Ikuto swore under his breath as he ran into another dead end. He'd never been to the crash site before yesterday, and he'd only found it by following the falling ship. Now he couldn't remember how to get there. Feeling panic rise in his chest now, the Neko boy scrambled up the nearest tree until he was perched on the very top and looked around. In the distance, he could see the top of something large and metallic. That had to be the ship. Marking the direction in his mind, the Neko boy hopped down and took off running again. There was no way he was getting left behind.<br/><br/>-----------------------<br/><br/>Lya was looking around at the boxes, probably reading the labels, when one of them made her gasp. She pointed this box out to him and pretended to fire a gun.<span style="font-style: italic">Guns?</span>he wondered. As Lya went off to examine other boxes, Nakutaro meandered over to the "guns" box that had attracted her attention, laying a hand on it and examining the inside.<br/><br/>There were some guns in there, yes, but there were other things as well. Most of them were just the basic nubs of weapons. After communication between the inhabited worlds was established, people started to go to uninhabited worlds to mine resources. Ores were discovered that were stronger than any other physical weapon people had previously used to mine with, so they focused on developing their laser technology. Laser weapons were used to mine these incredibly sturdy ores and most of them were used to develop more capable spaceships. Nakutaro was unaware of all this, and he didn't know that the part of the weapons actually used for fighting were compacted inside the bases in the form of extremely condensed protons. They just looked like useless nubs of metal to him, so he got bored and moved on.<br/><br/>Lya called for his attention again as she made another discovery. This time she removed a box from its stack and sliced it open. The Seharian boy couldn't help but think that having claws came in handy, but showing off her nails wasn't the point Lya was trying to make. Inside the box was an assortment of canned and dried foods. So in other words, they'd actually found what they came for.<br/><br/>Lya suggested that they bring the box to the others and Nakutaro followed behind her. They showed the box of food to the others (more crossbreeds had gathered by now), and Lya made motions like stacking boxes. "There's a room back there with lots of boxes," Nakutaro repeated verbally.<br/><br/>"Is it all food?" Gwendel asked playfully, "Or are there other things as well?"<br/><br/>"Um..." Nakutaro said, raising a hand to his head. If Sand People could blush, he'd probably be doing it now. "Well... it's not just food," he said, remembering the box with guns and things. "The boxes were labeled, but..."<br/><br/>The Graecian Neko's smile took on a softer demeanor. "Just a moment," he said, dashing off to the room he'd chosen before hurrying back a moment later. He brought with him the little chalk board he'd claimed as well as what was left of his chalk. "So," he said, holding out the items to Lya and smiling, "Box labels...?"<br/><br/>--------------------------<br/><br/>A few minutes later Ikuto finally arrived at the crash site. He was glad to see that the ship hadn't taken off in the time it had taken him to rush over. Another bonus was that the door was open, so he assumed everything had been going as planned so far. The Neko boy made his way to the open door and agilely hopped through it. Once inside he thrust his hands in his pockets and looked around to see what everyone else was doing, pretending he wasn't late.