Then he let out two more urgent honks.
“Shit!” I hissed as I turned the stegos around and told them to retreat down river. I made it ten seconds before there was another roar behind me, but I couldn’t see the spinos when I turned back around.
“What is that sound?” the woman demanded as I slowed the stegos next to her. She still held her flame whip out, but she seemed a little less sure about using it on me.
“Horrible monster about forty times our size,” I said quickly as I pointed at her hair. “Are you hot?”
“Hot?” she asked with confusion.
“Will you burn me or my friends if you touch them?” I demanded. “We have to get the fuck out of here or we are all going to die.”
“I can reduce my flames so that--”
“Do it and get on!” I shouted as I leaned out the side of MCA’s back plates and held one hand down to her.
“How do I know this isn’t a trick from my enemies? You could be in league with--”
“Oh for crying out loud! I don’t give a fuck about your enemies. If you don’t take my hand in three seconds and get up here, I’m leaving your ass behind.”
The woman blinked her green eyes half a dozen times, looked back into the darkness in the direction where we had heard the roars from the spinos, and then the fire whip fell apart in her grip. The vermillion glow from her onyx skin faded, but her hair was still dancing fire. She moved faster than I had expected, and I almost didn’t see her grab my hand. I also kind of expected her skin to burn me, but it just felt really warm against my palm, and I pulled her up on MCA’s back easily.
Then there was another roar, and the stegos were running down river.
“I don’t see anything behind us!” the woman shouted as she let go of my hand and grabbed onto one of MCA’s back plates.
“Bruce!” I shouted up into the sky as we rode. “Do they see us?”
I heard a single honk from far above, and I felt my shoulders relax a little.
“Who are you talking to?” the woman demanded as she narrowed her glowing blue eyes.
“My friend, Bruce,” I said as I nodded at her hair. “Can you turn that off? It’s making too much light, and those things might see us.”
“I cannot extinguish my mane,” she spat. “Even asking, you are insult--”
“You wanna get off and deal with those things yourself?” I interrupted her. “I’m not trying to insult you. I’m trying to save your life. Get over yourself.”
“How dare you,” she hissed as her eyes narrowed. “You obviously don’t know who--”
“Save it until we get back,” I said, and then I pushed the stegos for as much speed as they could give me as we rounded the next cliff turn on the beach. As soon as we cleared the side, we were back in the oak and redwood forest area, and I turned MCA, Mike D, and Ad-Rock to the left so they could head back to the nook.
I was guessing from Bruce’s single honk a few minutes ago, and his lack of warning honks right now that we were safe from the spinos, but my heart was still slamming in my chest by the time we made it back to the nook. Bruce was actually waiting there for us on the ground, and the woman with the fire hair and onyx colored skin gasped when she saw him.
“It’s fine,” I reassured her. “This is Bruce.”
Bruce let out a honk, and then he kind of flexed his arms.
“Oh? Showing off now?” I laughed at him as I jumped off MCA’s back. “You seem calm, so I’m guessing we lost the spinos?”
Bruce let out an affirmative honk.
“Did they even see us at all? Or were they just going after the person who came out of the blue colored pillar?”
Bruce let out two honks and sighed with disappointment.
“Damn, I was too slow.”
“Are you going to tell me why you have abducted me now?” the fire woman asked after she had jumped off MCA’s back, twisted in the air, and landed with the grace of an acrobat.
“Yeah,” I said as I noticed that her onyx skin was starting to glow as if it was superheated again.
I was standing a good ten feet away from her, but I could almost feel the heat coming off her body. What I thought was a dark dress really wasn’t. It was the waves of heat and fire coming off her skin that was giving me the initial impression that she was wearing a long flowing garment. Now that I was standing next to her, I could see the details of her full breasts, her pert nipples, and the fiery patch of pubic hair between her legs. She looked human, except for her glowing green eyes, and the fire coming out of her scalp. She actually looked like a dancer, but not a ballet dancer, more like one of the beauties who would be shaking her ass in a rap music video.
“What is wrong with you?” she growled and then began to hold her hand out like she had when she summoned her whip on the beach.
“This way,” I said after I cleared my throat and then gestured for her to follow me through the ferns and in-between the banyan trees that guarded the entrance to my campsite. “Don’t burn the leaves.”
“I won’t, but I want some answers.”
“I’ll give them to you,” I said, but then I turned back around and shrugged, “as much as I can give you.”
“What does that mean?” the woman hissed, and I could see her skin start to glow brighter.
“Can you not do that with your skin?” I asked as I pointed to her bare stomach. “I can feel the heat from here, and it’s really uncomfortable.”
“That’s the point,” she said. “I don’t want you to be comfortable around me. I see your eyes staring at my assets.”
“Ahh, shit,” I sighed as I gestured to the fire. “Sit down. I’m staring at you because you are beautiful. I highly doubt that I’m the first man ever to stare at you.”
