st_x5_494 | Follow the Tracks

It was 4:30 A.M. in the morning and Alec was already up and dressed. He glanced out of his room to the horizon that wasn't quite yet hinting at the sunrise, but it would be soon. He walked into the other room where Peter slept and crossed his arms over his chest while he watched the teenage boy sleep - it must be nice to sleep so easily sometimes.

He shifted, moving about the room silently as he gathered the needed material and then he suddenly through a set of clothing at Peter's face. "Rise and shine, sunshine. We need to get moving."

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From:

st_x5_494

He looked back at Peter and paused. Did he? He gave a bit of a shrug. "Yeah, I guess." Did they him though? Probably not.

From:

st_arkintern

Peter turns his attention back to the surroundings and as he moves his flashlight upwards, catches sight of a few broken branches, the ends dangling limply.

"Alec!" Peter says in a whisper. He casts the light up on the branches. "That's what we're looking for, right?"

From:

st_x5_494

He nodded, his voice lowering to be quiet too. "Yeah. Looks like it's heading away, too." He gestured to the way the branches were bent, explaining briefly how you can tell it was going rather than coming.

He gestured quietly for Peter to take the lead and headed down the trail. It was definitely big, but Alec wasn't sure what it was, exactly.

From:

st_arkintern

Peter moves ahead, treading with care, his flashlight pointed at the path in front of them, then up in search of more broken branches. A few had bent enough to break off completely.

"You don't think it's one of those creatures that attacked the inn before, do you?"

From:

st_x5_494

"Don't think so. This thing seems animal. Looks like four legs." Alec gestured to where it seemed there were four. "So you can cross out skeletons and whatever the hell else. Plus I'd like to think we'd notice a big ass dragon if it was around."

From:

st_arkintern

That doesn't stop Peter from casting the light up towards the sky. Nothing except some cirrus clouds and the moon.

"Is there any way to know when we're getting close?" Peter whispers as he continues forward. The last thing he wanted was to wander right into the creature's nest or something.

From:

st_x5_494

"Sound, usually. Or the trail stops and we're about to be ambushed."

Alec closed his eyes on concentrated. He reached out as best he could with his hearing. There was a faint sound.

"It's up ahead somewhere. Sounds like it's still walking."

From:

st_arkintern

"Should we --"

Peter's attention turns away from the space in front of him as he turns to face Alec in an instant.

"Should we ambush it? I mean, we don't even know what it is yet."

From:

st_x5_494

When Peter turned around, Alec's eyes remained looking passed him down the trail. "We can flank it, sure. As long as you promise to turn back around and keep your head forward. I don't want to be picking up parts of your body around the forest." And Liz and Stark would never let him hear the end of it.

From:

st_arkintern

"You know, I have fought things before." Peter's on the defensive and he doesn't know why he is. Maybe it's because he feels like Alec's treating him like a kid. Or like someone who doesn't know how to fight. Sure he doesn't know anything about tracking and he's just getting his head around group tactics after mostly fighting alone for most of his tenure as Spider-Man, but...

...he could handle it!

From:

st_x5_494

Alec's eyes moved to Peter because Peter was being Peter again. Alec wasn't exactly sure where that came from. "Okay?" He stared at Peter. "...So?"

From:

st_arkintern

Peter lets out a sigh. "I'm going first," he announces. He flicks out the light and immediately jumps up and crawls up one tree, then leaps to another, and then another. It's not so dark that he can't easily see the form of the tree in front of him, but he can't rely on his sight to easily see anything that might be meandering below.

Thankfully, after about a dozen trees, he can hear it; he stops where he's perched in one of the branches and strains his eyes to make out what's down below. All he can really see is that it's big and walking on fours (or maybe more -- it's hard to tell, but it's definitely not bipedal).

He wishes there was some way he could communicate this to Alec without giving himself away.

From:

st_x5_494

With Peter's back to Alec, Alec rolled his eyes. The kid still felt like he always needed to prove something.

Alec purposefully went slower than Peter, but tried to look like he wasn't doing it on purpose in case Peter was carefully watching

He stopped when he was a few feet away and could make the outline too. From where Alec was, the creature looked like it had natural armour. This was probably going to be a pain in the ass.

He picked up a rock and tossed it which caused the animal to stop what it was doing, look up, and then slowly go yo investigate to the right.

From:

st_arkintern

Peter glances in the direction of where the stone was cast from, but it's so hard to see without the light on. The second he turns the light on, though, the creature knows they're both there.

Big shapes Peter doesn't have any problem making out, even though they're mostly just that -- shapes. The details aren't so easily made out. He's pretty sure he can disable this thing if they work fast enough.

Peter shoots a line of web-slinger spray at the creature, then taps the end to one of his tree's thicker branches. He can only barely make out the sound of cracking wood over the occasional shriek from the creature -- and Peter quickly moves onto another tree and repeats the process.

He's going to have to move fast if he doesn't this thing shredding the forest.

From:

st_x5_494

Alec understood what Peter was trying to do after a moment. It was a smart plan and while Alec didn't have webbing to help, he could at least keep the thing distracted. He sprinted for the animal and ran over top its back, landing in the front of it. "Wow, you're ugly." It tried to snap at Alec. His arms jutted out as he held open the jaw, one hand on the top of the creature's jaw and the other one the bottom.

From:

st_arkintern

When Alec joins the fray, Peter moves more quickly, motivated by a desire to keep his roommate safe from the creature's clutches. Sure, Alec is more than capable of taking care of himself -- and of healing up fast enough if he takes a hit -- but that doesn't mean that Peter wants him to have to.

He sends another shot at it, then a second, and then a third. The creature's ear-piercing shrieks grow louder, and Peter can't help but hope that it's not waking up anyone back at the inn.

The creature is very nearly stuck in place; only when the creature strains is it able to pull more than a foot or two away.

"Can you tell what it is?" he shouts down over the creature.

From:

st_x5_494

"A very ugly rhino" or so it seemed anyways. "Looks like something Manticore would cook up."

The creature was able break free from Alec's grip and snapped at him. "little help with his mouth?"

From:

st_arkintern

Peter wait until a half-minute before it looks like its mouth is just about to snap closed and shoots out some web-fluid, binding the creature's maw shut.

When the creature flails, Peter tries once more for good measure.

"That okay?"

From:

st_x5_494

Alec took a step back and watched the creature strain against the webbing - webbing that would disappear in a few hours and then what?

"Yeah, that's good." Except now, what the hell were they supposed to do with this? He wondered if this would be worse for Peter if they had to kill it since it was 'helpless'. "Any suggestions now?"

From:

st_arkintern

"Um."

Peter drops down to the ground, landing soundly on his own two feet. He turns on the flashlight, casts it over the creature. It huffs through its large nostrils, fist-size eye trained on the both of them.

Peter looks over at Alec.

He clearly didn't think this through all the way.

From:

st_x5_494

He exhaled and rubbed the back of his neck. "You think we move it far enough away, it might not come back?" The fact he didn't just take his knife and kill it probably said something about how Peter was rubbing off on Alec.

From:

st_arkintern

Peter looks from the creature back over to Alec. "You think?" he asks uncertainly. Now he's not really sure. "I mean, if we knock it out and drag it an hour or two away..."

From:

st_x5_494

Alec shrugged. Maybe? "If not, I guess we could always re-catch it and see if it could swim." From the looks of it, it probably couldn't.

From:

st_arkintern

Peter presses his lips together. "You think you could knock it out, then?"

From:

st_x5_494

He look a look at the big armoured beast. Could he? Well, he could try. He held out his hand to Peter while is eyes scanned for some sort of weakness on the creature. "Flashlight?"