Welcome to Gaia! ::

K'Dan raised an eyebrow slightly and nodded at the voice in his head. Telepathic beings were not ALL that uncommon in the galaxy, but ones that could communicate to another species were quite a bit more rare. "I'm not familiar with the term, but - AWK!" He made a quite undignified leap into the air when he was splashed, almost falling over the rail into the empty tank.

"That's quite impressive, Saniya, I've never seen that done without equipment before." He tried to regain his dignity as he brushed droplets off of his whiskers, chuckling as he took the offered food and drink from the newcomers. "I've seen them in passing, but not been introduced. It's good to meet you both." He nodded, making the paw-down flipping motion of the Fela salute. "Thank you, I was getting a tad on the dry side, at least until Saniya her showed off her ability." He laughed. "Took ME by surprise, all right! So how, exactly, does that work? Do you create the water from component atoms, or pull it from somewhere?"

At Saniya's call, the blitz teen honestly found himself unsure. He remembered bits and pieces of the world, and had begun to re-familiarize himself with the geography of Masquerade but things had changed. A lot. Even Home Base was beginning to look like a functioning village. There were fences and gardens and homes built for the small families. There were new faces, and new masks, that he hadn't ever met before; and some of his friends had even lost their curse!

My how things had changed. . . .

But Uta had resettled and had swiftly taken up the task of watching neighboring fauna; there were still many undiscovered creatures that lived out there and the woman was beginning to think some heavy exploration away from the camp would be necessary. It wouldn't be quite as difficult with magic and technology present on the world, but then again, Uta also was a bit of a naturalist. She liked to get down and dirty and not use machines to make discoveries. . . .

How much of Masquerade had been discovered? Truly uprooted and discovered? Eh. . . He'd look in to that later. For now, he needed to find something useful to do.

Saniya was busy with her water magic, or would be from the looks of it. Electricity could only provide so much. In a sense he was a walking battery god - they didn't have much of a chance to stay down and out with him back in action. But aside from offering charges, sparks and otherwise shock people what good was he? If he absolutely had to think about it he was a bit of a weather-guru. . . at least when it came to storms.

If you need any assistance summoning water. . . I could call forth some rain. He suggested mildly, taking a glance up at the skies in hopes of spotting a few clouds. Given, lightning and thunder would also accompany such a task but rain was rain. . . Anything for some cleaner water.

Ah, but overall, useless. Or so he felt.

Part of the teen was anxious to prove himself in some way. He felt as if he'd abandoned the planet, and though it wasn't his fault nor was there any way he could of stopped fate from happening, the guilt that rested within his soul was incredibly trying. He had a lot of lost time to make up for and the angsty, somewhat hyperactive lad just couldn't wait to do it.

Making his way over to the tower, he waited for Haisyn to slide down, quirking a brow behind his mask curiously. Someone seemed to be in a bit of a rush. Heights were no fear to the pony-tailed, spiked bracelet lad; in fact, his long limbs made climbing easy; two and three steps at a time! He poked his head up over the side of the tower, eyes gleaming in good humor as he studied the cat-man and remaining two girls. Nothing like a hard days work, eh? He teased, feeling a little guilty at his lack there of. So what's happening up here? What I miss? And where are you and Haisyn off to in such a hurry? That he directed at Ash. He had heard a wee bit of conversation, but he hadn't caught it all. The breeze and height difference had caused their words to be jumbled but he had caught Ash's last statement.

If there was something going down he was not going to be left behind!

"Impressive, so more or less a teleportation type ability, that is focused on water. You could do some very impressive things with that, especially with hydrostatics and displacement. Do you control exactly where it materializes, and where you remove it from?" His mind pondered, through the lens of his marine service, exactly how much damage you could cause with an ability of that nature, and came to the conclusion that he was glad she was on his side.

