Forward
I usually acknowledge all of the authors and works that have inspired a story or series of stories, but in this case there are literally too many to mention. Some may recognize AVATAR’s influence in it, but that’s really only a small part of it. Allen Dean Foster’s MidWorld series of books also comes into the show too. All I can say is that if you think that you recognize some bit of scene or scenery, then you are probably correct.
The world that this and possibly future stories take place on is called Irruzz (Pronounced Ear-Ruse). It is the only habitable world orbiting the red giant sun of Ceti Origni which lies 325 light years from the solar system of Earth. Irruzz is one and a half times the size of Earth with a much denser atmosphere. It is 96% covered with ocean with only one major land mass that is roughly the size of Australia. This land mass is covered from coast to coast with a thick rain forest and filled with an incredible variety of life forms.
The dominant life form is a quadrupedal species called simply the Chosen who exist at a Stone Age level of Hunter/Gatherer. Their society is Clan based with each clan inhabiting a specific area of the land mass. It is considered Taboo for one clan to move into another clan’s territory and violation of this can lead to major clan conflicts.
At the time these stories take place, it is the late 27th century as measured by the people of Earth. Humanity has reached out to the stars and now has colonies on hundreds of worlds. Irruzz was discovered nearly a century before. In an amazing burst of intelligence and foresight, Earth declared the resource rich planet a “nature preserve” and exempt from the rapacious hunger of the resources strapped colonies. Landing by anyone except qualified researchers or law enforcement personnel.
Well, enough about the boring stuff. You guys want to see sex and violence. Okay, mostly sex so on with the story.
The Hunt
Eternity still burned on the horizon and Mother was just starting to show her golden head over the opposite sky when she began the hunt. Glow time was a dangerous time for one of the Chosen to hunt. Too many of the larger hunters roamed the tiers of the jungle when Eternity stalked through the air. Still, the seasonal migration of the Murath was starting and the best time to catch the beasts was during the brief time before Eternity set and Mother rose. The arboreal grazers slept during the day and ate at night, but took a long time to get moving.
She took a tighter grip on her spear and moved carefully along a massive tree branch at the center tier level of the world forest. The hands on her four rear limbs easily gripped the rough bark while her wide flat tail helped her keep her balance in the strong winds that whipped through the tier. The heat of Eternity was quickly fading to be replaced with the powerful chill of night time, but her thick speckled fur kept her warm. The black, red and gray spots of her coat helped her blend in nearly perfectly with her surroundings.
She paused and crouched low under some broad leafs as a flock of Bloodtips flew by. The small multi-winged lizards could strip a living creature of its flesh and meat less than five beats of her three hearts. Luckily for her, this flock seemed to have fed recently because they didn’t seem to sense the blood in her veins. After they floated by, she started moving again. If the Bloodtips had recently fed, she knew that no plant eater would stay on this tier so she decided to descend into Lower.
She found where a massive old tree had collapsed during some ancient storm. It made a perfect path down into the denser growth of Lower. As she carefully crawled down the trunk, the light from above grew dimmer and dimmer till she was almost in pitch blackness. Her large oval eyes flickered for a second as her second lids slid over them. Suddenly, the jungle came alive with vibrant reds, yellows and greens as her vision shifted to see shades of heat.
She shimmied down a vine thicker than her entire body and dropped nimbly to another limb. The broad expanse was covered with large patterns of glowing red. Her nose told her that the Murath leavings were very fresh which meant the hard was very close. She shifted her spear to her middle set of hands and reached down to scoop up two piles of droppings. She brought the heavy weights to her noses and sniffed strongly. The herd was mostly females, probably guarded by one or two larger males. They hadn’t eaten yet and were probably just starting to graze which meant they would be easier to hunt. Her mouth practically watered at the thought of so much fresh meat. She switched her spear back to her fore hands and trotted forward.
