Survivor 3295743

16

Picking up my bow and attaching it to my back alongside the hide sleeve of various arrows, I jump down with only a single parachuting arm from the already stretched bow-work to land on the trunk near the barn. The day I had been waiting for had finally arrived, the day to use the alpha of my lizard clutch as a sacrificial trump card.

While he would be prime combative genetics I was too scared that he would one day grow to become rebellious.

I had gotten hurt pretty nicely fighting the father, a younger and fully matured stud would almost certainly try to replace me. The smaller betas would be somewhat more agreeable even as a pair because there would be natural contest between the two of them, the females, and future prey. The females would mature faster and be larger for their early lives.

Simply pushing and pulling the alpha by its tail and scales out of the barn, I rush it down the tree bark before dropping the rest of the way using both arms for parachutes. The arachtis was still nearby with its other kills hiding among the root walls of the neighboring tree.

From a standing position thirty feet above the ground on the trunk of my home tree, clenching toe claws and heel spurs into the tree, I could easily nock and aim an arrow into the space between the roots.

The male I had forced out was already half of the way down from the down a few dozen feet above me and there were several curious sibling higher up around the barn looking down as the moth pursued us both. By the time I released my arrow on the arachtis that was currently trying to camouflage in mulch like I had done, it had finished eating the first cricket.

My chosen companion stopped a few yards above me instead of continuing down, preferring to watch the show as the arrow skittered down under a space between carapace segments.

The arrow did not cause much internal damage but its seat along the length of a carapace segment helped to inhibit its movements. This should have been more than enough of a handicap for the biggest male to bring the arachtis down or die in a draw. If it was wounded enough, I would simply put it down and turn its meal into jerky for myself.

However, the lazy bastard did not want to go down and fight.

No matter how smart these lizards were there was no way for me to safely force the reptile to keep climbing down no matter how much I yelled and pointed at the arachtis that was carefully climbing out of the root wall to escape around the other tree. Eventually, I had no choice but to blindly fire an arrow ahead of the arachtis to discourage it before jumping from my higher ground position.

Even the inhibited wingsuit from holding onto my bow was enough to swoop to the tree a few yards out of reach of the giant insect. Once I had secured my footing I was drawing out one of the few arrows still in my sleeve when the arachtis suddenly lunged out at me.

I was usually pretty confident in my ability to keep track of high-speed object like arrows and enemies. However, even the flicking extension of the arachtis' tapering blade was little more than a blur to me. Luckily, as soon as it had shifted its body in my direction before lunging I was already hopping backward up the tree.

However, just a couple of yards more distance was almost not enough distance to escape the suddenly clicking and clinking arm that seemed to stretch toward me. Before the arm snapped back toward the arachtis' body I could see the glittery wet but elastic-like strands of muscle and skin tissues inside the arm. I learned a valuable lesson about modern evolutions that day.

Shit could go from zero to one hundred in an instant.

Unknown to the arachtis, though, they were not the only ones who could increase the reach of their bodies. Just to keep the arachtis at a distance I started blindly firing half-draw arrows while slowly taking long strides back around and down the tree. Both the biggest male and the mother lizard were on the ground now and closing the distance between trees.