Unearthly Children

[cityship]

||Pod Release Protocols Initating.||

Again. But this was a separate release. And now there were people to announce pod releases to.

Pop. Pop pop pop. Poppuhpoppoppop. KASCHUNKhiiiiiiiissssss.

Comments

[leather-bastard.livejournal.com]

Scorpius awakened separately from the others (http://leather-bastard.livejournal.com/651.html)... and now he wanders the hallways of the vessel, taking in the surroundings.

The more he knows about this location, the more strength he has when the time comes to make his move.

[mynameisax.livejournal.com]

Aximili-Esgarrouth-Isthill stumbled when he was ejected from his pod, but somehow managed to stay up on his hooves. He wiped the slime from his stalk-eyes as he flicked it off of his tailblade, then wiped his main eyes as he looked around for the threat.

Because there was a threat. He was disoriented, he didn't know how long he'd been unconscious. That never happened. Andalites always knew what time it was and how long they'd been unconscious. Their internal clocks were highly accurate.

This wasn't Earth, he knew that much. This was a space ship. He couldn't feel the planet's rotation, and there weren't any directions. No north or east or west or south.

He peered around in the dim lighting, using his tail to scrape as much of the slime out of his fur as possible. This couldn't be a Yeerk ship. If he'd been captured by the Yeerks, they'd have killed him. Or they'd have held him down while one of them forced their sluglike body into his ear, turning him into a second abomination.

Where were the others? Where was he?

[nothlitprince.livejournal.com]

Tobias tumbled out of the pod with an indignant cry; his instinct was to fly, but his wings were laden with...with he wasn't sure he wanted to know just yet.

Oh, man, this was gross. At least there wasn't any in his eyes - he could see the room clearly, which didn't actually help much. It looked like nothing he'd even seen.

As he began to preen, he focused on his friends, on calling out to them and only them. If they were close enough...

<Guys?>

[mynameisax.livejournal.com]

< Tobias? >

Ax stepped gingerly through the slime towards the familiar -- if messy -- bundle of feathers. He was unreasonably relieved to see Tobias here, even if it meant that both of them were captured. At least he wasn't alone here.

[nothlitprince.livejournal.com]

He couldn't smile, of course, but a wave of relief hit him that was clear in his words.

<Ax!>

He trudged forward, a bit, before giving up and going back to cleaning - for once, he was incredibly grateful for the lack of proper taste buds.

<Any idea what this place is?>

[mynameisax.livejournal.com]

< I don't think it's the Yeerks, > Ax said, keeping his thought-speak strictly to Tobias, just to be on the safe side. < But I do not know who else it might be either. This doesn't look like any space ship I've ever even heard of. >

He moved to stand by his friend, looking around for any sign of an attack. Tobias obviously couldn't fly, so if they were attacked, Ax would have to either be able to defend him or to scoop him up and run.

[nothlitprince.livejournal.com]

<Well, that's something, I guess.>

He felt much safer, with Ax near; it was a welcome reassurance.

<Do you know how long we were in those things?>

[mynameisax.livejournal.com]

Ax shifted uncomfortably.

< Unfortunately, no, > he admitted reluctantly. < And we are no longer on Earth, either. >

His stalk eyes continued to scan their surroundings, looking for some sort of threat. This time though, he heard something (http://community.livejournal.com/trans_9/2233.html?thread=215225#t215225) before he saw anything.

< We're not alone, > he warned, and scooped Tobias up in his arms before moving to hide so they could see what it was they shared these caverns with without being seen themselves.

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

Jaime was kind of used to the horrible feeling of stuff sliding over his skin, really he was. But this was a little drippy and ridiculous.

Or so he would've thought if he and Khaji Da hadn't been shocked into consciousness by pain. So much pain. Like his head was exploding. Khaji's 24/7 scans were pulling in massive amounts of indecipherable data, there was some kind of feedback, an overload of information, and the pain was the first thing he--that they noticed when they woke.

When they woke screaming, the suit shifting on and off of his body as the scarab tried to make sense of the massive flow of incoming data forcing itself into their brains.

"Nyeeeeargh!"

[flunkingspanish.livejournal.com]

Paco yelped as he hit the floor face first, then scrabbled around in the slime that had spilled out with him.

"Jaime? JAIME?!"

He could hear his friend screaming somewhere nea-- there!

"JAIME!"

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

His nose was bleeding and he was clutching at his head.

"Mnuh. Can't--unh--can't think--we can't--nuh--too much--too much--scanning--too much--hitting something--feedback--aaaauuugh. Aaaaauugh."

[flunkingspanish.livejournal.com]

Okay, okay. Stay calm.

Dammit.

"Can you turn it off?" he asked. "Khaji, Jaime, one of you, turn it off!"

Oh, good plan, play Captain Obvious.

