Tangent's Tangents
A Self Insert Fanfict from Beyond by Tangent!
Based on a possible after effect of "Otaku PC" by Metroanime.
Expanded upon with the express permission of Metroanime.
Possible additional scenes by Metroanime (doubtful, but you never know...)
Pre-reading and editing assistance by:
Metroanime;
Lord Talon;
Howard Melton;
Nevrmore;
And some guy named Steve
DISCLAIMER: 'Ranma ½' and all characters therein belong to Rumiko Takahashi, Shogagukan, Kitty, and Viz Video. 'Sailor Moon' and all characters therein belong to Naoko Takeuchi and Toei Animation Co. Ltd. Tenchi, Bubblegum Crisis, Riding Bean, Cyber Punk, Shadowrun, X-Com, and sundry others all belong to their respective creators and associated companies as well (which should worry some of you...). The original concept for the Otaku PC fusion was Metroanime's. This fanfict has been produced for my own enjoyment and to pass on without profit. Other characters that come into play in this fanfict may or may not be pulled from other sources (including other fanficts, RPGs, manga, anime, literature, or possibly even *GASP* American comic books!).
CHAPTER ONE:
Tangent blinked.
Having come up with a plan to deal with what she had previously thought to be a free roaming, artifact level, techno-spiritual doomsday virus, only to bear witness as the darn thing 'hatched' and 'flew' away into nth dimensional space, dragging her through a few dimensional barriers in the process, had left her awe struck. Having all memories of the portions of its code that she had personally read ripped from her mind had left her disoriented. The large crescent wrench hitting the back of her head filled her vision with little stars...
...
...Tangent awakened bound and gagged, secured to a gurney in some sort of motorized transport (a flying one from the resonance she was getting through her strakes). She was still nude, as she had been since shortly after becoming a female gremlin.Which had either been about a week ago or over a hundred years ago, depending on which perspective she chose to follow. That she now remembered actually having been a male human by the name of Allen or Alex or something like that was noted for later perusal. That she had apparently lost the memories that had accumulated over a few thousand years of technological development, and had lost the part of herself that remembered being an Empress was also noted.
A wave of dizziness and nausea passed over Tangent, and she became aware of a throbbing headache. She felt weak, and doubted that she'd be able to stand under her own power, even if she hadn't been tied to a gurney at the moment. Not that doing so would have done much good, as her sensation of 'down' was meandering randomly instead of orienting either towards the true gravity well or whatever surface she happened to be roughly in contact with. Remembering the last time that she had a concussion (back in her former life as that guy... Alec? Eric? Ricky?), Tangent tried to review a few questions to herself in an attempt to self-diagnose how bad it was.
The current president was... An actor? Harry Potter perhaps? That sounded about right for the time being.
The year was... Vanilla extract multiplied by the square root of George Washington Carver. That didn't seem right for some reason, but just why escaped her at the moment, so she gave that one a pass, hoping to be more confident about it later.
Err... She was pretty sure that Beethoven wasn't a heavy metal superstar, but did he do rap or jazz?
Tentative conclusion: BAD head injury. No sudden changes in size for a while, unless she wanted to risk an anu... inna... abba... popping a blood vessel somewhere vital in her noggin'. Most of the rest of her innate gremlin abilities would probably be effectively "off-line" as well, until the problem cleared up. She could still 'hear' broadcast bands via her strakes, but she couldn't discriminate among them well enough to split radio stations from broadcast television. Nor were any of the signals being automatically decoded into a format that made sense. It was all just gibberish for the time being.
She doubted that she could generate enough of a charge to zap a mosquito, although it *would* be amusing to watch one fly off of her and do a header due to the toxin levels in her bloodstream...
Hmmm... was that an erotic feeling? Her nipples were hard, and she was unaccountably more aware than usual about her neither regions, but she didn't feel any actual desire
That clinched it. She remembered this much at least. Sexual reaction, without desire, in conjunction with a head injury definitely placed her in concussion territory. That meant that she was at the mercy of whoever had her at the moment.
