Zephirus landed in what appeared to be the wreckage of an ancient battlefield. The sand of the valley's ground was mixed with ash and bones, and corpses were strewn about the battlefield, all dressed in what looked to be space marine armor. Several ships that had crashed during the course of the battle lay half-buried in the sand and body piles were made in some places, the already-charred bodies piled to be burnt by the looks of it. The entire place had an aura of death and devastation emanating from it. *Hopefully it landed here...I shouldn't have let it get outta my sight," Zephirus thought, trying to pick up signals of life using the spirits of the wind as his searchers. At first, he found nothing, which didn't surprise him. The alien had probably not stopped here. Then something caught his attention. The wind began alerting him to presences arising from the ground all around him. He looked around, yet saw nothing. *Huh?* he thought, continuing to search. He then began hearing loud reptilian snarls from all around him, and began to see slight distortions in the air. Then it came to him: these creatures were cloaked. He pulled his lance from its holder and prepared for a fight as the creatures leaped at him from every side, their cloaks disappearing. He slashed vigorously at them, hurting a few, but the rest escaping his blows with fast reflexes. This went on for a moment or so, then something black and slimy attached to the back of his leg. He turned, and the reptilian beast had attached its tongue to his leg. His eyes widened and he readied his lance to cut the tongue when another tongue attached to his other leg. This one was on the same side, and both pulled simultaneously to send Zephirus to the ground. His lance bounced just out of his reach. He moved to grab it, but another tongue, this time of a creature on the opposite side of the others latched onto his hand. Yet another tongue grabbed his remaining flailing arm. The creatures backed up, and Zephirus was hoisted into the air. He noticed his body was in an X position. He whispered, "Oh no," and began fighting wildly to free himself.

"Aaaaagh!" Zephirus yelled as he pulled strongly on each of the four tongues, trying to escape their deadly trap. They began backing up, and he began feeling the stress on the fabric of his skin. He tried to merge with the wind, but was unable to. Some force in the tongues of the creatures was disabling his abilities. He let out a cry for help, albeit in vain since only the dead could hear him now...or was there another? Zephirus heard the sound of a sword being removed from a scabbard, and looked around. *Dadala?* he thought. *No, it's not Dadala...this presence is strange and new,* he reconsidered. He looked around him as the rest of the creatures, who had been drawing close so as to get their share of his remains, began backing away from him. He heard a loud whirr, and there was a bright flash. He strained to see what was behind the flash in vain, and turned away from the brightness. Intense heat suddenly rolled over him and the screams of the creatures filled the air. Zephirus felt as if he had been thrown into an erupting volcano, the heat rushing over him like a powerful current, not sure whether he should scream or not. After several seconds, the rush of heat ended, almost as fast as it had started. Zephirus opened his eyes and looked around. He was on the ground, and there was nothing left of the pack of creatures. He slowly got to his feet, and looked around for whatever had saved him. He heard an unfamiliar voice from behind him. It said to him in a masculine, almost booming tone: "I see you've met the locals." Zephirus turned to see a man standing there. His clothing resembled that of a dressed-down samurai, the cloth a navy-blue color. At his left side, sheathed, was a samurai's sword, with an intricately carved ebony hilt which appeared to be a wolf lying down. The hilt was just as intricate, appearing to depict a battle from what Zephirus could see of it. It was made of ebony as well. The man himself definitely looked oriental, with long, black hair tied into a ponytail in the back. His eyes were black, and looked tired. Zephirus gathered this man had had to stay up to keep from being eaten by the reptilian creatures that nearly took his life. "So," Zephirus started, "What are you---" "Doing here?" the man interrupted. Zephirus nodded, and the man began to explain.

"My name is Gundoh Mukiyashi, but most call me Samurai Gundoh. I was part of a special forces group sent along with a routine colonization force to planet 9ZBX72. Upon our arrival, we established a basecamp to preform a routine check on the planet before starting the primary colonization. As we were about to finish our check, a void opened and sucked the entire basecamp into this place. The colonists' ship was nowhere to be found. As we were trying to figure out what had happened, the Chameleons attacked." "Chameleons? You mean those cloaked creatures?" "Yes, them. Anyway, their first wave took out roughly half our men, and after we finally defeated that wave we began repair, not aware that another even larger force was waiting. They attacked out of nowhere, and wiped the base out. As the second wave was attacking, I and the only other member of my team alive, Ella, tried to escape. We headed for a small 2-seater ship. As we were running to the ship, I tripped over a corpse. Ella stopped, and I thought she was going to help me up. Instead, she pulled out a pistol and turned to the command tent. I knew why, and the only thing I could do was run for cover." "Why? Why'd she try to do that?" "Well, for one thing, she didn't try, she did. And it was because of our mission. The colonists we were transporting were actually criminals who believed they were to be given new lives and supplied by the supply ships. The government couldn't afford that, so it was decided that after the routine check, the colonists would be brought down and then the communications would be shut down, preferably by something quick, like a pistol shot. With those gone, we could do whatever we wanted without the colonization force reporting us and blowing our mission. After that we were supposed to detonate the whole place. Ella wanted to complete the mission...but she didn't have to...she didn't..." Gundoh trailed off, ending his long story at last. Zephirus looked at Gundoh, then asked, "Gundoh, have you seen an alien flying over this area?" Gundoh looked at Zephirus and nodded slowly. "Yes...yes I did see some weird creature flying over earlier today." Zephirus then asked, "Which way was it flying?" Gundoh considered, then said, "It was flying south." Zephirus nodded rather excitedly, saying, "Thank you, Gundoh!" before taking back to the air and flying off to the south. He flew through the air, eyes searching vigilantly for the alien. He heard the sound of a jet engine, and turned to see Gundoh flying toward him, wearing a jetpack. Gundoh pulled up beside him, shouting, "Need a partner?" Zephirus smiled slightly and nodded, and the two disappeared into the southern horizon, hot on the alien's trail.