I woke up with a start; something was dragging me towards the water. My hands trashed about, reaching for something to grasp, grass, a plant, a root, anything.  It lifted me off the ground so I was dangling by my feet. It was an elephant thing with Razor sharp tunnel teeth! Its trunk biting my pants!

 MOTHER!

 My fingers scrambled down my belt buckle, releasing its tight hold on my waist. I fell down with a thud.

 “Aww…” I mutter. My head throbbed. I glanced back and it looked helluva hungry. You don’t have to tell me to run. I was doing it before I started thinking it. The Razormouth Elephant darted across the path, trampling the giant trees like soft vegetables. Running in tank tops and underwear made me feel like Jane in a Tarzan book, how I wished I was Tarzan instead!

Its giant trunk swiped my legs sending me sprawling across the dense canopy. My head slammed on a huge rock, and was surprised it didn’t knock me out. At the time I was more concerned with not being eaten than my head not breaking and bleeding.

The Razormouth Elephant faced me, glaring in its newly captured prey. Its trunk with teeth bit my legs sending massive amounts of pain down my head, lifting me off the ground.

“Help!” I screamed.

A fiery red blade swept past between me and the Razormouth Elephant, severing its trunk. I fell down. The biting trunk attached to my leg trashing about spraying purple ooze everywhere.

“Groooonk!” The Razormouth Elephant screamed.

An Ether stood in its way, holding its ground, flashing bladed arms towards the creature. The Elephant stared rather painfully, groaned and then went away.

“You need to eat,” a voice said inside my head.

“It’s you!” I said to the Ether. Its flames turned from red to blue. “You saved me?”

It turned towards me, opening its bowl shaped back, revealing multicolored fruits, tons of them rolling across the ground.

 “Wow! A shape shifter!”

“A Shapeshifter?”

“I read it in books, it spoke to me about shapeshifters, writers in the old world think of beings that can change their form anyway they like, I like to read, a lot,” I babbled on. I’m always like this getting carried away in my thoughts.

“I knew that…”

“But you were just asking?”

“As soon as you thought it, I knew.”

“Wow! You can read minds!”

“But before anything else, you should probably take that trunk off your feet.” It said.

“Oh yeah,” I shuddered, how can I forget? Being impulsive had always lead me into trouble. Heck, I wouldn’t have nearly died if I wasn’t. Eat when you want to eat, sleep when you want to. I struggled to lift the teeth off my legs, before I knew it, the Ether was helping me. Sweet, I thought. I stared at my legs; there were absolutely no marks, not even bruises. Pangs of hunger growled inside me.

My eyes made their way to the fruits. They looked tasty.

“You can eat them”

“You don’t have to tell me,” This was really good! I munched on.

“I think it’s cute,”

“Huh? How can you talk to me anyway?”

“The Spider,” it pointed its shapeshifting fingers to its head.

I didn’t know how all that fruit fit inside me. But I managed to eat about six pounds of it. I’ve never even eaten that much food in my whole life. I figured this was all a dream. After eating all that, I felt more energized.

Gazing at the humanoid made me feel at ease. Sitting in front of me, it seemed harmless, peaceful, loving even, and thoughtful, I liked that. I wished it could be my friend, speaking of friends.

“Do you know where my friends are?”

“I’ll bring you to them,” it said, it then stood up and started walking.

The Ether led me through the forest. I was just awed by seeing, hearing, feeling everything firsthand; the crunch of the grass beneath my feet, the moist cool wind passing through my lungs, the wonderful colors touching my eyes. All without the confines of that clunky protective suit I used to wear. Strolling without the fear of contracting dangerous diseases. I could get used to this!

“You seem happy,”

“I was just wondering though, what happened to me? I think yesterday I was dying. I hurt my head, and bruises weren’t even on my legs after that thing bit me. But now, I’m stronger than DELTAroids, I wish I could pilot one, sometimes I think I should’ve been a Grunt, but I can’t do anything, the source code from my DNA says I should be a botanist! But current laws require I be a collector till I’m eighteen, oh crap! I’m doing it again! Tell me if I’m doing it too much, speaking I mean, aw! I’m doing it again.”

“Do you want me to answer your questions or not?”

“Aw yeah, sure, I forgot!” I scratched my head. Now that I think about it, having a paralyzed mouth might actually be a good thing. I jumped to the next ledge.

The Ether explained what happened as we traversed the dense canopy of the New Amazon[JDO1] . This wasn’t the words it exactly used as it seemed to speak past semantics. This world exists on a delicate balance. This world thrives between a delicate balance of mutualism, commensalism, parasitism and predation. The mosslike microorganisms that I encountered were Anti-parasites; at first glance its effects are similar to parasites, seemingly injuring its host. The host suffers paralysis and a burning sensation resulting from the organisms’ effort to bond chemically to its host. Once bonded it protects its host at all cost. And it seemed to work phenomenally with humans.

The Ether attributes this to our body’s wide range of nourishment from the food we eat. Giving us hyper fast healing abilities and an almost unbreakable skin. BuT YoU sTiLL HuRT tHoUGH, it said, I AdVICe aGAINst UnneCESSary pAIn

“Point taken,” I said. “I don’t like unnecessary pain.”

“What about the soldier who died?”

tHe tRANsFOrmation wAs InTerrupted, it said. LiKe a sEEd tAkeN fROm tHe gROUnd beFORe IT SpruNG FoRtH oR…

“Or?”

It mIGHt bE ThE NaNNoBoTS

“The nannobots? They we’re supposed to protect them.”

ThE NaNNoBoTS FiGHt ThE tRANSforMATion

Good thing I wasn’t a grunt, or else I’d be dead by now. The Nannobots were injected by protocol to all fighting units. It rapidly repairs broken tissues and organs from injury resulting from battle allowing Grunts to take more damage than an average human being. It also allows their immune system to fight diseases faster. Research teams receive vaccines instead, as we have lower risk of receiving battle damage.

“And the drawbacks?” I asked. Worried about side effects.

YoU nEEd oNLy tWice tHE eNERgy iNTAke, eAT tWIce as MuCH

“Oh,” I thought that’s no problem.

bUt iN yOUr cASe, YoU nEED tO eAT tHRICe aS MuCH

 [JDO1]Start work here