"Our little visitor seems to have recovered somewhat from the blow that the mechanic had given her." Tangent turned her head to look at the speaker, a human male in his early to mid twenties by his appearance, wearing a dark riot-style uniform favored by some S.W.A.T. units that her former self had been aware of. That the words "Federal Bureau of Alien Management" were emblazoned across the front of what seemed to be a kevlar vest worried her.
Human Federal Bureaus of anything tended to be rife with a thorough mix of competence, incompetence, idealism, and corruption. Exactly what combination of which anybody encountered at any given time was thus far a statistical problem that had evaded resolution by her people for quite some time. Even including the people her former human self had belonged to, which said something sad about human nature.
Okay... She was, as far as she could tell, unmolested, and hadn't been taken advantage of while she had been unconscious. This suggested that this team were comprised largely of professionals.
She was also still nude, other than her restraints. Although this didn't really bother her in the slightest, she was aware that humans seemed to generally frown on public nudity. Granted, she had to accept this from the memories she had from being Nick or Mike or whoever she had been, so she took it with a grain of salt. One couldn't judge a whole species by the standards of only one of its cultures after all. Still, these agents had left her nude, and didn't seem inclined to remove even their armored vests. This suggested either a cold detachment, a lack of sentiment, or a desire to intimidate her by leaving her feeling vulnerable.
None of the other five had said anything in response to the comment from the one, and he had nervously slipped back into silence as a result. Looking over at the others, Tangent noted that two of them had their weapons carefully trained on her in such a manner that there was no risk of hitting the others in a cross-fire.
Paranoid professional alien hunters. Well, at least they hadn't killed her while she was unconscious or disoriented. Which, given their weapons, was the only time they had a good chance of actually hitting her. No reason to aggravate the humans though.
Surely this was all some sort of misunderstanding. She'd merely clear it up when they got to wherever they were taking her, and she'd be on her way again!
Settling in for the rest of the trip, mentally at least, Tangent idly tried scanning the local broadcasts again, wondering about the new world that she was in. If she *was* in another dimension, this was arguably the first time this had happened to her, as the previous experience that had felt similar had actually been her transformation from a Human male into a female gremlin. At the time, she had been so confused that she hadn't even thought of scanning the local frequencies in order to find out more about the world around her.
Now if only her headache would just go away. What had she been hit with anyway? A crescent wrench?
* * *
Jones had a few observations of his own. One was that Harrison was still a little green. Not because of his desire to chat so much, but because he had lapsed back into nervous silence when nobody responded to him. He'd either settle down and conform or grow more confident and the rest of the team would accept him and open up a bit more. Either option was fine by Jones, as long as the team remained competent in their duties.
Another habit to break Harrison of was unwarranted compassion for untested aliens. He had started to cover their captive with a blanket once she was secured to the gurney, only to be stopped by the more experienced members of the team. Conner, for example, knew far too well that some Uglies could slowly form either sharp spines or lethal stingers from various locations on their bodies. That most of the members of Conner's former team had paid for that knowledge with their lives still haunted the man from time to time.
Spines and stingers took a while to form or deploy, so if specialized restraints were unavailable, leaving the alien in question nude and under several sets of watchful eyes was the only option they could safely go with. Jones frowned slightly. Stingers, spines, tentacles dipped in acid... At least five catalogued breeds of the Uglies could produce them, and specialized restraints had been designed for each of them. The team had brought a set of each along when they got the call that some civilians had managed to capture an alien alive.
Naturally, it turned out that the alien was a new, and uncatalogued type, apparently unrelated to the Uglies. *Of course* this meant that none of the specialized restraints that had been brought along were suitable for their intended purpose. The fact that the new alien *appeared* harmless was making the team nervous as they waited for the other shoe to drop. Harrison's attempt at humor could have taken the edge off of that anxiety, allowing the team to concentrate better, or he could have kept his comment to himself, and not provide a distraction in a tense situation.
Jones would have to schedule some drills to get the team used to the new dynamics and settle in one way or another. This going on missions during a transition period had to go too, but Jones knew how likely that was.