Her long rounded ears had just picked up the sounds of the herd directly in front and slightly below her when she smelled the scent. Her ears twitched forward and her tail shot straight out behind her as stiff as the trees around her. She quickly turned and faced back the way she had come with the hunt practically forgotten. She raced along the branch and then leaped across to another tree with no thought of stealth. She clutched her spear in her teeth and used all hands to scramble up the trunk. She paused halfway between Center and Lower and sniffed at the trunk where a large patch of bark glowed yellow. Here the scent was very strong and she growled around the wooden haft of her weapon.
She climbed onto a large, open branch on Center and stopped. The yellow patches were everywhere here and the scent was almost maddening. She crouched forward and let loose a spray of urine to cover some of the patches. Once she was done, she rose up on her last two hands and let loose a loud howl of challenge. A split second later, an answering howl echoed through the world forest. She leaped forward and raced along the branch as fast as she could. She was so enraged and in such a hurry, she failed to see the nets strung across the path. Seconds later, she was wrapped tightly and dangling from a thick cable.
(It had been easy enough for the hunter to lure one of the creatures into a trap. The beasts were impossibly territorial so all he had to do was gather some urine from another female that was of another family group and spray it all along the path he was sure it would take. The scent of another fertile female invading her territory would make the beast lose control and seek out the rival. After that is was simply a matter of waiting. Now he moved out from his blind to examine the beast more clearly.)
She was cursing all of her ancestors and the spirits of her clan for being as stupid as a Bloodtip when the Devil magically stepped out of the solid body of the tree and stood in front of her. The Elders of the Clan said that Devils came from Eternity because of the weapons they carried. Occasionally the ground of the forest would burst forth with fire and burning stone. Sometimes, when this happened, Chosen could find pieces of hard, burned stone and earth that were very treasured. Devils came in massive boats made from burned stone and even used weapons made from the same thing. The Elders said that only creatures that lived on burning Eternity could get some much burned rock. She really wasn’t sure if this was true, but right now it didn’t matter.
The Devil paced around her on its two puny hands and seemed to be studying her through its one flat shiny eye. She could barely make out its features because the thing was very cool. Mother was now moving across the top of the world and Cub was starting to shyly peek over the edge of the world so there was some light here in Center, so she could see the sleek, shiny skin of the Devil as it paced. She wondered if the thing was cold blooded like Weavers or Darters.
She flinched when it reached out and placed a hand on her flank. Its touch was cold and hard like the shell of a Weaver. She shivered despite herself and started gnawing the web that bound her. Her teeth were strong enough to shred even the hardest bark, but the weave of the web resisted her efforts.
(The hunter chuckled to himself as he watched the beast trying to escape. The net was reinforced carbon fibers that could only be cut by a plasma cutter. The creature had about as much chance of chewing through it as he did of flying back to his ship without a shuttle. Still, as funny as it was, he was here on a mission. He was being paid a large sum of cash to conduct an experiment and he had only gotten half of it so far. The other half would be deposited into his accounts once he returned with the data his employers wanted. He reached into one of the pockets of his environment suit and pulled out the ampule. He still boggled a little at how much this one small syringe of liquid had cost to produce, but he hadn’t paid for it. With practiced ease, he charged the syringe and jammed it into the beasts body midway between its middle pair of legs and rear set. Once the vial was drained, he replaced the syringe and started stripping off his suit.)
The Devil was shedding its skin! Weavers often shed their skin and changed shells as they grew but it took many days. This Devil was skinning itself in hearts beats. As its outer skin fell, it begin to glow with heat hotter then any she had ever seen before. It wasn’t very long before it’s entire body except for its head was glowing. It was unlike anything she had ever seen before. Her rear hurt slightly from where the Devil had stung her, but she had felt worse from the Reavers that swarmed over the trees in great number, shredding leaves and small branches as they went. A dull burning sensation was coming from the sting, but it wasn’t too bad.
The Devil moved forward until it was very close. She could smell its strange, bitter odor and feel the heat coming from its body. She growled and hissed at it, but it just seemed to ignore her. She lunged forward at the monster to try to bite it. That’s when the Devil sprayed her in the face. Seconds later, she began to feel very strange.
