Chapter XIII: Meeting in an Apparently Very Small Forest ~Kyanosa

Kyanosa looked up from his book, genuinely intrigued to find himself walking in a forest with three total strangers. He wasn't surprised, though. Not long after he arrived on Zolott, he'd walked through a field with three total strangers. And he'd done it in a forest with those cat ladies and the guy who liked wind. And again with the werewolf and Mr. Fire Dude. And the big fight with a whole slew of random people.
He mentally slapped himself. He was learning names now. Right. Gotcha.
From what he could remember, in addition to what he heard by listening in on the current conversation, the goth-type guy with the funny hair was Mazzic. The metal Yoshi with the turbine was Mecha Vector, and the metal Yoshi without the turbine was J.C., pronounced Jay-See. Kyanosa's head hurt already.
All of a sudden, in a sudden plot hole that rarely occurs in these types of stories, a sharp cry echoed through the forest. Three heads whipped around; one whirred. Mazzic, as one of those people who's naturally always prepared for everything, pointed through the forest and began to run in that direction, quickly followed by J.C. As soon as Kyanosa took a step, however, Mecha Vector instantly shot past him. Heck, he sailed right past the other two, stopping on a dime under the branch of a tree. Sitting on the branch was, as you've probably guessed, a bright red bird, tilting it head and looking quizzically down at Mecha. He looked back at her. Mazzic and J.C. ran to the tree and looked at her. She looked at them. Kyanosa ran up to the tree, collided with it, and looked up at her from a prone position on the ground.
He smiled. "Hi. I'm on the ground and you're shiny."
The bird looked at the group for a moment more, logically concluded that Kyanosa was of little or no threat, and flapped gently down to the ground next to him. She shimmered for an instant and her form changed into that of a human, with all the limbs in their proper places. When color returned, the thing that stood out the most was her long, red-gold hair, although the sword on her waist wasn't exactly concealed.
Kyanosa scrambled to his feet and looked at her. "Dang it, you're tall."
Pyrina smiled softly. "Hello. I'm Pyrina. And you are?"
Mazzic opened his mouth, but Kyanosa quickly held up a hand. "Hang on, I'm working on this. You're Mazzic, you're Mecha Vector, you're J.C., and I'm Kyanosa." As he spoke everybody's name, he pointed to them, hopefully denoting who was who. "We're all going to die."
There was moment of silence as everybody looked at him. Mazzic figured it out, as he had pieced together a general understanding of Kyanosa's ramshackle attempt at sentence structure and basically understood their immediate peril. Unfortunately, before he could speak he was forced to hit the dirt before a flying broom smacked him in the back of the head.
In a valiant attempt to keep the story moving, the passengers of the broom promptly alighted. The one in front, a black anthro cat, stooped down and tried to help Mazzic up, apologizing profusely. Mazzic rose on his own power and muttered something I'm not allowed to write, brushing himself off. The other, a black anthro jackal in a tan robe, approached the others and bowed slightly. "Hello. My name is Nubi Ankhara, and this is Oedipus Mikhail. We were wondering if anybody could assist us."
Kyanosa grinned. "Not in the slightest." Mazzic grabbed his collar and pulled him to the side, allowing J.C. to get a few words in edgewise. He ran through the basic introductions, then asked how they could be of any help.
Oedipus looked around. As far as he could tell, they were three humans and two robots. This could still be an adventure. "We seem to be stuck on this planet, and we had hoped one of you would be able to suggest a means to leave."
Kyanosa spoke up. "Nah, you're all gonna die too." He got four funny looks, a disgusted one from Mazzic, and Mecha's requisite stare.
Pyrina crossed her arms. "Would you mind explaining that a bit?"
Kyanosa licked his finger and stuck it in the air, testing the wind. "Not yet. I only want to explain this once." Before anybody could say anything else, yet another black-clad stranger stepped into the immediate area. It was another Yoshi, a trend which Kyanosa was just beginning to realize, but thankfully not one made of metal. Her (for it was most likely a she) skin was a shade of maroon, or at least that which the others could see of it, and she sported a black cloak. He long black hair mostly covered one eye, but it fully revealed the other as it glanced critically about the group.
