trans_9 | Unleash the Podlings!

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Unleash the Podlings!

||Pod Release Protocols Initiating,|| Stacy announced to the denizens of the upper levels. Down the the Pod Caverns, familiar sounds made themselves known:

Pop. Pop pop pop. Poppuhpoppoppop. KASCHUNKhiiiiiiiissssss.

Mist sprayed from the cracks in the pods before the new crew members were summarily ejected from warm, comfortable stasis to their new chilly, damp reality. They'd either meet each other in the Caverns or in the upper levels, where the previously popped crew would also be waiting for them, if Stacy had anything to say about it.

This time, there were two pods spitting mechanical beings out of a more oily mixture, and one podling who was significantly smaller than most of the others.

Pop. Poppop. KASCHUNKhiiiiiissss.

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Toph Bei-Fong was a generally adaptable kid. She'd always had the earth, ubiquitous and strong, to help her see. And she was like earth in that she was headstrong and stubborn. It didn't take a lot to get her frightened.

However, waking up wearing nothing but what felt like the leftovers from one of Appa's headcolds, with no earth to be seen or felt, actually was scary.

She wondered where the others were. "Sokka? Twinkle Toes? Where are you guys? Where are we? I can't see a thing!" Her voice, normally cocksure and belligerent, now sounded shaky and nervous.

And the silence she got in response was completely unnerving.

""

||You seem distressed, Toph,|| a voice observed. Toph was probably lucky she couldn't see the tentacle and needle combination detaching itself from the wall, but she could probably hear it just fine. ||Would you care for a mild sedative?||

"A what?" Toph was all but screaming at this point. "Who are you? What's that noise?"

She was trembling from head to toe. Whether or not this ooey-gooey place was warm, it didn't matter.

She was absolutely petrified.

||A sedative is an agent that will calm, moderate, or tranquilize nervousness or excitement,|| the voice answered promptly. ||I am STA'C K'LTRRB'TXFT, you may call me Stacy. The noise is me preparing the sedative in case you desire it. Do you want the sedative?||

When Stacy spoke her name, the first one, a sense of honor, duty, and motherly love rose up in Toph's chest. Like it wasn't something she herself felt, but some kind of secondary part of the name.

Toph whimpered, despite the feeling. Because it wasn't hers.

"I can't see." She waved her goopy hand in front of her face. "I don't want to be calm, I want to know where I am and why there's no earth here. This isn't home!"

Her voice indicated that her hysteria level was rising.

||You are in the Pod Caverns. There is no earth here because you are not on a planet. Would you like the sedative? Would you like some clothing?||

The voice doesn't have much in the way of emotion to it, but it does sound almost motherly, in its own way.

"I..." She took a deep breath. "I just want to go home."

She curled up into a ball on the ground-that-wasn't-ground, and suddenly started sobbing and hiccuping.

Another tentacle, this one without a needle, detaches itself from the wall and wraps itself around Toph in a warm, comforting hug.

||You have been Chosen, Toph,|| Stacy explains gently. The tentacle strokes her hair, cleaning off some of the goo.

She wasn't sure what was hugging her, but it was warm, and right now, that was enough.

"Ch - chosen for what?" the young girl whispered. "I - don't understand. And I can't see."

The total lack of sight was disheartening, and Toph was talking about it as though she couldn't quite believe it.

||You have been Chosen to do something great.|| Stacy kept petting Toph's hair, slowly removing the goo. Less effectively than the clothing chamber would be able to, but it was a start. ||You will be provided with a substance that will allow you to see once you reach the Weapons and Possessions Locker. Would you like to be taken there?||

She didn't say anything, just curled up against Stacy's whatever-they-were and nodded.

Clearly this little earthbender is very distraught.

And thus Toph began a very interesting journey through the Pod Caverns. The tentacles wound and unwound as they passed her along the path toward the Hub. The journey took some time, although Stacy paused before the end.

||Would you like clothing first, Toph?||

Toph sniffed and wiped at her eyes. "... Yeah. Unless everyone else is naked. If that's true, I can't see anybody, so it won't bother me..."

The tentacles pass her on until the last one hands her off to many smaller ones. They wrap her in something that feels a bit like flower petals, if flower petals had a pulse, and wipe the rest of the goo from her face, hair, hands, and feet. The suit takes care of the rest. Then she is returned to the large tentacle, which passes her off to another and another, until the last one sets her down at a fleshy sort of opening.

||The Hub will take you where you want to go,|| Stacy said.

"Where - to get that - so I can see?"

It had all been a confusing rush of sensation and sound that made no sense to her, and she was now completely disoriented. Everything felt alive; she could feel everything pulsating, but the vibrations were flat and unfocused - she was still blind. Whatever she was standing on felt like raw meat, and she almost felt sick to her stomach.

"That... that's where I want to go," she whispered.

||The Hub will take you to the Weapons and Possessions Locker,|| Stacy clarified. ||It is safe.||

The tentacle nudged her towards the opening.

She put her hands out in front of her, feeling for the entrance, took a deep breath, and went on through, completely unsure as to what was going to happen next.

Once she was inside, she'd feel a sense of pressure beneath her and a sense of speed as she rocketed up through the Hub, traveling miles in only minutes. When the platform she was on finally came to a stop, there was another tentacle to greet her.

||This way to the Weapons and Possessions Locker,|| Stacy said.

Having no sense of orientation, Toph stumbled forward into the oncoming tentacle rather quickly.

A slight 'oof' noise escaped her.

"Do those things always go that fast?" she asked.

She was still scared, but the notion of soon being able to see had given her back a bit of the confidence (arrogance?) she'd had back home.

||Yes.||

The tentacles deposited on the floor, and one of them handed her a strange, hard crystal.

||If you make shoes from this, you will be able to see.|| Stacy explained.

She took the thing in her hand. It was warm, like someone had stuck it over a fire. It reminded her vaguely of the hot stone treatment she'd had at the Ba Sing Se spa. It also vibrated ever-so-slightly.

And - she concentrated, moving her hands about, and gasped in surprise - she could bend it. She sat down on what felt like a floor and set to work, fashioning thin, makeshift slippers out of the thing. She was good at bending, and this crystalline thing was very responsive to it, and so, when she stood up again, she could see.

Which was something she felt like she had to tell Stacy.

"I can see!"

||Yes,|| Stacy agreed.

Now that Toph could get some sense of the room, she would be able to tell that it was very, very large, and full of all sorts of things -- things mostly organized in a big pile on the floor.

||You may look for your possessions here. Then you may proceed to the Observation Deck where the rest of the crew is assembling.||

All that she was able to find in the pile was her space-rock bracelet, her gauntlets, and her headband - all of which she put on rather promptly.

"... Okay," she said, looking around. "I... I can't read. Which way do I go?"

||I will show you the way.||

A tentacle nudged up along side her feet, and slithered off towards the Obs Deck so that she could follow it.

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Unleash the Podlings!

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