Ripples seemed to traveling up her body from the sting and down her body from where the Devil had sprayed her. They seemed to meet in the center of her body where her Nest was. Incredibly, she felt the entrance to her Nest start to swell and moisten. Hearts beats later, she felt her Season overtake her. Suddenly, the thrill of the hunt was gone and the anger over the Devil netting her passed. All she cared was finding a He and mating. It didn’t matter that she was still many risings away from her next Season, just that she got bred and bred soon. She barely noticed when the Devil cut her down. Instead, she simply rolled over on the branch and spread all of her hands wide. The thick black lips of her Nest were so swollen they practically covered her belly. She started spraying urine and fertility markers to attract a male.
(The hunter laughed inside of his breather when he saw the beast reacting to the injection and the pheromone spray he had used on it. His employers had been right. One jolt of the experimental drug combined with the spray derived from the musk gland of one the male beasts turned these females into nothing more than mindless sex machines. The experiment was almost done with just one step left before he could collect his money. He stepped forward and straddled the beast’s midsection. Its sex looked surprisingly human and not much larger than a normal human female’s. That made what he had to do much easier.)
She barely noticed when the Devil climbed onto her belly. She was too busy spraying as much musk as she could to attract a mate. She did shudder when its very small hands began roaming up and down her flanks. She did react when the Devil slid his member inside of her Nest. She tipped her head back and yowled as loudly as she could. Even in High Season, the heat of its member was almost painful. Still it was exactly what her hungry body needed. She lashed out with her hind most sets of hands and grabbed it as hard as she could.
(The hunter grunted in pain as he was suddenly caught in an embrace strong enough to shatter wood. The beast pulled him down so hard that his balls were actually shoved into its sex. He had intended to fuck the beast but instead found that it was fucking him. Breed under the stronger gravity of Irruzz, it was easily twice as strong as he was and had the added benefit of extra hands. All he could do was groan inside of his mask as the beast ground up against his cock. He just hoped he’d survive this with no broken bones.)
She was in ecstasy now. The Devil’s member was much smaller than one of the Chosen, but felt just right inside of her. She could feel an egg forming inside of her Nest waiting for the Devil’s seed to ripen it. If she had been able to think past her need, she would have been horrified by the idea of carrying the child of a Devil, but with High Season upon her all she cared about was being bred. She jammed her tail hard against the trunk causing her lower body to arch upwards hard. She felt the rest of the Devil’s member enter her Nest just as her egg finished forming. Seconds later, she could feel the Devil spill its seed inside of her Nest. She howled to let all others know that she had successfully mated as the egg swallowed up the seed.
(The hunter groaned in pain and pleasure as the beast’s sex practically swallowed his entire groin. He could actually feel the muscles inside rippling and milking his cock for every drop of semen. He could also feel the bones in his hips groan under the pressure of the beast’s grips. It took several long minutes before the creature collapsed back on the tree in a faint. He pulled himself free from its hands and stumbled over to his equipment. He winced in pain as he slowly pulled his environment suit on. After he was dressed, he walked back over to the beast and injected it a second time. A loud beeping sound from his belt told him that the tracker he had just shot into was working. Satisfied, he began the long and now painful climb back to his shuttle.)
Turns later
Hunting was harder now. Her belly was swollen with cubs and her Nest was swollen with the nutrients they would need once they hatched. She paused, hanging upside down with her rear set of hands and ran a fore hand over her stomach. No one in the Clan knew that her cubs were put there by a Devil. She had simply told them that a He from another Clan had come upon her when her Season was upon her. She wondered what the cubs would be like.
Her gaze moved Skyward. Mother was over halfway across the sky and Cub was chasing her. Eventually Cub would catch up with Mother and the two would briefly become one before Cub would move on across the sky. The Elders said that when Cub met Mother three times during the night, he was stopping to feed before moving on in play. She wondered about that sometimes, but the story always made her whine. Since her encounter with the Devil, she had wondered many things. It was like her mating with the strange creature had changed her somehow.
She was just about to start hunting again when a dull rumbling like skyfire echoed in the air. She looked upward and saw a small plume of fire appear in the sky. She vaguely remembered hearing the same sound not long after her mating with the Devil. She somehow knew that it was returning. She whined softly to herself and patted her belly. It was time to meet the Devil again.