32. Second Facetime

Deep within one of the caves of the great plain a black and gray armored humanoid figure could be seen weaving between black branches, glowing purple particles flowed within the air emitted by crystalline plants growing all around, ten spots emitting a soft red light were all around its faceless head.

The figure moved unperturbed and visibly unaware of what was above, a blood-red creature on four taloned legs, its pair of hooked front limbs waving in the air as it slowly and methodically towards its prey.

Yet all of a sudden the armored figure spun backward, a complex metallic bow in his left hand appearing out of thin air that was immediately switched to the other hand then an arrow with a strangely shaped bronze head appeared in a similar magical fashion in the now empty hand.

The next instant the arrow was clipped to the bow's string, the string realized back and shot. The arrow flew over the two dozen meters that separated the two in a second to embed itself deeply into the blood-red creature's chest whose reaction was to emit a shrill screech of pain and anger.

Then its body flashed brightly with a soft boom and all of its action ceased before its legs gave out and it fell limply, crashing with a loud thump right in front of the armored figure. A smell of burned flesh in the air.

"Not this time around.", Liam said, his grey eyes appearing as he lifted the facial armor plate that hid the reinforced glass eyes slit and he carefully approached the downed slinger, switching his compound bow for his war scythe, Cleaver.

The 'head' wasn't dead, it was trying to crawl away from the 'body' in fact by using the strange flap of skin that looked like bunny ears but were wings and now used as improvised legs, the entire thing looked like the mix of a bunny, a mosquito, and a slug.

Liam grabbed it by the proboscis and in response, it emitted a squeal of either fear, anger, or something else he didn't know.

"I wonder if you can be kept alive to have a safe supply of venom or it can simply be frozen and keep its effect?", he wondered aloud observing the squirming and squealing 'head', he didn't feel any pity for it as by all means it wouldn't have for him and was on its way to shoot him.

"Either way you come back home with me.", he added with a smirk, and at the same time in his left hand a small red dart filled with a tranquilizer composed of a cocktail of plants diluted in pure water manifested into existence from his inventory and he stabbed the 'head' with it.

It froze then squealed and squirmed harder than ever in a burst of panic until the tranquilizer kicked in and it became slower and more silent until it breathed calmly and stopped moving.

'I hope I didn't just inject something that will kill it. Well, that would mean dinner and the dead body smells like cooked salmon. It would be good if it tasted the same even if it's quite a freaky creature… Creatures?', Liam thought as he carefully strapped the sleeping 'head' on his back, a living backpack made of half of one of the apex land predators of the entirety of the moon.

It was a mixture used to let your spirit open up and let the words of Eywa flow through your spirit, he got this from Tsu'mong and this clearly was a hallucinogenic drug.

One that was taken via injection, the Anurai used sharpened bone covered in the drug to then poke themselves with it as they did not know needles.

Other than that in big enough quantities, it affects many creatures, Na'vi included a more or less intense soporific effect going from a sudden simple nap to eternal sleep, which pretty much means death. And funnily enough in it there was the use of stingbats' rotten venom glands.

It was time to climb up either way, he collected a good five kilogram (11lb) of raw titanium which mean the process to purify it will reduce its mass by nearly two-thirds giving around 1.75 kilograms (~3.8lb) of pure titanium, less than half a kilogram of raw platinum, same logic used here than for the titanium, two hundred kilograms (~441 lb) of raw heavy oil and other less important resource.

An above-average collect due to the relative shortness of the dive, at this point, three hours, ten minutes, and thirty-six seconds with a non-important amount of lower units of time, he was here mostly to test his new armor and the verdict was that having a 340° sight even if not the best in terms of detail was a life-saving advantage. Literally.

The rest of the armor was simply better in all points than the last one he had and the only creature here he was perfectly aware that could go through bronze was unconscious on his back.