When the mention of preemptive patrolling came up, K'Dan smiled, a smile subtly different from his usual, good-natured grin, with a hint of something feral and deadly in his eyes. "Making sure you get the opponent before they get you is always the best way." He instinctively reached his left paw down and slapped the FiveseveN in its hard-side holster on his hip, checking by feel that it, the suppressor, and the spare clips were all as they should be.

"I would be happy to make this patrol with you, my friends. If it is natural, let us find out and deal with it. If it is hostile..." He smiled in that moderately unpleasant way again. "Then let is deal with that as well."

He strode to the ladder, and hooking his boots around the sides, simply dropped to the ground, sliding down the ladder smoothly until his boots slammed into the dirt. A half-second later, he was running for his quarters to retrieve the rest of his gear.

Delicate new growth transformed into scorched and dry with each lethal footfall, the stirring of activity in the collony garnering only a wry tilt to his eyes. Lingering on the tell tale glimmer of masks. Blue and Silver easily distinguished and then the others....

Well there were some who were obviously of the same ilk, and others that could only be called a rogue element in his plans.

The tall figure was once again engulfed in shadow, and trailing a hand along his belt he paused when he felt the smooth form, lifting the mask that had been split down the middle and studying its icy countanence.

He would have to test them, this rogue element.....

"Affirmative," K'Dan 'thought' back, not sure if he could be heard or not, but he figured that confirming wasn't really all that important anyway as long as he was there. He jogged across the grass to the corner of a storage shed that he'd claimed as "his" quarters while he was planetside, his boots thumping softly on the ground as he ran. A moment later he slid around the doorframe of the building, using the frame to both stop himself, and swing around toward his corner.

He slapped his paw on the latch of the small cargo crate sitting at the end of his cot like a footlocker, the lid swinging up smoothly on its own gas struts. The interior of the box illuminated in the glow of a small LED light built into the lid, and he reached inside to pull a set of web gear out, slinging it over his armour and snapping metal buttons down to the snaps built into the light ceramic panels of the recon suit. He grabbed a helmet out of the box and tossed it onto the cot, then reached under it to pull out his boxy-looking M-29 standard infantry rifle. A straight box magazine of 7.62x54mm rounds, and a second, shorter box of fat 20mm cartridges were slapped into their wells in a series of practiced motions as he readied the weapon for use, then slung it on his back. He grabbed several additional magazines from the box and shoved them into pouches on the web gear, then clipped on a canteen, first aid kit, and numerous other accouterments.

As he slammed the locker shut again and scooped up his helmet to head out the door, it occurred to him that they could simply be looking for an unusual bug, or perhaps a malignant fungus or something that was no threat to them at all. After a moment, though, he discarded that thought. He was, first and foremost, a marine. The colonists had the scientific knowledge to solve a problem, he guessed as he walked into the open again, his helmet under his arm. If it was a non-scientific problem, well, then perhaps he could be of a tad more help. If there was to be a treaty with these people, then the best thing he could do was to help them all he could. If that meant simply walking into the woods while they looked for bugs or something, then so be it.

((Tallied Word Count and raffle entries to here))

By the time Ash reached the house she shared with Tavil and the Fierras, Haisyn had already reached her room and started changing clothes. Ash slapped the doorframe as she passed to alert her Guardian to her presense and headed for her own room to put on some clothing that was slightly more suited to traipsing around through the forest. After a moment's thought she switched out her green Dragon stones for her Teleport and Shard stones, figuring it might be useful to have the skills ready. She could switch them back out if nothing happened, or if she had to use them and wait for their powers to recharge. Well... hopefully.

It hit her that it was a little strange to almost be wishing something was going to happen. Not that she really wanted something to happen, per say... but their first few months here had been so full of excitement and danger that now that things had dulled down to so much manual labor trying to improve and expand the colony it just didn't feel the same. But things would be what they would be.

Shaking off her thoughts the Masque grabbed her katana belt and strapped it on firmly before tucking her temporarily discarded stones into her pocket. She checked her traveling boots to make sure the pair of knives she'd hidden in them were secure before slipping them on and going to join Haisyn.