Oedipus stepped forward, being the person closest to her, and held out his hand. "Hello, my name is Oedipus Mikhail. May I ask yours?"
She gave his the once-over and sneered. More non-Yoshis. Terrific. "I am Magikia Kamieke Yoshinda, and I suggest you get the name on the first try. I'm not repeating it. What's going on here?" She glared at random people, until the only person who dared make eye contact with her was Kyanosa. She gave him her best "if-looks-could-kill" gaze, to be met only by the same blank stare. She growled, but he just pointed at her.
"Yeah, what are you looking at?"
Kyanosa blinked. "The next one should come from that direction."
Magikia huffed. "The next what?" The instant afterwards, she heard a person come up behind her. Whirling around, she faced a human in street clothes just about her height. Well, at least she was close to a human. The demon-type wings gave something else away.
Kaye looked around the group. One Yoshi in black, two metal ones, and anthro cat, and anthro jackal, a young woman with glowing hair, a young man whose aura screamed "I want to rip off that other guy's arm and beat him with it", and the fellow who had pointed at her and was now spinning around, holding a yellow book in front of him. She sighed. It was going to be one of those days.
After the formal introductions of all nine people, another angry rant and four bad-sounding mumbles from Magikia, a quick discussion on the pronunciation of "J.C.", three death threats by unnamed persons, seventeen considerations as to whether the thinker should just leave, and the announcement of four people's favorite colors and types of cloud, Kyanosa cleared his throat. (Hey, that was all one sentence. I rock.)
"Okay, here's what I've been able to gather from this thing I just read. We're all stuck on this planet, mostly because we were warped here within the last hour. Apparently, there's an energy field around the planet that prevents all movement, regardless of the plane, from leaving. Thus, there's no flying away, teleportation, or digging back home. Furthermore, the planet will explode it a matter of time equivalent to the a number of seconds equal with the stars in the sky divided by the number of cells in your body multiplied by whatever random number will make me right. So, we're all going to die." He grinned.
Nobody else did much for a while. Nubi mumbled something about an adventure, and Oedipus shushed her quietly. Mecha wondered about the purpose of shoes. J.C. was thinking about his equipment and how much it would cost to replace. Pyrina was thinking about the Hunter. Kaye was trying to remember why she felt the compulsion to take that flight anyway. Mazzic wanted to kill Kyanosa, but also wanted to know more about the planet. Magikia mentally cursed about Prismaya making it off before the field gathered, then repeated said curse until she got bored and moved to a new one. Kyanosa wanted a pen.
Pyrina was the first to speak loud enough for everybody to hear. "So what do we do?"
Kyanosa shrugged. "Not much, I guess. Lots of praying?"
Mazzic cracked a knuckle. "There's always a way out. Sometimes you just have to wait for it." He remembered well the events earlier in his day.
"He's right." Oedipus chimed in. "We can make it out of this." He and Nubi smiled at each other.
The others stayed quiet, either for a lack of things to say or the fact that they were still busy loathing.
Kyanosa, seeing nobody else moving, rolled up the book and stuck it in his metal pants leg, where it rested quite nicely. "Well, might as well get moving. Not going to accomplish anything here." The mood had pervaded his mindset quite well, and he was rather ready to survive now. The others, incorrectly supposing that his possession of the book entailed some sort of special position for him as opposed to his truthful natural ineptitude, began to follow. Mazzic took the lead once Kyanosa had run into his third tree in ten minutes. Or maybe it was five. Nobody had a watch.
A few dozen yards away, a young man in a black mask followed the group silently. For the sake of plot, we'll assume that nobody felt his presence as he nimbly hopped from tree limb to tree limb, waiting for his chance to strike. The perfect opportunity was right around the corner. He, like they, just had to wait for it.
Spooky.