Though it didn't mean the proboscis couldn't still go through some of the more fragile joints of his armor and cause superficial wounds but again superficial for him didn't mean superficial for everyone else. And not having one of his lungs perforated a second time was always a plus in his book.

The fact the area was rich in precious resources didn't mean there were tons upon tons of this precious metal on top of one another ready to be picked up. It was in pebbles, rocks, and boulders sprawled all around the giant floating stone made of pandorium/unobtanium.

Cracking his neck a satisfying loud popping sound was heard, he looked one last time at the body of the slinger, the wood shaft of the arrow was gone, completely splintered and the arrowhead exploded inside instantly killing the body with the heat, shockwaves, and shrapnel combined.

Pointy sticks with explosive bits were scarily effective on fleshy beings. This one in particular as it covers one weakness of the regular arrow.

If it doesn't hit something vital like the heart or cause hemorrhage by cutting arteries it won't kill quickly or kill at all compared to this one. Even if they hit the shoulder or the knee, having it blown off right after was a tad more problematic. It's a grenade attached to an arrow after all.

The climb back was one of the easiest of the dozens he did, no viperwolves or stingbats attacked him even when directly confronted with him.

They ran as if their lives depended on it, a strange sight for sure for Liam, he was so used to being attacked by everything and anything rather than the contrary, and what should be normal was perceived as strange. But he had enough common sense to realize this.

It was the slinger's head, it was the only factor that changed unless the viperwolves and stingbats, in particular, learned self-preservation in this short timeframe. And it was understandable they would be created by the slinger's smell as he doubted any other factors were at play.

Once he was on the surface he hurried himself back to his base as a thunderstorm was coming and the head needed to stay unconscious for ease of handling and transport.

A few hours later the slowly awakening head was in a steel cage itself placed in an isolated room, Gladius behind that glared at it something that promised death, pain, and murder while the four tetrapterons on Liam's shoulders and head didn't act that much different.

They didn't like it. Something Liam already anticipated but could do nothing more than let them adapt, it was a problem as in the future they will encounter a lot more different individuals, and having them calm would only help.

There was also in the cage a bowl with raw meat and another with water, the proboscis was just to inject venom as below were four segment demonic-looking jaws, something like a lamprey's non-existent jaw but worse and that could extend outward to scrape meat and flesh alike at least Liam assumed this was the case.

This creature was strange. It has two neural queues at the base of its 'neck', the same as for the body and surely how they connected together, it was a strange creature and he would think of them as even stranger if he knew the two were related to one being the mother/father of the other.

It was an interesting creature, he doubted he could tame it, even less now, and didn't particularly have the present need to. It's utterly defenseless and its use didn't need it to be cooperative.

That didn't mean he would treat it poorly, he wanted it to be alive and healthy after all but that wasn't a pet or one of his tames. It's an insult to even compare them as they were closer to family than anything else, he very much was aware they considered him as their Father.

He inadvertently got a viperwolf and stingbats repellent and that was what mattered. What was there to complain about?

Things were going smoothly too smoothly in fact and that made Liam tense, a gut feeling told him the next few months will be unpleasant but that didn't stop him from profiting a little from this time for now.

As much as the future was important, if you don't know how to appreciate what is good in the present, what is the point? Too much of anything is bad after all.

The next few days flew by until it was the time of the second Facetime, Liam was pleased with the last even if it was cut extremely short.

Mostly because of who he got to talk to and that they were reasonable though the part where he had a moment of weakness wasn't but that was life.

He will need to get over it and he did a pretty good job until now but it might have proven advantageous as it made him more human to them, he didn't like manipulating others but that won't stop him from doing so.

And it wasn't truly that here but gaining empathy, he abhorred having acted this way but he preferred to lean over the possibility balance of his continual existence. He would take advantage of this.

If he showed he was a true threat he was damn sure Grace wouldn't hesitate to have him caged or worse eliminated, being good didn't equate to being stupid. Even if not for herself or Max as well just telling of his existence to the higher up of the local RDA would result in those two earlier problems.

