This is very old, but somehow it's still being read on Deviantart O_O Quite a lot! Which is interesting because the movie came out six years ago!
I have the entire fanfic finished and published on Deviantart, but some people wanted it on here too, so I'm re-uploading the whole thing.
If you want to see lots and lots of art relating to this fanfic, look in my profile!
And as always, review, review! :DDD
Chapter 1 - Where is the love?
"Hey, lookit that!"
Keith signaled towards a dark, shifting figure half concealed behind a container. It was almost nightfall in the city of Johannesburg and the group of hulky friends and their girlfriends was walking down a deserted street from the cinema, celebrating their first week in the city, when the biggest of them, his hair blonde and spiky, noticed the lonely scavenger amidst the shadows.
The prawn hadn't noticed them, busy as it was rummaging through the garbage for something to eat, or something to sell. Ana grabbed hold of Keith's humongous quarterback arm begging him to just ignore the critter. She had recently moved to Johannesburg, but not because of them. They scared her, she wanted nothing to do with their kind.
"Don't go near it, Keith, let's just go."
"Hang on, baby, I wanna check it out."
Half the members of the group seemed as thrilled with the idea as him and followed Keith. Gery and her boyfriend Sean, two good friends of Ana, stayed behind with her and watched, and they all thought they knew what to expect when Keith showed such interest in something. It usually meant someone was about to have a rough time.
"Keith!" Ana insisted without much hope. He had the habit of getting them all in trouble. Sometimes she wondered why she still went out with him, why she had followed him all the way to Johannesburg.
Keith and his three brawny friends stepped up to the prawn, who had just that instant noticed the humans approaching and stood facing them, its eyes alert and nervous, its hands at the ready for anything they might attempt. It was wearing some sort of long skirt which made a somewhat awkward effect over its grasshopper legs.
Ana had only seen them through a TV screen up until then and hadn't expected to find a real-life one on the street on her first week there. She was really hoping not to.
"Hey, buddy" Keith said to the prawn, "look, I got something you may like here."
He held out his closed fist and the rest chuckled silently. The prawn looked at it with distrust and started slowly backing up as the humans came closer.
"Go on, take a look, I'll trade you for something."
The alien took one last look at the fist and decided that whatever it was, it was definitely not worth the risk and quickly turned to leave. That's when Keith and his three friends jumped on it and threw it on the ground, immobilizing it like only four football players could.
Ana cringed seeing the prawn squeal and growl in fear as the four young men held it against the concrete. Keith was now holding his cell phone up in front of the enraged creature, apparently recording the whole thing. He smiled with delight while scanning the prawn's entire carcass with the phone's light.
"Hey, baby! Come look at this, it's so weird!"
She took a few hesitant steps forward.
"Keith, just leave it alone and let's go."
"Look at how it breathes, it's crazy!" he exclaimed holding the phone's light to the prawn's heaving throat. "Come here, look at this!"
Ana couldn't see anything from there, and neither did she want to. It had never occurred to her that the aliens could be creatures she could feel compassion for, but the scene was getting on her nerves.
"You're being an ass. Let it go!"
"We're just curious. Have you even seen one this up close before!"
One of the boys, a square-headed, dark-skinned bloke whose name she didn't even remember, touched one of the prawn's twitching antenna and quickly removed his hand when the prawn reacted with a flinch and a growl. All of them laughed.
"I think they're sensitive or something, man" he guffawed.
"Leave it alone, you're all drunk!" screamed Ana.
"Well so are you" answered one of the boys' girlfriend, who had been observing
the inspection closely all the time. Ana always hated her slutty ass.
"I'm not harassing some poor creature just out of curiosity!"
"Ana, it's a prawn."
"Come on, he's done nothing to you!" Gery joined on Ana's side.
Keith merely ignored them.
"We're not hurting it, God!"
But in Ana's opinion, he had just gone too far the moment he pulled up the shaggy fabric the alien was wearing and uncovered its pelvis. The prawn screeched and writhed in misery.
"Keith, no!"
"Hey don't do that, man!" Sean protested as well.
The boys holding the prawn laughed at the naked pelvis.
"Man, just lookit that! That is the weirdest thing I've seen!" said Keith as he picked up a stick from the ground and brushed it against the prawn's groin.
"Stop this, it's sick!"
"We're not doing anything to it, baby" he said still not taking his eyes off the prawn's pelvis. Everyone present except for Ana and Gary and Sean was watching with morbid fascination. The prawn trembled in despair and Ana watched with revulsion.
And their eyes met.
There was so much terror, so much sadness in its eyes that Ana reacted on an impulse by grabbing her boyfriend's arm and pulling to make him stand.
"You and I are finished from this moment on, Keith" she growled. "You-are-an-ass!"
Keith looked bewildered.
"It's just a fucking prawn!"
"You're a lot worse than them!"
"How can I be worse than them?"
"Tell them to let that prawn go, Keith!"
They both exchanged outraged looks for a moment and then Keith turned around and kept recording the prawn's face while the slut gave Ana a haughty look. God, how she hated her.
Gery and Sean walked up to her and they both turned to leave, figuring they really could do nothing for the prawn, but then they saw a group of several people that were marching up the street towards them looking unfriendly. And was that another prawn marching behind them?
"Keith, people are coming" she warned.
"No one even cares about this, baby" he laughed but was cut off by a couple of hands that dragged him off his knees to a standing position.
"Lay off the prawn!" said one of the strangers. He was tall and had the presence of a school principal, enough to make Keith back off a couple steps before he managed to react.
"Who the hell are you?"
Another six of them joined in and Keith didn't look so brave anymore. Especially after realizing one of the strangers was another healthier-looking, menacingly confident prawn.
"I said lay off the prawn!"