The woman’s green eyes opened wide with a bit of surprise, but then she sat down on the moss next to the fire and shook her head. “You cannot manipulate me with your charm. If I come to find out that you work for Te’fanna, or Ruity, or--”
“I know absolutely nothing about you or your homeworld,” I said as I sat on the other side of the fire from her. “I have done this a few times though, so I’m used to explaining your situation. Will you let me talk for a few minutes without interruption, and then I’ll answer whatever questions you might have?”
The woman’s eyes were like LED lights, but she finally blinked and then nodded.
“There are powerful beings that are taking males and females from distant planets, replacing their eyes with special ones, and then wiring their brains so we can all understand each other. Once they are done with the operation, these beings are dumping the men and women on this planet. A pillar of light descends from the sky when someone is being transported here; that is how I knew where you were. I was about to go to bed, but then I saw the orange light from your teleport.”
The woman didn’t nod or blink. She just stared at me, so I continued.
“It seems that these beings are taking the most powerful or special person from their home world. Everyone who I have encountered has an ability or power that comes from their race, and their background seems to indicate that they might have been the best at their profession. For example, my ability lets me tame and control the creatures on this planet like Bruce and the three stegosaurs that we rode in, but on my homeworld, my job was finding and caring for small animals that had been lost. Another person I have saved was a professional weightlifter. She was the best from her homeworld, and here she is able to manipulate weight. If you blink your eyes, it will pull up a computer menu named Eye-Q that will list off your stats and your ability.”
The woman blinked twice, and then she gasped when she must have seen the Eye-Q’s menu pop up over her vision.
“What does your ability say?” I asked.
“Flame Dance,” she said.
“Do you know what that is?” I asked.
“No,” she replied with a shrug. “I have no idea.”
“Your hair is on fire,” I said as I pointed
to her, “and your skin seems to be steaming. I don’t think it will be that hard to figure out what it means.”
“You said you have the power to tame these creatures?” she asked as she gestured to Bruce.
“Yeah,” I answered. “There are tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of different dinosaurs on this planet, some of them are peaceful, but some aren’t. Some are evolved killing machines that can tear you apart in a few seconds. This world is incredibly dangerous, but we’ve been able to survive by joining together and making a fort with tall walls. But the dinosaurs are just one issue, the survivors who are put here by these powerful beings aren’t given any direction. It’s a fend for ourselves battle royale, and we’ve had encounters with some of them that just want to rape and murder. I was in the process of helping people in another tribe when one of these assholes grabbed me and carried me up into the air. Then he dropped me. I survived, but I’m probably a few days away from getting to where I was abducted from them.”
I leaned back on the cool moss and wiped some sweat from my forehead. Her body heat was making the campfire feel like a candle by comparison, and I kind of wanted to go dunk my head in the spring again.
“That’s the short version. I’m guessing you have questions.”
“How can I get home?” she asked immediately.
“I don’t know,” I said with a shrug.
“You aren’t trying?” she asked, and her green eyes narrowed.
“We’ve been trying to survive,” I said. “I used to think that we might have been inside of some sort of vast space ship, do your people have space ships? Anyway, when the asshole who took me carried me up into the sky, I saw the curve of the landscape. We are on a planet for sure.”
“My people do not have such things as spaceships,” she said with a wave of her hand, “but I get the idea. We have ships that travel the lava seas, so I imagine that one named space travels the heavens.”
“Yeah, sure,” I said. “Uhhh, actually, we haven’t introduced ourselves yet. I’m Victor Shelby. What is your name?”
“I am Gee-kalata-beto-yahrit-ill-kanna-sae,” she said quickly, and her glowing green eyes stared into mine from across the fire.
“Uhhh, that’s a pretty name,” I said as I tried to remember what she had just said, “but would you mind terribly if I called you Gee?”
The woman’s glowing green eyes narrowed a bit, and it seemed like her fire hair whipped back from her head with a spurt of anger. Then the mane seemed to relax, and she leaned away from me as she shook her head.
“You are telling me the truth, aren’t you?” she sighed.
“Uhh, yeah,” I answered.
“You see, Shel? Was that your name?”
“Ahh, Victor Shelby,” I said. “You can call me Victor.”
“Fine,” the flaming-haired woman replied as she shook her head. “Victor, no one from my world would ask to just call me ‘Gee.’”
“Ahh, I didn’t mean any insult to you,” I said with a shrug.
“It seems that it doesn’t matter,” the burning woman said with a sigh. “That was what convinced me you’re telling the truth. I haven’t been sabotaged by my enemies. Therefore, I’ve no reason to doubt the rest of your story.”
“Yeah,” I said. “It’s--”
“There is also the water,” she said.
“Yeah, you seemed surprised when you saw the river.”
“Water is an incredibly scarce and valuable resource on my planet, so I know this is not my own world. I can hear the sound of more water moving from behind you.”
“There is a little spring back there,” I said as I gestured over my shoulder. “The water is clean, if you want a drink.”
“I can just take a drink?” she asked, and her glowing eyes suddenly looked hungry.
“Sure,” I said with a shrug. “There is plenty.”
A distant roar rolled over the top of the narrow circle of sky above our cliff walls, and Gee froze in mid crouch.
“It sounds far away,” I said as I looked at Bruce. The pteranodon let out a short honk of agreement, and I took a deep breath while my heart stopped racing.
