Beyond Space & Time

"Oh, really?" Atlas asked, surprised that such a benign and beautiful looking place could be so cruel. The melting bug sealed that fact into her brain and she cringed. "Gross! Thanks for the save," she said gratefully to Wolfie. What would she do without him? Perhaps that was why he'd brought her here first, as a lesson to her that not all that was pretty was friendly.

Leaving so soon? It may be dangerous here but Atlas wanted to explore. This was her first alien world after all! She pouted but didn't want to push it too, too much with Wolfie just in case. Now it was time to fly again. She calmed herself down as much as she could, and then hopped after him. Sometimes it took her a little while to take off, and she would have to take a few warm up leaps. Once she was air-born, she wobbled up beside Wolfie.

"Guess humans have their benefits, then," Atlas said, watching as a large Venus fly trap-like plant consumed something resembling a huge moth. "Is any life here intelligent like you and me? Or just you," she added with a giggle, mocking herself.

"Oh, oh, oh! I wanna meet them!" Atlas said excitably. It was obvious that she would, considering she herself was 'somewhat chatty'. Atlas was hesitant to landed on one of the flowers, but when she did she didn't get eaten or melted or stabbed or poisoned or anything like that. Huh, how novel.

Atlas stalled a bit. "Ch-challenge? I only wanna chat, I don't wanna fight anyone," she said. Then again, would Wolfie think her pathetic if she didn't? Would he be proud if she beat this Lebuuku? Taking a deep breath, Atlas called out. "I wish to challenge Lubuku! Uh, Lebuuku, I wish to challenge Lebuuku!"

[Dude, Lebuuku or Lubuuku, make up your mind.] The blood drained from Atlas' face. "You said he wasn't a threat!" she wailed at Wolfie, her ears down flat and her tail between her legs. This thing was too loud for her sensitive lion ears.

Atlas' bottom lip wobbled, but she saw something unusual. The corner of Wolfie's mouth was... Curved? Was he smirking at her? Was he finding this funny?! Oh now that spurred her on, he'd not so much as smirked since Zilla had died. "F-fine," she said, pulling a brave face. She leapt off the ground, but timed a spur of energy wrongly and fell flat back down on her ass. "Ow..." She tried again, hopping once, twice, thrice, before she finally leapt up and stayed up, levitating unsteadily up to eye level. "H-hey, what's your challenge?" she asked Lubuuku when they were level.

"N-no, you name your challenge," Atlas argued. What was the point of telling him to name his challenge if he just repeated it back?

Atlas scrunched up her nose, but slowly her face lit up. "Now I know why you let me challenge it," she said to Wolfie, sneering. He was being mean to her! But it amused her and warmed her heart for him to tease her like this. She turned her attention back to the big idiot and said loudly, "well I challenge your challenge!" and blew a big raspberry at him with her hands on her hips.

Atlas burst out laughing for a good few minutes. Man, she looooved this guy! He was just her kind of idiot. She stopped laughing in an instant and said, "staring contest, go!" before staring hard at Lubuuku, unblinking.

Oh, but the staring contest wasn't over yet. Atlas was pretty good at these, but she'd probably lose to Lubuuku. She held and held for as long as she could. "Agh, I lose!" she yelled out, clamping her eyes shut and rubbing them vigorously. That was hard. "B-best of three! Race you!" She blasted away in the air, towards a tree with bright red fruit about a mile away. She was going as fast as she could, but she would make sure not to touch the most likely lethal tree.

The big guy was fast, but Atlas had a few more smarts than him. Because he was so big, he threw up a wave of air around him, which Atlas used to ride to the finish, bursting forward at the last minute to seal victory. "Woo! I won! That's one all!" she said excitably, holding up one finger on each hand. She didn't let on how tired she was from that burst of speed flying. "So... Third challenge?"

"Hey!" Atlas said. She hoped this wasn't the next challenge, as she was pretty sure she didn't have plant-transforming powers. Unless he really was just sleeping. Atlas wasn't sure if it was safe to land on him as she floated down, hovering just above where he was sleeping.