Trusting Cartman, Conner, and the others to keep an eye on their prisoner, Jones headed up front to start on his report.
This alien had appeared, literally out of thin air by the accounts, outside of an autobody shop in southwestern Ohio. She had then been promptly cold-cocked by one of the mechanics using a crescent wrench. As the most serious emergency reported in the area in the past five years had been a local boy's cat getting stuck in a tree, the local authorities had deemed her to be potentially non-hostile. They had called the Bureau anyway, as a matter of prudence, even though she looked nothing like the 'Uglies'.
Five invasion attempts in the past fifteen years, by a race with an admitted taste for human flesh, had left the people of earth a bit paranoid about non-humans. Jones was quite frankly surprised that this visitor had been left alive and unmutilated for them to pick up. Granted, she bore a strong resemblance to a short (roughly four feet tall) human woman, if one chose to ignore her light green skin, the large vaguely pointed ears, the tail with the tuft of hair at the end, and the broad iridescent blue antennae sticking out past her hair.
Cursory examination showed that her hair was naturally a snowy white, although it was extremely fine over most of her body, like that on human child. And like a human child, the only places it was evident on her besides the tuft at the end of her tail were her cranium and eyebrows. The size of her breasts suggested that she was post-pubescent despite the lack of hair in that region, although making such assumptions about a non-human one way or the other was inadvisable.
More telling was her calm examination of her situation once she had recovered consciousness. After her initial worried expression, she didn't appear to be particularly concerned about the facts that she was restrained and under armed guard. Granted, her body language *could* be completely different, but her over all external physiology seemed to be close enough to human that basic reactions should be similar between their species.
The only thing absolutely certain though was that she was neither human nor an Ugly. Jones and the rest of his team would turn in their observations with their reports. After that it was up to the specialists to determine what she was.
And if her people were a threat to man kind...
* * *
A week later, two uniformed men were confronting each other outside of a national research facility.
"I'm telling you," a rather gruff and irritated man in a tan military uniform and light blue beret was practically shouting, "International Extraterrestrial Command should have been notified right away! How can we do any good if every country just *has* to get first crack at any aliens that slip through our defensive net?"
"This new alien was captured easily by civilians," another man spoke calmly, unaffected by the other's bluster. His uniform was the olive green of the United States Army. "Quite frankly, X-Com's record of *incidental* human casualties leaves us rather concerned about calling you in for ground based missions on American soil."
"Those were all accidents, Colonal Norris! Perfectly explainable as covered by the reports and follow up investigations!" The mans voice, while still loud and demanding, had started taking on a placating tone as well. The combination did not sound at all convincing.
"Tell that to the survivors of Willow Creek, Wyoming, Colonal Harver," Col. Norris suggested in the same dry manner as before.
"I wasn't aware that there were civilian survivors from the Willow Creek incident," Col. Harver admitted nervously. If Col. Norris had any observations about Col. Harvers sudden change in demeanor, he chose not to point them out... to Col. Harver at any rate.
"There weren't any," admitted Col. Norris. "Which is exactly why X-Com is no longer permitted to initiate ground based missions in the United States without a team of our FBAM agents along as observers. X-Com has a record of incidental civilian casualties for thirty percent of its ground based missions, most of which involving entire populations of small towns and villages. The teams who were involved in these *accidental* massacres have never been reprimanded, or even removed from duty during the follow up investigations." If Col. Norris' irritation was begining to show, it could probably be excused.
"The individuals responsible for those accidents were punished!"
"Name one," Col. Norris demanded. "Name one single individual who was punished for those incidents who did not later turn out to have had nothing at all to do with them!"
"Well, congradulations, Colonal Harver," a man in a dark suit interupted them. "You've managed to set off Colonal Norris. Again."
"Agent Kelly," Col. Norris acknowledged the man's pressence.
Col. Harver simply went silent. The FBAM agent had always made him nervous for some reason.
"If you'll both follow me, I'll bring you up to date on what we know about the new alien." Agent Kelly handed each a folder and turned to enter the facility.