[el-escarabajo.livejournal.com]

"Turn--turn off. Khaji, he's right--turn it--shut it--"

Jaime collapsed in the pool of goo on the floor, gasping, and still holding his head for a moment, not quite able to move, even with the pain gone.

"Ow. Okay, I'm starting to think we deserved the Posse going after us after what Khaji did to Probe, if it felt anything like that. Neither of us could even think."

Jaime shoved himself up and wiped at his bloody nose with his forearm. All it really did was smear it.

"...How come we're both naked and sticky? And why is Brenda not here making a joke about it?"

The last thing he remembered, the three of them were together, and...

[flunkingspanish.livejournal.com]

Oh good. Best friend not in pain was a much better plan than the reverse.

"Dunno," Paco said, running a hand back through his hair and flicking the collected slime off onto the floor. "Khaji got anything? Because this doesn't look like El Paso to me."

He looked around again. "If Brenda's here, all we need to do is listen for the screaming of whatever brought us here, because she's not going to be happy about waking up naked and covered in snot."

[likeapoison.livejournal.com]

The goo part they were used to, at least. But that didn't stop both Pat and Toxin from being incredibly confused as a pod burst open, spilling Pat out. He coughed, trying to clear the goo away-not familiar goo; this was new goo, and that was just a little alarming-and looked around. "What the hell?"

Toxin's response was to suddenly burst out of Pat and begin forming the suit, tendrils lashing angrily as he spread out. He took control for the moment, baring his teeth and he snarled and snorted, trying to clear the goo away so he could smell properly.

[maninthemachine.livejournal.com]

There is a rather shiny-looking man who has just popped out of a pod just like Pat's not too far away.

Right now, he's currently trying to push himself off the ground as his optics adjust to the dim light.

"...Gah, fuck," he mutters. He takes a good long look around as he finally gets to his feet.

Cue sudden realization of sheer WTFery going on around here.

"...What the hell?"

He looks around more frantically, before realizing he's standing there, naked, covered in goo. His hands move to cover his robo-shame (Yes, he has a robo-shame. He'd have jumped off a cliff if he'd woken up to find he'd been made a cyborg without a robo-shame after he got hit by that grenade.)

Stay calm, Bri, he thought to himself. Probably just some crazy-as-fuck dream. Yep. Definitely.

...And then he saw Pat.

"....Aw, hell."

There goes that theory.

[likeapoison.livejournal.com]

Toxin snapped his head up at the sound of someone else talking and started in surprise. He snarled again, showing his teeth off to their fullest extent.

"Dammit-what I'd tell you about that-" there was a definite difference in the voices as Pat took over-he sounded normal, unlike Toxin's growling voice. "...What he said," he said after a moment, as he fully registered exactly what had startled Toxin.

[maninthemachine.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, just so you know, usually it's the more normal people who ask that kind of question of giant, creepy monster things, not the other way around," he said sarcastically.

"But, just so you don't end up deciding eat my head or something, I'm a cyborg."

Though, he's surprised to meet someone who doesn't know what a cyborg is, what with their extreme abundance back in his world. Maybe giant, creepy, monster things aren't very tech-savvy.

[likeapoison.livejournal.com]

The tendrils around Pat's waist and elbows snapped angrily-Toxin might not have been able to voice his opinion at the moment, but he could certainly express it non-verbally.

Pat, meanwhile, growled at...what appeared to be himself. "Calm down." He looked back to Bri, frowning. "You're a cyborg. Okay. I can deal with that. What I'm concerned about it what happened."

[maninthemachine.livejournal.com]

His bunny-ears antennae lowered slightly in frustration.

"Beats the hell outta me," Bri said. "You got any ideas, feel free to clue me in."

[donotpuncture.livejournal.com]

Private First Class William Hudson had a lot of reasons to be a paranoid fucker.

In fact, he'd been dragged off by those fucking aliens right before he got here. That was why when he woke up in a pile of goo on the floor, naked, and SAW all the pods around him, he FREAKED THE FUCK OUT.

"Aw, fuck no! Fuck no! Aw, God! No way, man! No fucking way! Fuck no! Awww, no!"

[cityship]

Things were about to get freakier.

A woman's voice seemed to come from nowhere.

||You seem distressed, William Hudson. Would you like a mild sedative?||

[donotpuncture.livejournal.com]

"Who the fuck are you?! What the fuck is this?! Where the fuck am I?! Where the fuck are my clothes?!"

[cityship]

||I am--||

A wave of emotions would hit Hudson, something along the lines of maternal love, duty, and honor mixed together.

||The closest possible pronunciation human vocal chords are capable of is STA'C K'LTRRB'TXFT, though many refer to me as Stacy. You have been released from podsleep. You are in the Pod Caverns. If you require clothing, I can direct you to the clothing room.||

[donotpuncture.livejournal.com]

"That's not a fucking answer, man! It's not!" But he followed, so he could get clothes.