Chapter Text
Tondisi Hunting Grounds
The cold morning air smelled musty, and moisture clung to the plants as Lexa moved smoothly through the forest. Heda looked up. A blast trap was perched on a rock not far from where she headed. The high pitched sound of the trap got to a sudden end when she threw a rock to destroy the trigger. A two-headed deer looked up in the distance.
The machine had set a trap for her. She knew it had stalked her some time through the woods but had not made a move to attack her yet.
Lexa saw the faint glimmer of the hunter machine; it's invisibility cloak briefly glistening in the morning light as it swiftly headed towards her from the left. Lexa drew her blast sling and quickly aimed for the textured air ripple to her left. Before the hunter machine could pounce on her, the sling explosives had ripped off the cloaking device from Lexa's attacker.
The animal machine uttered a screeching sound before it stopped in its tracks and crashed on its side. Exposed, it didn't stand a chance against the Trikru warrior. Lexa drew her swords and finished it off with a powerful strike into the machine heart. Sparks flew high into the air, and for a moment the forest noise was overwhelmed with the humming of the machine going offline.
Lexa stripped the useful parts from its sleek metal shell and stowed them in a leather pouch. The sun was rising fast, and she was about to get back to Tondisi when her eye caught the spires of Castle Jaha in the distance. The fortress of Skai people towered in the distance, a painful reminder for Lexa that the struggle of all Grounder people continued.
Ever since the Skai people had arrived on earth, the Grounders had a reason to unite under one Heda. Lexa had fought hard, first the Mountainmen and then to fend off Skai. She was in her late thirties now, the Commander who had led war campaigns against the Mountain and Skai people and had succeeded in the tribal wars against Ice nation.
For many generations, the Grounders feared and fought the mountain dwellers. Their potions made raging mindless monsters of Grounders, and their weapons were far superior to Grounder swords and spears. But their bodies were weak and they were bound to remain inside their impenetrable mountain fortress. Instead, they enslaved Grounder warriors to raid the villages and keep the tribes at bay.
Initially, when Skai people fell to earth in their metal ships, their envoys would try to engage peacefully with Grounders but as time advanced it was clear that the factions would not see eye to eye.
Five generations ago the Mountainmen welcomed an alliance with Skai people. With the pact suddenly emerged machines in the forests that were the shapes of beasts. At first, the Grounders dismantled them just for parts, but with each device type that appeared in the woods, the machines became better Grounder predators.
Most machines took the shape of native animals; others looked more humanoid and walked on two legs. The Grounders learned to fight them all. Despite the relentless attacks on Grounders the outlanders did not succeed to overwhelm the native tribes of Earth. The harsh climate, unusual weather and diseases protected the Grounders from their perpetrators, at least for now.
To Lexa, they were all prey, not predators. She honed her skills by venturing out on her own. She ordered her personal guard to stand by with her horse on the outskirts of Tondisi, often for days, until she would return with a pouch full of machine parts, bruised, dirty, but satisfied from the single hunting trip.
Lexa ran the far distance towards the forest clearing. A month ago Grounders spies had found and tortured a Skai patrol on the outskirts of Tondisi. With their dying breath, they revealed some hidden secrets of Skai.
Heda learnt that for two years the leader of Skai was a woman called Klark who succeeded her mother, Abigail. Klark had strengthened the defences of Castle Jaha and for reasons unknown had broken off the alliance with the Mountain. Skai was now isolated, and Lexa thought about mounting an attack in due time. It had been an unusually quiet five years for her people, and as with any warrior nation, this led to boredom and infighting.
