Chapter Text
Ruin, Moon, Sun, Saturn, and Neptune had left to hunt while Eclipse rested and Venus guarded Pluto. The idea of Pluto having only one guard made them nervous, but Moon had bit the aggressive lamia before they left, so he was probably still unconscious.
"Hunting strategies are different depending on the individual," Ruin explained, "Myself, Sun, Moon, and Eclipse have venom to help us hunt. You two lack venom, but are stronger and can use your tails to kill by constricting."
"And how are we supposed to get close enough to constrict anything? Everything seems to be faster than us," Saturn pointed out, still frustrated by the memories of her last attempts.
"We can lunge," Ruin said.
He demonstrated by coiling and spring forward with shocking speed. It took a few attempts for everyone to figure out how to lunge without falling on their face.
Ruin led them each to various patches of foliage.
"Once you find signs of something being in the area, you wait," Ruin explained, "Once something gets close enough, that's when you strike."
Each of them crouched in their respective hiding places. Ruin had already shown them the signs of animals in the area. Now, it was a waiting game.
Sun just barely heard the sound of footsteps. In fact, he felt the footsteps more than he heard them. Looking around, his eyes locked onto a deer like creature.
He hesitated a moment before lunging. Unfortunately, it spotted him and ran. Sun flopped to the ground with a yelp. He whined slightly and slunk back to his hiding spot.
It took around two hours, but Moon, Neptune, and Saturn all caught stuff. Neptune and Moon both managed to take down deer while Saturn caught a deer like creature.
“What exactly is this?” Saturn asked as she dragged her catch back toward the camp.
“I believe it is called a pronghorn,” answered Ruin.
The group carried back the food. Once back, they began dividing up food for everyone. Ruin showed the alien siblings how they could swallow surprisingly large portions of food.
As everyone ate, Neptune pulled off Pluto’s gag. The younger immediately tried to bite his brother’s hand, but Neptune pulled his hand back before he could. Moon slithered over, glaring at the red head.
“Either behave and eat, or don’t and starve,” growled Moon.
“I don’t want food from any of you anyway,” Pluto bared his fangs at them.
Moon promptly shoved the gag back into his mouth. Once that was done, the pair slithered away. Neither were going to force Pluto to eat or put up with his attitude.
The group traveled for a while before finally settling up camp.
The next day, they traveled for several hours and reached the edge of the forest. They ended up setting up camp in a clearing with a cave. The group were now readying to gather supplies.
"So, what exactly do we need get?" Moon asked.
"Whatever you can get your hands on," Ruin said, "We'll have to work with what we can get."
Eclipse, Sun, and Moon were assigned to try and find supplies since they were the smallest. Ruin warned them to look out for humans. When night fell, they'd make their move.
Eclipse lay against Saturn as they waited for the sun to set. She had helped clean his injuries and check for any sign of infection. The wounds seemed to be slowly healing.
"Is this my fault?" Eclipse asked quietly.
"What?" Saturn was startled by my question.
"Is it my fault that all this is happening?" Eclipse asked, looking up at her, "That we're stuck here and everything is happening."
"No, my love, no," she said, wrapping an arm around him, "None of this your fault."
Eclipse felt tears prick his eyes as he clung to his wife. She rubbed his back as he buried his face into her. Eclipse shook slightly as he tried not to cry. Despite Saturn's words, he couldn't help but feel it was still his fault.
Moon watched his youngest brother shake as he clung to Saturn. Something in his chest twisted at the sight. He was still mad at Eclipse for getting them involved in all this, but at the same time...
He pushed the thought away. He didn't care about Eclipse. He focused instead on the bags he was trying to cobble together.
The closer they got to the city, the more junk they'd found. He had a couple of old plastic bags, many with holes in them, and some scraps of fabric. He knew he'd need to be able to carry a lot of supplies.
He managed to cobble together five bags that were stable enough to hold supplies.
Eventually, night fell. Sun, Moon, and Eclipse readied to go try to find supplies.
“Remember to be careful,” Ruin said.
“We know,” Moon huffed.
“Stay safe my love,” Saturn pressed a kiss to her husband’s cheek.
“I will,” he assured.
Saturn had been hesitant to let him go with his brothers to look for supplies, but Eclipse had insisted. She watched worriedly as he left with Sun and Moon.
It was a surprising shift when they entered the city. The pavement felt strange after traveling on dirt for so long. The three traveled through the alleyways to lower the risk of being spotted.
“Where are we going to find anything?” Eclipse asked.
“We’re just going to have to see what’s been thrown out,” grumbled Moon.
The trio moved through the alleyways and rifled through dumpsters. They didn’t find much, just a pair of broken walkie talkies, some damaged electronic toys, and some wires and scrap from behind a tech store.
“What was that?” Sun yelped.
“It was a cat, Sun!” Moon pointed to the dirty stray that was running away.
“Oh,” Sun relaxed at that.
Then, they heard a door opening. All three scrambled back to try and hide.
“Ugh, what is in this?” A man walked out dragging a trash bag.
The three stayed as still as possible as he threw the bag into the dumpster. Eclipse didn’t realize he was holding his breath until he stopped. The man walked back into the building and the three crept back out.
“We should get back,” Moon muttered.
“Yeah,” Eclipse said.
Moon led his brothers back toward the camp. They handed over what they’d gathered to Venus and Ruin. Once that was done, they curled in different areas and began falling asleep.
Mike was surprised that the group took the aggressive lamia with them. Most would either kill the lamia or let them leave, but this group had captured them and even tied them up.
“This is weird, right?” He asked Claudia, nodding at the screen where the lamia was shown tied to a tree.
“It’s not normal,” she said, observing the footage.
Mike kept checking the cameras. It was weird that they seemed to be approaching the city. Unfortunately, the group ended up heading to an area where there was no cameras.
“We’re going to need to set up more cameras,” Claudia said.
Mike just gave his wife a thumbs up. She went to take a call while he kept checking the other cameras.