RJ yawned and walked leisurely behind Rina, Banner, and the glowing trees that served as their guide through the forest.
"This place is batshit crazy," he thought out loud, flicking a glowing leaf.
"Rudolph," Banner said warningly.
"It is!" he insisted. "There are blue fish people, hoofed people, talking plants, glowing trees, and an overall sense of insanity."
"That's just your insanity," Rina piped in. RJ couldn't help thinking how much hotter she was with al those extra knives strapped to her. Too bad she hated him. Everyone hated him actually, which he found hilarious. If only they knew he was the son of the CEO and founder of the Foundation for Space Observation and Exploration, which was (by the way) a three-billion dollar company.
"Do we even know where we're going?" RJ whined.
"No," Rina snapped. "Now shut up before I make you."
"I'd like you to make me."
That sentence was rewarded with a death glare that made RJ's steps falter.
"Rudolph, I'd appreciate it if you could take our situation a bit more seriously," Banner said.
"Talking plants that threatened to kill us all if we didn't follow the glowing leaves into the deep forest for a friendly chat. Very serious."
Rina scowled. "Banner, shut him up or I will."
"I'd advise you to not speak. Rina would have no regrets if she hit you."
RJ grumbled incoherently.
Within the next five minutes, the glowing trees stopped glowing and left the leaders in an impenetrable darkness under the leaves.
|Welcome| the plant said.
"Can you turn the trees back on?" RJ shouted into the darkness.
The forest illuminated.
|Thank you for accepting my hospitality. I have been waiting a long time and am very excited to meet you.|
"You didn't really give us a choice," Rina replied icily.
"So...what gender are you?" RJ asked.
"Rudolph," Banner snapped.
|I am simply me. I am all the sentient plants in and on the planet. The Lii call me the Muyl.|
"All the...sentient plants?" Banner asked. He glanced around him, unsure of where to look.
|There are a few different species of me. There is one that shoots acid, vines, one that ejects spikes, the glowing trees, the yellow grass, one that is completely filled with water, one that — when the bark is stripped away — provides a protein substitute, and one that has the ability to see like a human or a Lii.|
"And the rest?" Banner prompted.
|Simple, mindless creatures that I may possess and use as I please.|
RJ snickered, and Banner glanced at him warningly.
"You're a mule?" RJ laughed.
|Moo-yuhl. Not 'mule.' I assure you that I neither eat tin cans, nor am used to carry supplies.| It paused. |You're mind is a strange place, Rudolph Nicholas Jensen.|
"You're in my mind?" RJ exclaimed. "Like, reading my thoughts?"
|Yes, though it takes extra energy to be so. I was curious about what I would find.|
