FSE

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The sound of a rooster woke me up along with a sweet smell of coffee. I opened my eyes, shifted to my side and saw Bane standing near the table with his back facing me.

"Here, have some coffee." Somehow he knows that I'm awake. At home, I would usually get back to sleep but the feeling of waking up naturally today makes me feels great. So, I decided to rub my eyes and join him. Currently, he's wearing a pair of grey combat pants with plain blue cotton shirt that hugged his chest so well that make me wonder if he's showing off. I suspect not. He probably looked like that every day.

"How do know that I'm awake" I asked as I sipped my coffee,

"Your heartbeat, your brain activity and your nerve impulses tells me."

"Uhh... which means that you could detect them?"

"Yes, and it's called electro-sensory. It's my sixth sense."

"Wow! You should totally be a neurologist."

"Probably..." he walked to a chest and tossed me a towel, a shirt and a cargo pants. "Here, have a bath. Found those cloths on an abandoned sail boat. I don't want you to rush, but we must start our day early." I took a moment to inspect the clothes that he had given to me.

"So... where's the bathroom."

He chuckled.

"I got no bathroom here man! Just take the sea. You won't survive the backyard river. It's too cold." he hugged himself. "Trust me. You'll turn into an iceberg."

With a towel that's too big for me and a pair of cloth tucked under my arm, I begin to walk to the sea.

"Get back here... double quick. I'll cook for breakfast." Bane hailed me from a window.

I could see the waves splashing against the shore and a few seagulls looking for food as I got nearer. Great, I just love the peaceful view of the sea. I took a dip and to my surprise the sea feels warm. So, I just sit there, half submerged, watching incoming waves and washing my whole body. The wound at my forehead had completely healed...so I took off the bandage and inspect it for any kind of healing gel. Strange, it's just an ordinary bandage, no gel, no antiseptic. How a wound could heal completely in less than 24 hours? I swept the thought away and plunged my head into the water.

After taking a very good bath (swim), I changed my outfit and walked towards the tree house. It looks like a holiday chalet from outside. I guess Bane should name it 'Tree Tops Inn'. I wonder how long it takes to build it. After climbing upstairs, I head straight to the kitchen -I'm starving- where Bane is waiting for me. Currently, he's scribbling something on a screen that is strapped to his hand. I've decided to walk silently. I think my training in Stealth and Espionage class would work until...

"Have a sit." Bane responded. "And don't step on my tail."

"That's the basic formula for speed, right?" I pointed towards the datapad while moving carefully at his back and avoiding his tail.

"Yeah, which could be changed to become speed multiplied by time equal to distance. So, by taking time interval between a flash at that horizon and thunder multiplied by speed of sound... I could calculate the distance of that rain cloud." He pointed towards a window that has a view of the sea. "But, what's the speed of sound again?"

"Give me a sec." I tried to remember a very familiar formula in various physic and flight classes. "Hawaii temperature is about 27°C which means speed of sound is around 347.87 meter per second at sea level."

"Thanks." he jotted down the value into his datapad and showed me the screen.

RAIN : 21.24% chance.

"Math always gives me a headache. How do you calculate that?"

"Well, I'm a pilot... So, what's for breakfast."

"For today we have 'Chicken, leek and potato in a pot'. Well, I've decided to call it that." He said while lifting a clay pot from the stove and then putting it in the middle of the table. There's a soup inside it with delicious smell of sweet potato and visible chunks of meat. Looks like he is more than meets the eye -a good combination of a cook and a natural engineer. I wonder who's lucky enough to be his wife.

"Where do you get this recipe? My family would have loved this." I asked

"I learned it from my mom. It didn't require much ingredient, perfect for camping and I might just teach you one day" he said with a grin.

"Thanks. I- You know that it's horrible not being able to cook at home. I'm sick of instant noodles. I have thought about learning how to cook but well...tight schedule."

After finishing our meals, he produced a watch from one of his combat pants pockets. I recognised it immediately. It's my watch. I remembered the last time I've seen it is during the crash. "Where do you get it? The jet, right? Could you take me there, ASAP?"

"Thought you would never ask" he grinned. "Orrah, let's move out." He picked up a leather sling bag and began stuffing it with items from the shelves. Then, he strapped a machete to his leg and donned himself with a cloak. Meanwhile, I checked my own inventory to ensure everything is there.

"Sidearm... check, ammo...check, Repair Kit... at the plane... Hmm, what else do I need?" I whispered to myself.

"Catch!" he tossed me another sling bag. "Stuff it up...I'll be downstairs," he rappelled down the window. "To get my toolbox... and don't be LATE!"

"So where are we going?" I asked as we took a morning walk along the beach.

"The crash site. Duh..." he replied

"I know that... but, where is it? Exactly." He could be so thick sometimes.

"Maybe on the other side of this island"

"Maybe?" I tilted my head.

"I never really go all around the island. It's big, gigantic, massive... Do I need to add more to the list?"

"So, what's our ETA?"

"Seven hundred hours"

"What! That's an hour walk away. How do you get there and saved me?"

"This" he flexed his tail until it reached his hand, grabbed it and gave it to me. I got the whole point.

"Yeah...yeah..."I rolled my eyes and muttered under my breath "dog of the sea."

"Keep walking. We'll get there anyway. Anyway, I planned to hunt something along." There's a slight sign of eagerness in his tone.

The low dense vision limiting fog plus with a gloomy beach with nothing but constant chirp of the seagull is really extremely boring. I hugged myself as the cold wind blew the heat away. I let out a grunt and let him slowly overtook me. I felt a sudden jolt of heat as his arm brushed against my side. He's a damn hot- literally, a walking radiator. I can't help but get turned on when I saw his ass along with his buff,streamlined body shape- Arragh... Damn it. What's wrong with me today?