The other three immediately let go of the prawn's arms and legs and stood aside when it jumped to its feet and made to snap at them before running to put some distance between itself and the humans. The other prawn skipped towards it, grabbing its arm to keep it from running away and they both started chattering something excitedly, but Ana was too distracted by the present scene to take much notice.
"Sympathizers!" yelled Keith like it was the worst insult he could think of. It certainly was the longest word he had said in a long time.
"Just get outta here" the strangers said like they were shooing off some pesky swarm of flies.
"Sympathizers!" he repeated and the rest echoed. Ana didn't know what to do. Going with them was the last thing on her mind, and so was it on Gery and her boyfriend's mind, apparently.
"Go on, scram" said the tall stranger non-challantly.
Keith took one last furious look at Ana before understanding she wasn't coming
with them and then walked away ignoring her completely.
"Hey!"
Ana gave a start. The tall stranger had walked up to them accompanied by a few of his friends. He was at least several years older than them, pale and dark-haired.
"Are you with them?" he asked pointing at the group of bullies.
"No" Sean said for the three of them. "At least not anymore."
"Did you have anything to do with this?"
The stranger was calmly talking to Ana this time, so she just had to answer.
"No. Well, one of them was my boyfriend, but I just dumped him, so…" she added quickly.
"We were actually trying to make them stop."
The stranger looked behind himself at the group of people, and so did Ana. The prawn that had moments before been lying in the ground stood before several of the humans looking anxious, shaking from head to toes and keeping close to the other prawn who was calmly speaking to it. There seemed to be some sort of introduction going on. The tall stranger turned his eyes back to them.
"All right" he said and turned to leave. "Night, then."
That left Ana, Gery and Sean looking awkwardly at each other.
"So what do we do now?" asked Gery. "Our place is only a few blocks away, but how are you gonna get home?"
"It's ok, I'll find a minibus, or something. Really, no problem" she smiled at them, wanting them to feel alright with it. Secretly she just wanted them to leave so she could maybe stay for a couple more minutes and watch.
She succeeded and the couple set off in the opposite direction.
Ana then pretended to be distracted with her cell phone. She wasn't sure what kept her here. Was it the prawns she was starting to get interested in? Or was it that tall, dark-haired, self contained, generally good-looking stranger?
A short while later the reunion started to break up and Ana headed for a main street to get the minibus she had mentioned earlier intentionally walking past the group and focusing particularly on the two prawns. It felt strange, but if all those people didn't care, then why should she worry about them? The smaller prawn was looking a bit less terrified now, as far as Ana could see through the veil of the interspecies barrier, around its new company.
"Everything alright?"
It was the tall stranger again. He probably noticed her attempt to get a closer look. But he didn't seem angry, on the contrary. He came closer and dedicated her a smile. He had a great smile.
"You look like you need a ride."
Ana hesitated.
"Uh, well… I am pretty far from my house, but don't worry, I don't want to interrupt…"
The stranger gently shook his head.
"Nothing to interrupt. We were just leaving. Almost nine, see? Their curfew's almost starting" he added pointing towards the prawns. "Need to get them back to D9."
"Oh… Well, thank you, but I…"
"Ah, I know what you're thinking. Don't worry, my car's over there and the prawns aren't coming. I was going to drop off a couple friends anyway. If you come with us we'll tell you whatever you're so curious about."
Ana gave a doubtful snigger.
"Uh, well… fine, ok."
The stranger nodded in agreement.
"Come, I'll introduce you."
Ana thanked the heavens that most of the people had already gone, including the prawns. All that was left was a couple of people besides them two, and suddenly she noticed they really weren't all boys. There was a girl: a very tall girl, dressed in gothic style. She stared at her baggy black pants covered with hanging silver chains for an instant before realizing she was actually being rather rude. Still, no wonder Ana had taken her for another boy.
"This is Amelia and Thomas. My name is Rineke" they all held hands.
"Ana" she said.
At least she didn't need to pay for a taxi, though she felt like an outsider the whole way home. These people were… Well, they socialized with prawns, for one thing. Not only that; they told her about their "association"; their Poleepkwa Help Association.
"What help?"
"Poleepkwa is what they call themselves. The prawns. We try not to use the word prawn unless it's necessary. It's derogatory."
"We were patrolling" added Thomas matter-of-factly. He had a foreign accent. "We do that sometimes. There's always someone to help, sadly…"
Ana thought "sad" wasn't the word she would use to describe Thomas's mood. He seemed to be enjoying the whole thing the most.
"Thomas is from Scotland" Rineke commented. "He's come all the way here for some time to help around."
"Aye, I've been saving for this since high school" he said joyfully.
"You want a tip?" said the goth girl. "If you find yourself face to face with a Poleepkwa, do the Vulcan sign, you know, from Star Trek" and she demonstrated, holding her hand up with the fingers in such a position that she could fit them in a three fingered glove. "It's our secret greeting. If you're lucky they'll know what you mean."
"Hah, ok…" chuckled Ana.
" We can't tell you much about us yet, but maybe you'd like to join us for one of our meetings!"
"Um, right."
"You can meet other Poleepkwas. It'll be interesting, eh?" said Amelia.
Whatever, she thought. All she knew was she didn't feel like having an encounter like that ever again.
"Look, I'll give you my number. If you wanna give me yours I can call you when we're having a meeting" Rineke said. He didn't even wait for a reply. He wrote his number down on a piece of paper and handed it to her. The car stopped; she was home. "You don't have to give me your number now, just call me and I'll get it."
"Ok. See ya and thanks so much for the ride."
"Bye, Ana."
"Nice meeting you."
"Awaiting your call!"
Ana swung the car door shut and headed for the front door without looking back, feeling glad that was over.