The thing yelped and spun its long body in a circle before charging again. This time I pulled my leg back to give it all I had. The sneaky bastard dipped under it and went mouth agape for the ankle on my other leg. I stepped forward so I could lift its target urgently. I felt the scrape of large teeth on my leg above the boot as I fell forward unable to maintain my balance. My kicking leg had come down on the side of its hard muscled body awkwardly.
By the time I rolled over onto my back the attacker of defenseless monkey girls was on my chest, snapping at my face while my hands circled the fat neck in an ineffective choke hold from my limited martial arts training. Forward legs clawed at my arms to get itself free of my grip. I then pulled one arm back as far as I could, which wasn't much since I was pinned to the ground. When my punch struck it in the left eye, the nasty breath predator rolled off of me squealing.
Luckily, I was able to get up on one knee by the time it charged again. I used both hands to force its face into the dirt in front of me. The maneuver took the beast by surprise which gave me a couple seconds to pin it down with my other knee while it squirmed. I then bear hugged its back, barely getting my hands locked around the thing's thick belly while its stubby hind legs kicked wildly in the air.
Crack! There went some of its ribs. But the thing was still fighting and thrashing for release. The next crack was its neck as I kept its head pinned with my knee and pulled the animal on top of me. The angry squirming ceased immediately.
In the next few seconds I released my grip slowly while feeling incredibly cold. The icy chill strength had come to my rescue. I wouldn't have been able to pull off what I just did without it. I urgently shook my arms to get some heat back as I gasped for air. The brutal frost was encasing my lungs and heart. Ice to be broken more than I cold to be shivered off.
Then I heard Peggy voices, back toward the way the gang had gone. Looking that way, I saw the young female still watching me in wide-eyed awe. Or maybe it was in horror. I couldn't tell.
"Who are they?" I finally asked her. She had to realize that I was her savior and not another attacker.
"Bad people," she replied. I could then tell by her demeanor that she was still in fright mode, but not fearful of me. "Come," she insisted as the reality of the situation sunk in. "We hide."
She ran on all fours through the tall grass like a baby gorilla. I found it difficult to follow without standing more upright and taking a chance of being spotted. So, I looked for movement in the grass ahead of me. Anytime I veered off course, she called to me. Man, come here, she would whisper.
The vegetation was spotty and any garbage downtrodden. The Peggy girl was doing her best not to go out into the open. It was probably second nature to her and her kind. It made our journey uncomfortably slow for our predicament. We passed several trees in that manner before she led me to a scraggly looking thing that cowered between others that were much more impressive in their stature. It was a dying runt of a growth by comparison.
The girl crawled up the bark of the tree like a squirrel to reach the lowest branch which was at least three meters above the ground. I had never been able to dunk a basketball at any point in my life, but I was able to grab the rim. Without the ability to copy her climbing technique, I jumped for that lowest branch with my right hand raised.
I got it, surprisingly. But with just one hand I couldn't hold on to the thick branch. I hunched back down and let the icy chill flow through my legs before jumping again. This time I got both hands around it. With the intense cold speeding through my upper body, I had no trouble slinging my legs up to join the girl. She stared at me like I was a crazy person. Maybe she didn't have much contact with humans. There had to be people on this planet that had never even seen one of us.
"Alora," the girl then said as I balanced myself. I had to weigh at least four times as much as her.
"I don't understand," I said, thinking she had reverted back to her own language.
"Alora is my name," she then told me. "I am Alora. Do you have a name?"
"Joah," I answered as I looked around. I stuck out like a sore thumb on this tree of little foliage. I felt like a fat turkey on the short fence of a junkyard dog pen.
"Joah, the killer of gantha-beasts," she said with a timid smile. "The savior of TruPort girl. I meet you nicely."
"It's nice to meet you, too," I replied, figuring that was what she meant to say.
"Do I owe you?" she asked with a touch of fear in her eyes.
"Excuse me?"
"Man do for girl," she said softly, almost in a whisper. "Girl must do for man."
I gathered that she meant that I was owed some sexual favors for saving her from the gantha-beast. The more time that I spent on this planet the more I understood their society. That wasn't necessarily a good thing. I was all about having sex with multiple partners that didn’t damage my personal life, but strictly consensual. And to this point only human. I got the distinct impression that