* * *
Tangent sat up in the enclosure that she had been placed in. She felt a lot better now, but was disturbed about what had happened to her when they put her through a Magnetic Resonance Scanner. Which had been nothing out of the ordinary at first. It wasn't until the thing reached her head that she had started spasming uncontrollably. By the time the scan was done, she had been rendered unconscious again.
When she has awakened again, Tangent remembered being little better than a drooling idiot. For days she had behaved like an animal, without one single sentient thought floating through her head that she could now recognize as such. Not that she had been aware of her loss at the time.
No, she had been a happy, curious primate with only the most basic concepts of comunication and tool use. Not even as smart as a chimp or gorrilla, really. More like a monkey of some sort.
Tangent wondered if the experience would have bothered her so much if she didn't remember it all so clearly. Tangent felt for her strakes before remembering that she wouldn't be able to feel them even if they had returned. It wasn't as if they were solid. More like ethereal manifestations of specialized organs. Their absence was an indicator that something was seriously wrong with the individual missing them.
Tangent did not like it at all. Not one single little bit. She absently picked up a small rock in one hand and squeezed it out of frustration, not even noticing when it crumbled under the stress.
"I see that you're awake, Mint!" a voice Tangent recognized called out to her. "Would you like your breakfast now? We've got lots of yummie fruit for you!" Dr. Patterson was a bright and cheerful woman. Tangent did not feel at all comfortable with the resentment that she now felt for having been treated like an animal for the past week. At least Dr. Patterson was a primate specialist.
Some of the others treated her as if she had been something even less intelligent, like a lemming...
..or a radish.
Crushed rock was ground into even smaller pieces by a clenched fist before Tangent sighed and reined in her anger. She was a civilized being, and she would behave as such now that she was once again able to do so.
"My name is Tangent, Dr. Patterson. And yes, the fruit does sound nice, but you've been feeding me nothing but fruits and vegetables for the past week. Could I have some bacon and eggs? Or perhaps some sausage, pancakes, and an omlette?"
Dr. Patterson somehow managed not to drop the tray that she was holding. "You can talk!?"
"Well, now that I recovered from having my mind scrambled by the Magnetic Resonance Scanner. Why did they hold it in place around my head when I started to spasm? I'd have recovered a lot quicker if they hadn't done that..."
"They were trying to find your antannae. They couldn't find them on any of the images that the scanner was producing..."
"And so, naturally, they kept going back and forth, looking for them while I was experiencing something similar to an epileptic siezure. I hope that they don't treat *everyone* with such care," Tangent commented, voice dripping with sarcasm. Then she blew out a breath in a huff, and forced herself to calm down again. "You'll have to excuse me. I've just recovered from having my intelligence reduced to that of a lower order primate for several days. The experience has left me a tad miffed."
"I... see," Dr. Patterson responded, not knowing quite what to say. "Ummm... I notice that your antennae came back." Indeed, the primatologist could see the irradient blue structures had indeed returned, if set far back on the head, much like the ears of a cat were when the feline in question is irritated. This was nicely synchronized with the scowl she was getting.
"They're called 'strakes.' Faeries have antennae, gremlins have strakes." Tangent flicked hers out to the side, and then flexed them back up to their more normal angle of projection.
"Faeries?" Dr. Patterson asked. Aliens she could believe in. Those had been showing up for the past fifteen years, raiding small towns and villages all over the world when they could get past X-Com's security net. Faeries were another matter entirely. "Like in Tinkerbell?"
"Who?"
Dr. Patterson spent the next several hours explaining the story of Peter Pan to the being that had identified itself as being a gremlin. While she was doing so, several other doctors, scientists, and a team of armed agents had arrived, all of which were noted by Tangent, then ignored.
"So you're saying that this faerie, Tinkerbell, who couldn't speak and had this dandruff problem, had to be revived by children clapping their hands and saying that they believed in her?"
"Well, more ot less..."
Tangent fell back on her ass and laughed her head off while rolling on the ground for several minutes...