I tried to brush all those mental image and invasive thought away but failed when he wrapped me with his cloak -and his massive arms. "Y-You're warm." I managed as I tried as hard as I could to keep my minds away from thinking about touching his bulge. He laughed when awkward silence crept in. I loved the way he laughs and how's it echoes around him-making it a stabilizer for my malfunctioning brain. I hope he didn't notice me turning bright red here. I hugged his arm and felt a sense of relief and comfort -from the goddamned cold.

Instead of pushing me away, he gave me a long pause and a deep sigh. "Alex, you know that you're just like my brother?" he asked. "It felt like déjà vu. I mean the last time he did this is b-before..." his voice faltered as he blinked away the moisture blurring his vision.

I felt downhearted for my actions. "Bane, I'm really sor-". He halted me mid-syllable. "You know that you look weird saying sorry. I mean, you're not supposed to right?" He smiled and took a deep breath "Would you like to be my brother?" His tone was serious. "I mean, I'm all alone now... and you're the closest thing I have to a family." "I got no one else," he whispered to himself.

"What happened to them?" my question is followed by silence save for the crashing waves and the sound of our feet brushing against the sand. He gave a painful smile "I was just 15 at that time, living a normal life in a bit rural village. I could not remember which country was it but... I know that it's a bunch of islands. I'm used to the jungle, carrying logs, some herbs and becoming the man of the house." he sighed. "My dad is lost in the sea when I was three -too young. All I remembered is that he goes out...and never come again." "I am also a hunter, a farmer and a... you could say an engineer." He chuckled. "Hunting deer in the morning, working at the rice field, keeping cows safe from the wolves and maintaining the village power generators. I love the good old days."

"Everything is just fine until," Bane diverted his gaze to the sky, his shark smile faded. He still remembers the black VTOL with a strange skull marking that has landed in his village. "Until this one guy came and messed things up."

"He demands us to pay a very 'reasonable' fine because of constructing an 'illegal' settlement. Or... we could 'give' one of our family members as slaves." He dropped his gaze. "We got no option... I still remember how he killed our village chief and everybody who refused. My mom signed the contract -at gunpoint- to sell me."

Bane's voice faltered and began to break. I hugged him to provide support -both mentally and physically. "I don't understand Alex, this world is very unfair. That bastard who took me away overloaded my generators... to eliminate the evidence and killed everyone there." I felt a bit of tears on my chest when he caught me off guard and hugged me. I think I know why I crashed landed here. I wrapped my hand around him. We reached a delta where a river is flowing to the sea. After crossing the delta, he continued.

"My brother survived the incident but... got killed along with my uncle in a car accident a month later. News says that it's sabotage. After working as a slave for a few years a guy named Dr.Rycroft bought me with a huge sum of money to be one of the test subjects in his illegal experiment. He says that one day he'd rule the universe. All the other slaves and I are putted in a transparent, breathable liquid-filled tube to produce a successful prototype of super human or so called super soldier."

"And you become one?" I asked.

"Yeah... while others failed." he winced. "The experiment is very painful and only a handful survived." "I saw this one guy trans-mutated so fast that make the gas in his blood bubbled and-" he made an explosion gesture with his hand. "Nothing's left. Just bits of flesh, bones and blood." His comment made me wince. Even frag grenade didn't do that.

"The scientist didn't even wince." He continued. "Instead, they just flush him away. One button and, Whoosh! , gone."

"I managed to survive until one fateful day..." Bane stopped walking. "Shh...." he whispered.

"Aw man, you can't just..." he covered my mouth with his massive hand and signalled towards a crashing wave just about 4 meters away. At first glance, well, I just saw waves and sand but then I saw something else moving with the waves. There's a blue crustacean with two giant pincers trying very hard to swim away. Both of us exchanged looks and have a silent agreement. That's lunch.

After a quick, precise throw of a twine made net -he's quite a practical guy-and a perfect clove hitch that I mastered, we got our food of the day and continued to walk.

"One day," he continued. "I figured that I could move my limb. One at a time, it's slow at first though."

"Then?"

He cracked his knuckle "Prison riot time. I still remember how I freed everyone else." He laughed. "It starts with a big red button. Ha-ha, operation payback. I don't really know where we are at that time until I saw a view port, space and Earth."

"From low orbit?"

"Yup, then I started to find my way out-others too. But sadly, my neighbor got shot and he chose to 'cover' my retreat. So, I got to the drop shot and now I'm here. I don't know what happened to others."

I let a low whistle. "That's quite a story. But neighbor? I don't get it."

"He lives beside my tube, and survived."

"Hmm..." I scratched my chin. "How do you get your suit and equipment? I bet it's called MJOLNIR."

"No, and I just found them inside the pod. At least it's better than being naked. My best guess of the situation is that the scientist is transporting us somewhere through low orbit and with a bit of luck we escaped....or probably hijacked the transport."

"Any questions?" he asked. "I got the whole day."

"Um... are we there yet?"

"No" he replied

"Are we there yet?" I tried to annoy him. What's better in such a boring occasion. Anyway, this is what little bro used to do.

"No" he replied. Again.

[After another 3 "Are we there yet?"]

"Alex, It's not gonna work." he said the sentence word by word. "Are you trying to drive me insane? Oh god, why I'm stuck here with such an annoying guy who couldn't even flies a plane."

"I could fly it!" I snipped. "It's just heavily damaged."

"So, what's that?" he pointed towards a metallic object half submerged near a rocky shore.

It's my plane.