“Have your people began to look for a way to return?” Gee asked as she finished standing.
“No,” I replied as I watched her walk over across the moss to where the spring was. Every time she stepped, the ground hissed with the heat of her skin, but I was thankful for the distraction, she had a fantastic ass, and I had trouble keeping my eyes off it when she walked away. “We haven’t had the time. Every second we have is spent trying to protect ourselves from the dinosaurs or the other aggressive tribes.”
“Hmmm,” she said as she glanced into the fire.
“Can you tell me about your world?” I asked.
“That is a very broad question, Victor,” she said as she squatted next to the spring.
“Uhh, well. Okay, I can start with mine,” I said as she scooped up some water and pressed it to her lips. “I come from a planet named Earth. There was about seven and a half billion people on it. The planet was about eighty percent water though, so maybe ‘earth’ is kind of a bad name.” I chuckled, but Gee was now almost shoveling the water in her mouth, and she let out gasps of satisfaction with every mouthful.
I paused my story to watch her drink, and she seemed to slow down after a few minutes. Finally, she just pushed her face into the flow of the spring, and her hair let out a hiss as steam shot up from her shoulders.
“Ahhh!” Gee gasped as she pulled her head out of the water. Steam curled up from her bare shoulders and back, and then she shoved her head back into the spring flow deep enough so that the fire on her hair went out.
“Amazing!” she gasped after she pulled her face out a dozen seconds later. Her onyx skin actually seemed a bit cooler now, and I wasn’t seeing the air twist around her like asphalt on a summer day.
“I’m glad you like it,” I said.
“I’ve never drank so much water in one sitting,” Gee moaned. Then she grabbed another handful of water, dripped it over her chest, and stared in fascination as the water dribbled down her full breasts, dripped off her dark nipples, and then sizzled when they hit her taut stomach.
“Uhhh, yeah,” I said as I watched her splash another handful of water on her breasts, but then Bruce let out a mischievous honk, and I shot him an exasperated look before I focused on the campfire.
“Continue your story, Victor,” Gee said, and I glanced back to see that the tips of her hair were starting to turn into flames again.
“Yeah, so, my people have learned how to travel through space to our moon, and we’ve sent flying robots to the other planets in our solar system. Most of our population lives in cities. We have a computer network system that lets us communicate with each other using devices that we keep in our pocket. We love music, and dancing, but we also fight with each other a lot. Most people keep small animals as pets, and that was where I would come in. If there is a lost pet or even a dangerous wild animal, I’d take care of it for people.”
“You would kill it?” Gee asked as she splashed her hair with water. The flames there doused with an angry hiss, and I wondered if she would be able to heat a jug of water by just putting her finger in it for a few minutes.
“Nope,” I laughed. “I capture the animal and try to find the owner, or I would release it back into the wild outside of the city. I lived in Santa Monica, which is one of the richest cities in the world, but I was pretty poor. My parents were doctors that took care of animals, but they died in a car accident a few years ago.”
“Cars?” she asked.
“Uhh. They are like machines you sit in and then you can make them move fast.”
“Accident?” she asked with a raised flaming eyebrow.
“Yeah,” I said. “Someone made a mistake driving, and they died. Anyways, I had just finished picking up a rattlesnake from this home, and then my car lifted in the air, I felt hands grab me, and then I woke up on a beach on this world. I got luck
y, and was rescued by a group of three women. Then we built a fort and ever since have done our best to help others.”
“I see,” Gee said as she nodded, and then she slashed more water on her shoulders as she stared at me.
“So, tell me about yourself,” I said as I glanced at the fire. Something about the woman was making me a bit uncomfortable, but it could have been that her eyes looked like green lasers, her hair was a literal live flame, and her skin looked like it was smoking hot.
“My world is called Dides. The population is four or five billion. The planet is only three percent water, so most of the population lives around the Ten Lakes. The lakes boil during the summer, but this creates rain that helps sooth the magma and allows us to plant crops for our herd animals to eat. About forty percent of the surface is a lava flow, and we have ships that can navigate across the magma so that we can wage war with other nations.”
“War, huh?” I asked.
“Yes,” she replied.
“I’m guessing you fight over these Ten Lakes?”
“You are correct,” she said with a slight smile. “How did you guess?”
“I’ve done this a few times,” I said. “How did your ships sail over lava? Were they made out of metal or something?”
“Yes,” she said as she flung water on her onyx legs. “Our ships are resistant to heat. I was about to board such a vessel and lead a grand assault against our enemies for control over my nations sixth lake.”
“You are a military commander?” I asked.
“You could say that,” she replied, and her eyes narrowed again.
“What would you say?” I chuckled.
“Let’s just say that I wasn’t worried about the enemy nation, I was more worried about the backstabbers and betrayers who had the council’s ear and spread tales of me returning with the armada and naming myself empress.”
“Ahh,” I said. “I can understand how that could piss you off.”
“Piss me off?” she asked.
“Ahh. Our translators probably didn’t work correctly,” I said as I tapped my ear. “It means to get angry.”
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