Destroying a helicopter? No problem if he took it by surprise and it wasn't kilometers up in the sky. A squad of fully armed and trained military? Manageable if he goes for the kill and plays dirty. But the two put together and even worse an entire army of them even if small without more advanced troops? No way he survived to tell the tale.

His physical prowess didn't matter against a hail of rockets and bullets. His future actions literally depended on the competences and whims of those two individuals, even if they didn't realize it.

This led to the present. Day 147 for Liam, or the 26 April of the Earth year 2154 at 8:55 p.m.

Liam stretched on the seaside stone cliff, relaxing his muscles as he did so, he was wearing the same type of cloth as the first time but in a different color, the shirt was more on the blue side due to the plant fiber's color used and this one glowed in the dark.

As well as the same haircut and beard, it was annoying on several points to have them grow so fast but that was infinitely better than being bald or beardless.

He brought N5, the drone-turned phone, and a tripod out of his inventory, placing the two in front of him he turned N5 on and waited. Unlike the last time, he waited only around twenty minutes.

"Good afternoon Grace and Max, I suppose it doesn't bother you if I don't use your title.", Liam greeted them with a courteous smile through the camera as he saw the two taking their seats, Grace looking pissed off about something.

"I'm sorry Liam, as for the reason for us being late it's… Let's say a greedy little fucker. And the Doctor title is unnecessary.", Grace said visibly calming from what this 'greedy little fucker' had told to anger her.

"You don't seem to particularly like him or her.", Liam said with a lifted eyebrow.

"Him, and indeed… Parker Selfridge is not someone I particularly like at all, nobody here really does but me in particular. He is a businessman at heart, something he lacks, and the one with the reins.", she answered the unasked question of Liam with venom dripping out of her every word.

Max next to her sighed at that, Liam wondered how many times a day he must have this repeated but formulated in different ways.

But from the movie plot… Well, he didn't remember a guy named like this but this immediately put whoever this Selfridge was, he was now in Liam's radar to either ally with or to eliminate.

'I can't believe my first thought is to murder this man… And the fact I know I likely will if given a chance and a reason.', Liam thought, as much as he wanted to be perturbed by this idea of killing a human, he wasn't. He told himself several times, his survival came first and foremost.

He understood that she was biased against this man and for very good reasons, if the general idea of the movie was here.

Speaking of that, it cemented the general idea of where he was in the supposed timeline if there was the paraplegic man yet, before or around the start of the movie which ultimately didn't give much but that was still this.

"On another note, Grace and I have made a list of questions for you. Correction, saying a book's worth of questions might be a more appropriate term. Most being from Grace.", Max corrected himself, chuckling and scratching his short curly black hair in nervousness.

"Go on, so who's first to ask?", Liam's words echoed and the xenobiologist was the first to ask, anticipation and curiosity in her tone of voice.

"This question might seem intrusive because it is… but how did you manage to tame a duo of wild tetrapterons and train them?", she asked, Liam not being stupid and having heard the terms before whistled, the sound loud and clear.

Not even four seconds later two tetrapterons arrived, one red and the other blue and purple. The hot-colored one landed on the man's head, and the cold-colored one on his right forearms, each of their claws against his scalp and skin but neither seemingly bothering him.

"You mean those guys, yeh? Well, I wouldn't say I got them grown up from the wild, imprinting them before they even hatched is key. The local wildlife isn't very friendly to me, you see. The rest is self-evident, they are smart birds after all.", he said scratching Septen's head playfully, the alien bird cawing happily while its brother looked wronged by the lack of attention, sadly the man only had two arms.

His words while completely true were incomplete, imprinting wild animals of Pandora even before birth, if eggs, gave a good head start but their natural instincts to kill the outsiders was extremely strong. As such at best it was stupid with the risk of injuries and at worse it was death.

Grace could draw her own conclusion with those words by filling the gap herself or by asking more questions.

*

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