Verran had come down the hall to see what the two girls were rushing about for, eyes slightly bleary from his apparent napping. "Sis? There trouble?"

Haisyn shrugged, partly in answer and partly to settle Hellrazer's sheath-harness onto her shoulders better. "Maybe. Maybe not. I've got one of those vibes, so..." She hefted the massive sword and held it out in front of her speculatively. She hadn't had to use it in a while... the old familiar hum of energy was there, and it felt as natural as ever. Still... she might give it a couple of test swings once they were outside. She didn't particularly feel like destroying her room right now. The blade settled somewhat unhappily into its sheath as she turned to face her brother's concerned grimace.

"Should I go?" He was most certainly concerned about her and Ash and whoever else was going but there was no hiding the full body relief that washed over him when she shook her head. While he honestly could fight, and fight well, it was a lot harder for him to pretend bravado in the face of some snarling beast that was trying to bite his face off than, say, a fist fight with another guy. Haisyn always seemed to take everything in stride... though after some of the stuff she'd been through he supposed a few angry beasties seemed tame to her. "What do you want me to do then?"

Haisyn quirked a bit of a half-smile at him. At least he didn't think he was free to sit around the house. "I'm taking a flare gun... if we need help I'll fire it. Just make sure everyone knows a small group of us are going out to check an unusual patch of dead growth in the forest and to watch for the flare. Otherwise we should be back in a couple of hours."

Ash pounced Verran from behind to give her "Uncle" a hug. "Are we ready to go then, Hai?"

The pale haired Fierra gave a shrug and ruffled her brother's red hair before heading past him and the Masque toward the exit, checking her straps as she went. "I'm gonna grab a flaregun from the main storage, I'll meet you and the others at..." She quirked a brow at Ash.

"The pond. That was where Sani picked for us to meet." Ash dropped from Verran's shoulders and headed to the kitchen to grab a bit of jerky and their canteens. "I'll see you there."

Verran shook his head a bit at the two women rushing off to adventure or... whatever. Part of him wanted to go... but a bigger part of him didn't, both because he'd been told to wait and because... well... He didn't like the vibe he was getting either.

Only an hour in the sun, and he was already wishing for the heavier assault-type armour with it's powered cooling system and external load-bearing frame. K'Dan sighed and resolutely ignored the minor discomforts of wearing close-fitting, dark-coloured armour in direct sunlight. For the twentieth time, he flicked his visor down and scanned the treeline, the MMWSAR probing out, it's electronic fingers reaching into the shadows below the trees and returning a false-colour image of the blank forest. So far, so good, he supposed, reminding himself again that this was nothing to really worry about, but by training not really being able to let his guard down.

The pond sparkled in the sunlight, the wild reflections dancing off of the buildings most impressively, and he glanced at his wrist display for the time. About four hours until sundown... if it was his patrol, he'd wait until the sun was fully down before heading into the woods, but being a Crepuscular species, that did not really shock him any. He'd long since gotten used to working with Diurnal beings, although he still personally preferred dawn and dusk.

K'Dan nodded back to Ash, approvingly. "That sounds like a solid precaution to me. Unfortunately, I have nothing in the way of backup that I can field should we need support, at least for another month or two until the 'Wrath returns. Our artillery was not deployed, obviously, and all aerospace and orbital support necessarily departed with the ship." He shrugged. "You take what you can get. I doubt it will escalate beyond anything we can handle, this is a very capable group we have here. It's probably just a fungus or something, perhaps insects. Worrisome from the standpoint of this particular forest, but nothing of direct threat to us."

His calm words were laid down over a fairly-clear foundation of caution, spoken far more plainly by his state of dress and apparent readiness for action than by any words.

"Probably a wise precaution, I most likely have the best sensory equipment available for this mission, at least from a threat-detection standpoint. Once everyone arrives, we should cover a few basic patrol signals and the like, just so we are all on the same page, and know what to expect if the proverbial crap hits the metaphorical ventilator."