Little girl butt touching hot metal. Dinosaur roar from the trees; so the order came through to warm up the raid gear and head out. Alina mounted her gear, arms on the arm levers bare legs inside the frame, frail teenage body inside big metal body, soft embraced by hard. She span up the shoulder guns and flexed, exercising claws and jagged toes, giant armoured body shake shake shake, taking a spear from the pile on the way past the stone gates. They were beating the drums for her, beating the steady rhythm of combat, and ahead there was the jungle. Green arms stretched out wide trees thickly intertwined an incestuous image of real nature, vines wrapped together and wrinkled century-old trunks growing in tandem in thick grass-choked soil. The gear whined as Alina made it run drumbeat pounding in her ears as gigantic monster feet tore Vs into the earth. Below her a whole planet moving in vibrato, the neverending quake of the ongoing hunt pounding in her ears, becoming the drumbeat replacing it, entering it from behind, slowly stealthily taking over. The gear junked sidetoside crazy like, sprinting through jungle batting trees away ripping apart vines without even trying, birds deer everything and everything small enough to flee getting heck outta harm's way while strapped in Alina felt the rumble of the cushioning against her crotch and shoulders, the rush of wind on her exposed face.
Gears used to come with front armour dontcha know. She vaulted over water and gnarled fields of roots and rocks and passed waterfalls, raised outcroppings fat tropical flowers, all the thousands of years of work done by the planet all, suddenly, meaningless before metal limbs and T-89 nuclear engines.
Ahead distant is that ahah yes
fleeing raptor trail, birds above the canopy suddenly disturbed, the footfalls in front of her glimpsed brief like but definitely there - Alina was, after all, a tracker - her gear/she leapt above the trees for a few terroexhilerating seconds and saw the stirring of the green god's face that meant, of course, raptor pack on the move. She landed awkward like hit a diagonal tree trunk and her gear kicked away from it and she sailed westward through the air before coming down, clang clang clang armour against solid ancient wood, before she landed - righting herself wobble-wobble - and sped up, gear's legs pounding ground making her bounce up and down in her harness even harder. She bit her tongue and grinned to herself and hopped over a little waterfall with one jump. Spear ready in both hands.
Raptors trying to force their way through a clearing, hissing madly at one another as Alina emerged behind them her gear about twice their size three times her own. Slowing to a jog the raptors turned, two of them at the rear of the pack, screamed at her and rushed forward  a mess of angry garish feathers long mouths wide, rows of neat razor teeth launched at the gear's body the rest of the raptor following after legs kicking and wingclaws raised. Blurred death streaking superfast at her face.
Without stopping Alina turned on the guns and they made a little whir and then ejaculated plasma and the two raptors were ruptured, their skin peeling like stepping on a banana, red mush leaving them via seam after seam. Two raptor splats on the grass. The rest of the pack kept running and Alina kept after them. Her guns burped burped blew apart one raptor's legs it howled and fell over and she hit another and it exploded. Her gear was dressed in gore two raptors left, another male and prize of prizes the golden female at the head now all that was left.
She raised the spear. The other male glanced back at her and their eyes met yellow monster pupil staring into her own, unreadable. To other people, but Alina was a tracker. The raptor leapt at her, feathers outstretched. Her guns blew it apart. She was closing in on the female now, who was heading for a field of tall grass ahead leading out of the jungle and onto the plateau and into the mountains.
Take the spear in both hands and elevate your position. Once elevated- Alina above the female raptor, gear's gangly body casting vast demonic shadow on the shimmering grass. This raptor did not turn and look - banked left right left the whole field being moved. But no panic. Good raptors didn't panic. They - she did it now, spinning round dervish like - leapt straight at the fleshy part of the gear and ripped it apart. Alina could see the scars on the female's snout the healed plasma burns in its flank. She saw its mouth reach for her abdomen.
Could hear the drumbeat thudda thudda thudda thudda
her arms the gear's arms above her head. She slammed them down, spear tip splitting raptor skull and then sliding down raptor gullet into raptor body, coming out somewhere near the lower region of raptor belly. Didn't make a sound as it died. Alina and her gear slammed back into the grass along with the corpse. Blood leaking out of the raptor's body onto the ground. She exhaled. The raid gear beeped at her and powered down, autoeject. Alina unharnessed herself and fell to the ground. She looked down at the dead raptor and bent over and ran childish fingers over its snout. Caressing it like a dear friend. She took the flare gun from the raid gear's right leg and fired once into the sky. Red blossom against vibrant blue. And satisfied she stretched herself out on a nearby rock and waited.
She turned thirteen whileago, Alina; these were the best days. Wearing her tracker's uniform looked like a predator herself. Lithe little shape tanned gold by the sun, shorts taut over the most important area, truncated tunic's remains tied tight around her chest. Her feet naked her hair tied back in a long tail. She had two red stripes on her left cheek and a feather in her hair. Noises of life all around her but she remained perfect still, not rigid, loose, like someone had just whacked her out and she was nursing a blow on the head. Her chest rose and fell and her eyelids fluttered up and down. Thinking she'd like to fall into the sky, someone just turn off the world and let her go, please. Drums still drumming. Carrying all the way here to where she'd gotten her fifth actual kill of the month thereorabout. Thinking: Tired. Hungry. Sweaty. Feeling something bubble up inside her old thrill new tricks pending.
The raptor lay there leaking. Alina lay there postcoital. Birds moved back into the nearby trees. She saw a deer maybe, hint of clip-clopping legs from somewhere north. The world restored to its natural harmony, disabused of notions of raptors and monsters and hot plasma fire. The birds steered clear of her silent raid gear, its hunched-over body and its impossible demon's form. Needle-shape of a head stuck to the top of its neck way above where her own rested (somewhere in the chest) - gave the gear more than a little resemblance to its prey, blessed beast of the world under the canopy the dinosaur known to all and sundry, to the trackers and the laygirls and to every slit of the Gun Witches living in this here slice of jungle as: raptor. Sacred mother favourite daughter.