Nothing had ever, ever prepared the MacManus brothers for being abducted by aliens. This wasn't covered in school, or in any of the extra lessons Ma made them take. Nobody at the slaughterhouse ever talked about this, though one or two people may have mentioned it in a pub or bar or insert place serving alcohol here. Those people, though, they hadn't taken very seriously. Here, even the unshakable certainty of their Mission was trembling in the midst of so much foreign and bizarre.

So after the 'OHFUCKOHFUCKOHFUCK' factor had died down a little - definitely not completely, but a little - and the big group had been disbanded, the twins went where they felt sure to get some guidance.

During the very brief tour of the city, Connor noticed something in the distance. He'd nudged Murphy about it, but they left checking it out until later. When 'later' came, and they checked, it was, well, "Jesus fuckin' Christ! That's the fuckin'- that's- that's the-! Fuck!" the Vatican.

Ten minutes later, they'd calmed down sufficiently to stop cussing and were walking through the eerily quiet St. Peter's Square. Slipping wordlessly through the doors of the Basilica itself, they made their way to pray. At the moment it didn't matter why these buildings were here. The aliens might be overstepping themselves, in which case they would die soon. On the other hand, it might just be a sign. Before they could decide, Murphy and Connor needed advice.

Nearly an hour later they reemerged, troubled but much calmer. There had been no direct answers - there rarely were - but the two of them were ready to wait it out. Whatever happened here, their Mission remained unchanged.

Despite being stuck on an alien meatship, some things never changed for Pat and Toxin...like Toxin wanting out.

Can I come out now?

"And run around? No."

It's not like I'm going to eat anything. Or anybody. Or get into things, or chew them, or anything else like what you keep telling me not to do.

"There's still the problem of not knowing what you'd run into here...or who'd run into you."

I just said I wasn't gonna do anything!

"Yeah, but you heard what Cybil said happened. I don't want you getting in brawls because somebody saw you and got the wrong idea."

Toxin popped up and grinned brightly-and toothily at Pat, then reabsorbed his fangs. How 'bout I don't show them at all? That's okay, right?

"Give it up, Tox."

Pat, at least, would welcome an interruption in the conversation as he wandered and tried to get a better grip on the ship's layout.

Ax had hid. And watched.

Just because this didn't look like a Yeerk ship didn't mean that it wasn't. Or that there weren't Yeerks aboard among the crew.

So he'd watched. He'd noticed the uniforms and 'Stacy' had shown him where to get one of his own. He'd requested that she call him 'Phillip' instead of his real name. If there were controllers here, they would certainly recognize an Andalite.

He'd overheard enough to know that they were far from Earth. Probably not close to the Andalite Homeworld either. And that even if they were, it might not even be his Andalite Homeworld.

There had been theories about such things as alternate universes being possible, but...

But that wasn't the point. The point was that he was trapped on this space ship, and he had no idea how much he could trust the other people on board. Especially since they seemed a bit, what was the phrase -- trigger-happy.

So he'd morphed human -- his 'own' human form, the mixture of Jake and Rachel and Marco and Cassie -- and slowly let himself be seen, out of the corners of people's eyes, disappearing and hiding but slowly letting the other people get closer.

He was fairly certain that he was going to get 'caught' this time.

Or rather, he was going to be found.