Welcome to Gaia! ::

Ocarina shrugged. "Although I can't validate it for sure by myself, it's exactly like being a real living person. The only difference is that you were created through computer processes, rather than born and developing from neural pathways and experience. There have been certain cases, though only a few in the strictest scientific gain, where a flesh and blood has transferred themselves to a digital consciousness, and a DC has been transferred to a flesh and blood body. Analysis showed that to each consciousness, both digital and neural, the experience had no difference.
Digital and neural consciousnesses are one and the same." He grinned, because he was a foo' like that.

Tika fielded Mark's question.

"We're approaching the Delphic Border Forest. No one's sure why, but continental plates on Aastaium are maked perfectly by treelines, as if someone wanted things that way." He shrugged.

"Not a God, of course. Aastaians have never believed in one. But something or someone messed with this planet some time ago. There are those that say our evolution into human form wasn't quite so random as we'd like to think, too."

He pointed to the forest around twenty feet from them. "You could say we're close, yes."

As he gazed into the march of trees, which eventually became so thick that all one could see was a vague brown blur in the distance, Tika shrugged.

"I suppose everything on this planet would be exotic to you. Very few creatures evolved in exactly the same way. Though an interesting note given to most tourists is that not all of the forest areas have been explored yet. Once you get to about thirty miles in to some of them, the Delphic Border included, we haven't bothered to look. Kind of sad really, for such an exploratory race."

Ocarina shook his head as though Charon had just suggested someone go on a murderous rampage and kill only children.

"To be 'backed up' is no way to live. While it isn't against any form of law, it is frowned upon, as a single copy of oneself is going to be better taken care of. It makes you live life more carefully." Of course, that had never stopped Ocarina copying itself to an orbiting satellite on Gaia, upon it's destruction aboard the old Ocarina, the ship.

"And some digital consciousnesses choose to become flesh and blood simply to have a way to die. Most are uploaded into their companion's brain when the Aastaian is near death. That way, life-long friends need never be separated.
That is, until all neural activity ceases and both consciousnesses are erased from reality forever."

Ocarina shrugged, looking out of the window, now awkwardly feeling stupid.

Tika shrugged too, in response to Mark.

"I figure there's just too much forest; too little time. Urban cities? We have very very few. Most settlements are underground. Desert? Yeah, in pretty much the same places as on Earth.
Speaking of. Hey ocarina? Where are we on Earth right now?"

"Huh?" Ocarina was called back to attention from his daydreaming.

"Um... Delpic Border Forest. That's around the middle of Ukraine."

And the OS trudged onward and into the forest.

Tika couldn't pay attention to anyone, as he was sure he'd just seen something flitting between the trees ahead...


In order to reply to both at once, Ocarina replied to Mark with the speakers in the OS, and to Charon through the internal computer pathways. This way, he replied to them at the same time.

"Oh hell yes!" He grinned at Mark.

I think Tika's a little out of it. The OS is reading slightly elevated adrenalin levels, an elevated heartbeat by two beats per minute, and a certain focus of mind. I'd say he's spotted something, but the OS would have scanned it.
Anyway, we have, to date, visited thirty-four different realities.

"Shh." Tika waved a hand dismissively, as though the very act of talking would somehow affect what he'd seen.

Then he stiffened. "It's definitely out there. I can feel it. Telekinesis."

He continued to talk while he observed.... nothing.

"Ocarina, you know the legends too. A sentient species native to Aastaium that is so adapted to remaining hidden that not even technology can sense their presence. They can't remain hidden to the naked eye, however. Especially not the Aastaian naked eye."

Ocarina shrugged. "S'true. There are, sort of legends I suppose. Nothing concrete. It's like 'UFO' stories. Although most of them can be attributed to advanced races."

He grinned as he recalled what had happened only ten minutes ago, or thereabouts. The 'teasing' of the Earth fighter jets.

"If anything does exist, the intentions of are unknown. Could be hostile, could not."

Ocarina shrugged. "Personally, I think nothing's out there. He's hallucinated before."

This drew a glare from Tika, and, while everybody's attention was on Tika/Ocarina, a thin and forlorn figure materialised, or at least seemed to, and stood watching the occupants of the OS.

Instantly, Tika's head shot round, eyes fixated on the point where the figure... had been. There was nothing there.

"That's it!" He said, bringing the machine to a halt. "I'm getting the ******** out and looking by my damned self. I have the advantage; my powers always were stronger here than in any other reality."

"..." Came from Ocarina.

"Nope. We're stuck here." Ocarina said, watching his friend leave the OS.

Tika didn't care about the others, he was already diving through the canopy and trekking off through the thick bush cover that blanketed most of the forest floor.
Leaves crunched under his feet, but he didn't care about that either. He had to find what was out here.

