figures were obviously at war, so they were logically each other's enemies.
Therefore, they both had their side of the story and Jack honestly did not give a damn whether who was right and who was wrong. The Paladin's mission was not to settle extraterrestrial disputes, they only pushed their own agenda. Jack only hoped that the rest of the team felt the same way and that as soon as they reunited, they would all get into their Vultures and leave.
Jack followed the footprints, jumping from tree to tree in order to move faster and stealthier, using his tail as a rope and swinging through the forest like his favourite comic character from earth. He still found it very strange that apart from the two local races, planet X4442 seemed to have no other living being at all.
Soon enough, he arrived at what seemed like a village. The tallest building was 1.5 meters (4'9") tall, made of mud and grass. It did not take a genius to figure out that the buildings belonged to the small blue figures as even smaller versions of them could be seen running around. Jack hid atop a tree, hoping to spot a Paladin, however even after an hour, the scenery had not changed.
Jack did not know how the village's inhabitants would welcome him and the experience with Drau was still vivid in his mind. Sure he was confident in taking on a dozen of them at the same time, however he did not know the population of the village, and he did not want to get surrounded by hundreds of the little things.
Plucking a weird fruit from the tree he was in, he began biting into it, not even worried if it was poisonous or not since his instincts told him it was not, despite the fact that it was shaped like a purple banana with white spots all over.
After another hour, he decided to approach the village. The tracks he had been following led to this place so he had no choice. He could have gone around the village to see of they left, however he would risk getting seen by the blue people and it was better for him to walk in than to be seen sneaking around.
When the first blue being saw him, all the others also looked in the same direction. The aliens sniffed the air while looking on with their curious gazes quickly turning to anger. Jack suddenly felt his instincts telling him of potential danger, however none of the figures attacked, they just stared at him.
That was until one of them leapt at him with it's long fingernails aimed at his throat. Jack caught the figure by the head and used it's body to whack away another one which had tried to execute a sneak attack from behind, before kicking another in the face, sending it crashing against a by-standing group.
Jack used that moment to unsheathe one of his pistols in one hand and his sword-form tail in the other. "Stop!" Jack heard a voice in his head at the same time as all the figures took a couple of steps back. Coming out from behind one of the huts was what Jack had already dubbed 'A better looking version of the blue people'.
This 'better looking version', was 1.4 meters tall with long black hair and sharp elf-like ears. It had deep blue skin, a longer horn and big red eyes.
"Please forgive my subjects", It spoke in Jack's mind with a slight, barely noticeable bow. "It is just that you smell like the beasts who took everything from us and are slowly leading us to extinction". It said, Jack did not lower his guard as he listened to the words in his head. His first question was to ask how the figure was talking in his mind, however he threw that out since he knew he would not understand the explanation anyway.
"Your friends have been looking for you", the figure said, effectively getting all of Jack's attention.
"Where are they?" he asked.
"Let's not talk here, follow me to my cave". Jack was well aware that he may be walking into a trap, however after surviving the diir-beasts, he was not afraid of the blue people.
The little scuffle he just had also raised his confidence in being able to escape if things went south. With his plasma pistol aimed behind the blue being's head, Jack followed until they came to a cave which forced him to crouch in order to move through. The then came upon a larger part of the cave with a pond in the middle.
The figure jumped onto the rock in the middle of the pond and turned around to face Jack.
"Where are my friends?" This time Jack sheathed his tail and took out his other pistol, both aiming at the figure's head.
"Your kind surely likes pointing those things", it chuckled. "Anyway, allow me to introduce myself, My name is Queen Reya, but you can call me Reya, i am the leader of the last remaining diir", Reya said. A look of confusion flashed across Jack's eyes but he did not let it show. Something strange was happening on that planet and he hoped to be off it before he had to figure out the mysteries of X4442.
"I am sure those beasts told you that they are also called diir right?" Reya asked.
"The beasts can talk as well?" Jack pretended to be surprised. "I never communicated with them, i did not have the chance to since they were trying to kill me. I was lucky enough to escape, now tell me were my friends are".
"You really managed to escape from those brutes?, You are indeed really lucky. Too bad i don't believe you". Reya opened her mouth and a high pitched screech ravaged Jack's sensitive ears. The screech also resounded inside his mind as he fell to the ground clutching his head and screaming in pain.
The last thing he saw before he blacked out was Reya's hand slowly approaching his face.