trans_9 | Mix-and-Mingle

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Mix-and-Mingle

After the most recent pod-pop had been completed, Stacy began encouraging the crew towards the Obs Deck. They would be most effective if they were familiar with each other, and as the Jaime Reyes Incident had proved, leaving them to meet whenever they happened to cross paths was not effective.

Anyone who stepped into the Hub would be transported to the Obs Deck, no matter where they had intended to go. Those who had been exploring the City were verbally herded towards the Hub, although the energy tentacles did not make an appearance.

||Please report to the Obs Deck for Crew Introductions.||

The Obs Deck hadn't changed very much since they'd last been there. The creepy sculpture was still present, as were the fleshy couches. However, the couches were arranged in a more obvious circle this time.

Come and meet the new -- and in some cases, weirder -- members of your crew.

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Ax recoiled and fell over. Stupid human body with its two legs and no tail!

"A what?" he asked, scrambling to his feet and taking another couple steps back.

Toxin jerked himself upright at the response, stretching out more tendrils and waving them furiously, and Pat started as well. "A symbiote," he repeated, blinking. Hadn't the kid just said that Toxin wasn't like anything from where he was from? "He's...basically talking goop."

There, that sounded non-threatening, right?

'Talking goop' was roughly on par with 'gross slugs from a nasty-looking pool' when it came to sounding threatening, but the slugs controlled people's brains.

"And you are okay with this?" Ax asked incredulously. He was apparently still in control of his own body and yet he wasn't trying to get rid of his parasite?

Pat sighed. "I'm kind of stuck with him."

Toxin prodded him with a tendril, letting out an annoyed squeak.

That prompted an eyeroll. "...and he likes to say he's stuck with me. He's too young to try to jump to another host yet, and before you even say it, I've heard it before, so don't even start."

His 'I can so run off' speech cut short, Toxin just let out a more disgruntled squeak and flopped sulkily on Pat's shoulder.

"...Are you voluntary?" Ax asked, still looking utterly weirded out. That was the only reason he could think of someone allowing a parasite to live inside their body without complaint. He didn't understand those people, why they would give up their freedom and lives and what could be worth doing that for, but some people did it.

And Pat was just wearing it out in the open!

That got another sigh. This would be...interesting to explain. "Not really. I was just the unlucky guy around when Carnage decided to give birth, and Tox latched on. So I'm his host now."

"I'm not that bad."

"And you have not tried to get it removed?" Ax asked. "Would it be fatal?"

Maybe that was the explanation. He was an optimist, hoping for a cure instead of giving up and dying. That was good, assuming that his parasite didn't spawn on other people or something.

"Probably. Apparently things don't go well if you try to force a symbiote off; either you'll both pass out or almost die-or just die."

Toxin, meanwhile, narrowed his eyepatches and hissed at Ax.

"Stop that."

"Ahh. My sympathies," Ax said, before narrowing his eyes and hissing right back at Toxin.

Toxin reared up against, tendrils lashing as he glared at Ax.

"Oh, for the love of-kid, quit it. That goes for you, too," he said, shaking his head at Ax. "The last thing I need is for him to start chewing on people."

"You try it and there'll be hell to pay. Settle down."

"...My apologies to you," Ax said after a moment. He wasn't apologizing to the parasite, though.

"Just don't get him started, okay?" Pat sighed. Time to move on to a topic that hopefully wouldn't lead to attempts to eat someone's head. "So what's it like where you're from? Any aliens, superheroes, things like that?"

"I am from Canada," Ax said, still eyeballing Toxin a bit. "We do not have super heroes. And most people do not believe in aliens."

And there were some people who knew all too well that aliens existed. "Leee-vuh. Vuh. Bee-leev."

"...Well, you're definitely not form our...world...thing...then." He was still getting used to the whole different worlds thing. And he was glad that he hadn't run across anybody who was supposed to be fictional yet.

"We're from New York. Which is full of superheroes...and not so many aliens, but they're around."

Ax wracked his brain for a moment, trying to remember the names of super heroes that he had heard Prince Jake and Marco -- usually Marco -- talking about.

"Like Spider-Man?" he asked.

Pat pauses, then he and Toxin look at each other, then back to Ax. "Been talking to somebody from one of the worlds like ours? We've met people from two other versions of it so far."

Ax shook his head. "I do not know who he is, but Marco mentioned him several times. He and Prince Jake disagree if he would win a fight against Batman, but I do not know who Batman is either. Thurrrr."

"Where we're from, he's another superhero. Met him a few times."

"We'd be dead if it wasn't for him."

Toxin huffed to himself.

"Does he have eight legs?" Ax asked. He'd always thought that eight legs was much more sensible than the two-with-no-tail that humans had. "Or pedipalps? I never asked why he was called Spider-Man."

He had spent some time trucking around as a wolf-spider, though. And a bat, come to think of it.

"No, he's just a human-two legs. But he swings around on webbing and wears a costume with webs on it, so he's called Spider-Man. It's...kind of a nickname, to hide who he really is."

"Is the costume important?" Ax asked. That was another thing that came up near-constantly, their morphing outfits. He did understand the need to hide one's identity, however. "Because otherwise his enemies would be able to target him and hurt him. Mee-zuh. Enemies."

He nodded. "That's it. People can still target you when you're wearing the costume, but it makes it a little harder if they don't know who you are. Then they can't find you."

"Maybe, but most people can't do that, so nobody usually worries about it." Pat looked back to Ax. "Sorry-he's distracting sometimes."

"I understand the concept of secret identities," Ax said, nodding. "And you do not have to apologize. I imagine that it is very distracting at times."

Yes, he was hanging onto that like a dog with a bone. Just because he had to work with a parasite didn't mean that he had to like it.

"They're pretty important if you're planning to hero and have people you want to protect." He glanced to Toxin. "And it depends on what he's talking about and how much."

Toxin prodded him again.

"It is very important for a lot of things," Ax said, remembering Prince Jake and his brother Tom. Tom was a Controller, and Prince Jake was the leader of the Animorphs. Prince Jake knew about Tom, but Tom didn't know about Prince Jake. All of the other Animorphs had secret identities as well -- except for Tobias, who had no family except for Ax, and Marco, who had rescued his father from becoming a Controller and his mother from being one.

Secret identities were important.

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