* * *
Another week had passed, although this time Tangent had actually conceded to wear something. A lab coat to be specific, but it was at least something. Tangent found the discomfort of the humans around her when she left the front of it open amusing. It had been one thing when they thought that she might be just an alien animal that just had a close resemblance to an adult human woman. They could say that they were just watching an animal like they would in a zoo, and push the embarrassment away.
Tangent's proving to be sentient after all, and a friendly and personable one at that, had left many of the personnel at the reseach facility feeling highly ashamed for having thought of her as an animal in the first place. That she was from a highly technical culture that viewed clothing as a purely optional concept, and thought that their taboo about nudity was cute was only more disconcerting.
"So Faeries don't require people to believe in them in order to stay healthy?" Dr. Patterson asked their 'guest'. She had remained on the examination team, despite the discovery that Tangent was not simply some alien pet or food animal that had somehow gotten loose, largely because she had managed to establish a rapport with the gremlin. The two were walking around the research facility under armed escort. Mostly to stretch their legs for a bit, as far as the doctor knew.
"Not usually, no, although this Tinkerbell may have been under a curse. I'm not well versed in the magical arts, as gremlins tend to be more technologically oriented, but such a curse *is* possible as far as I know." Tangent, having been scanning the wiring in the corridors during their walk, now knew where all of the cameras, hidden or otherwise, were. She also knew which floor tiles were pressure sensitive, how often the guards made radio checks, and which doors required an electronic code to open.
Admittedly, she *could* have been treated far worse while she had been nonsentient for the past week. Dr. Patterson had treated her with the same dignity and respect that she gave every primate that she had studied. Dr. Parks had considered her to be a particularly dumb animal though, having been of the opinion that she had been alien livestock. And Dr. Ikari seemed to believe that she had the same general value as a radish, and had treated her as such.
In fact, he still did, which was why Tangent was planning to leave so soon. Not that he didn't treat most people that way, but Tangent didn't really want to be in the same building as the man for long periods of time. Another week as a captive after she had recovered her mental bearings had helped her finish the healing process. Sticking around had showed her that some of the FBAM agents were much better shots than she had given them credit for, so simply shrinking down to a foot or less in height and manifesting her wings to fly away was somewhat less appealing than it had been before.
Besides, the technical challenge of a night-time escape while at near human size intrigued her...
* * *
Dr. Gendo Ikari revewed the records that had been accumulated about the new alien. The fact that it claimed to be a gremlin and related to faerie kind was laughable. That an alien knew so much about human myths, and had tried to play on them was disturbing. Tests done on the cell cultures and blood samples taken from this 'Tangent' were proving to be alarming. The special gasses that X-Com had come up with to clear an area of Uglies wouldn't effect her in the slightest.
In fact, the cell cultures seemed to thrive on the various toxins that they had tried to use on them. Nor did oxygen poor environments bother the cells, as long as they had *something* to exchange chemical energy with. Speculations abounded as to whether 'Tangent' could survive unaided on Venus or Mars.
The discovery of the effect of highly concentrated magnetic fields had on her intelligence level had been serendipitous, although Gendo's attempts to find out how long it would take to wipe out even her most primal mental functions had been halted. That she had recovered in about a week was disappointing, but any period in which this new race could be mentally crippled, however temporarily, was a plus. So Gendo had initiated a new project to develop concentrated magenetic field projectors, or what was now being called the Magnetic Lance project.
That 'Tangent' seemed to be friendly and inclined to be generally helpful was not a concern of his. She wasn't human. She wasn't even from Earth. Aliens had captured his wife and had started eating her as he looked helplessly on, fifteen years ago, when a small group of idealists had tried to make first contact with visitors from beyond.
As far as Gendo was concerned, killing aliens was far too good for them. They had to be destroyed. Humiliated and made to feel as helpless and weak as they had made him feel all those years ago. Made to suffer slow and agonizing deaths after long periods of torture, as had happened to his late wife while he had watched from captivity.
Dr. Gendo Ikari didn't care who got in his way. All aliens had to be either enslaved or destroyed! Only that would put the memory of his departed wife to rest.