All of a sudden, he stopped dead. He turned to Mark, who had presumably followed him this far, and put a finger to silent lips. He tapped his head, then shook it, hoping mark would understand that he meant 'no telepathy'. Tika had an inkling that these creatures could sense and use it, too, on a level greater than even Ki'Rasa could manage.

With no warning, he disappeared.

He reappeared in the treetops, back against a trunk, leaning forward and supporting his upeer body on one leg braced against a branch in front of him. All in all, it was pretty comfortable.
And there! From this vantage point he caught a fleeting glimpse of rushing pale skin, a hint of blue hair, some form of head-dress he thought, and odd patches of green that may have been a cape.

Tika grinned to himself. Whatever it was, it was fast, it wasn't an Aastaian human, and most importantly of all...
It wasn't fast enough.

He disappeared from the tree, only to reappear an inch in front of the rapidly moving figure, too close for it to escape, but also too close to escape the inevitable,

Crash!

The figure collided with him, and he automatically took a firm grasp of it's arms, as well as locking a telekinetic net around it. He wasn't sure where Mark was, but even in the time it had taken him to teleport, the creature had moved quite some distance. Tika couldn't see his human friend, but sensed that he was at least a hundred feet away.

When it stopped squirming, he wasn't too surprised to see a vaguely human creature (I am not responsible for this drawing, and neither am I aware of who is), albeit with traces of insect morphology. It was fairly pretty young woman, too. Not stunning, but pleasing to the eyes.

The 'head-dress' was actually what seemed to be ornamental wings, the 'cape', actually a bi-laterally divided and proportionally small wing carapace of green hue, from which stemmed translucent orange wings.
Projecting from her lower back was a chitinous... something, and on her head were also delicate antennae emerging from short blue hair.
Her skin was tinged green, and more so from the elbow to the hands, the knees to the feet, and entire torso section, all chitinous. It was clearly a stronger form of the Aastaian chitin-based flesh.

Instantly, Tika morphed his own body to match the girl's insect parts. It was an idea to put the creature at ease, but then, it also may have also been wrong; for all Tika knew, these were female-specific parts.

"Let me go! Let me go-! Let me--" She stopped as he morphed his body before her eyes.

"Wha--?"

Now he was surprised. The words it had spoken had not been the common language, nor had they been any foreign language. It spoke Aastaian.

"You speak Aastaian." Tika said simply, not letting go of the creature, despite her stillness.

"Of course I do." She snapped, trying in vain suddenly to break free of his grip, but finding it too strong.

"Why are you so strong!? And how did you make yourself look like one of us? And how did you get in front of me? We're supposed to be faster, stronger, more intelligent, better at hiding, at fleeing. We're supposed to be better!" She spat the last word, as though Tika were no more than a dog that had bitten it's master.

He smirked. "We?"

Still, he held on to her, unrelenting in his grip. "Nevermind, we'll come to that in a second. First of all, I am better than you. I presume that with all of your surveillance on us, you people never saw a mile high tower of pure black hatred? That would have been around two hundred and thirty years ago."

She remained silent.

"You either talk, and take me to your people, or you don't talk, and I take you to my ship and dissect you."

Still she remained silent.

"Very well." Tika let loose an evil smirk, just a twitch in one side of his mouth, then he teleported himself and his captive back to the Observation Speeder.

"The others know about you, now." She suddenly piped up. Her face had lit up with a satisfied smirk, and she seemed a lot more co operative.

"They know you've got me, and they're coming to get me. They're stronger than me. Stronger than you."

Apparently unfazed by this, Tika pushed her closer to the OS, and Mark.

"This is what I saw." He looked directly into the OS now.

"See, Ocarina. I wasn't ******** hallucinating."

"They're heeeerrreeeeee..." The bug-girl chimed.

And she wasn't wrong. No less than a dozen males of the species, all over seven feet in height and with various insectoid appendages, had 'appeared' at a radius of ten feet from the OS.
It looked as though Tika had been wrong. Rather than males and females having different, but specific, parts, it seemed that the race may all have different parts to be completely unique.

"Give her back--"

"Just what are you, exactly?" Tika cut off the first male to speak.

"You're on my home planet, my territory. Just what are you?"

This drew a stunted silence, as evidently the male had not been expecting to have his sentence cut through halfway.

"Give us the girl." Was the reply. The male wasn't here to mess around, and as he spoke, his insectoid limbs, stemming from his torso beneath the arms, unfolded to reveal scythe-like arms with hundreds of serrated fin-shaped protrusions along the inside.
Other males began doing likewise, showing cruel looking insectoid parts that were clearly not for show, like the girl's, but for serious injury.