General Prosek of X-Com had similar views, Gendo knew, so arranging for X-Com agents to be able to claim 'Tangent' for one of that organizations research facilities, where she would be tested to destruction was not something that bothered Dr. Ikari in the least bit. Tangent would die her slow and painful death, over a period of days or perhaps even a month or two.
Dr. Gendo Ikari could only smile at the thought...
* * *
Tangent remained blissfully unaware of the plans regarding her ultimate fate going on around her. She left some notes on the basics for a working faster-than-light drive as a parting gift in return for their hospitality. Nothing major, just something that could get them to 1.2 past the speed of light and back. That would be sufficient to give them an advantage over the would be invaders, as the 'Uglies' had only a gravitic drive that could propel them at about 89% of lightspeed.
The version of the artificial gravity generator that the humans of this Terra had reverse engineered couldn't yet match the original versions, speed-wise, but they *would* permit the basic FTL drive to be safely used by human crews. The war for control of the Sol system was about to take a drastic turn as the natives were soon to pick up a massive home court advantage.
A fact that added a perky smile to Tangent's lips as she wandered down the facilities corridors one night, deftly staying out of camera arcs, off of pressure plates, and avoiding laser grids. Most of the electronic locks were shielded, preventing her from scanning what their codes were and simply feeding them back to deactivate them. She had debated about either reducing down and using the ventilation system for her entire escape, or simply ripping the lock panels off of the walls and rewiring the doors manually while by-passing the alarms.
The first would either be too easy, assuming that the ventilation system was both interconnected and extended to the outside, or pointless if the system was self-contained and partitioned. The second would probably be detected too soon after she had passed an area, provided that the panels weren't rigged to set off an alarm if torn from the walls. So she compromised by using the ventilation shafts that she could fit into without shrinking, and sneeking around until she found unshielded panels that she could scan and actvate.
While Tangent was having fun with her grand escape attempt, she remained totally unaware of the X-Com extraction team that was currently making their way into the facility and towards the cell where she was supposed to be. They were just ariving at the cell as Tangent was passing the front desk.
"Good night, Officer Rhodes!" Tangent waved cheerfully as she walked out the door.
"Good Night Dr. Tan... HEY!"
Tangent stuck her tongue out mischieviously as she picked up her pace. Officer Rhodes had activated the alarms, as expected, stirring up the facilities' security. Pure harmless fun, but she was sure to pop down to about six inches in height and flit off before any of the guards could be directed outside. The empty lab coat was found moments later, but it was too dark to see her tiny form as it flew off into the distance.
The discovery of the X-Com extraction team and Dr. Gendo Ikari's involvement in getting them to where they were discovered was pure serendipity. Proving that luck flows both ways.
As the notes that Tangent had been left behind had a message of farewell to Dr. Emily Patterson, she was credited with the first friendly contact between Humanity and an alien race. This information was leaked to the general public about a month later by Col. Norris, who was growing more and more fed up with X-Com. People across the world saw the recorded interviews between Dr. Emily Patterson and the perky little gremlin (most of which were from after Tangent started wearing the labcoat, and the few from before then had discrete visual distortion blocks for public viewing).
Much to X-Com's annoyance, Col. Norris was not reprimanded and removed from active service. It seemed that after fifteen years of war, the public was ready to hear news of friendly aliens. Col. Norris and Dr. Patterson had become instant celebrities.
When the FTL drive tests proved to be successful the following year, General Norris smiled slightly. The new ships produced were part of the new Sol System Defense Force, which was largely subplanting X-Com as the front line against alien invasion. That the SSDF received more international support than X-Com did was just the icing on the cake...
Thus, the world was primed to give another set of visitors a chance when they showed up about three years later, with a faster-than-light drive capable of achieving 1.5 times lightspeed. Maybe they didn't look as close to humans as Tangent had, but they weren't of the same race as the Uglies either. Nor, for that matter, were they on the same side as the Uglies, as they had promptly moved against one of the Invader's ships that had surprised a native (human) patrol ship.
Peacful contact had been established, alliances made, and two evil Empires toppled before they could grow too large to stop easily. One that had been based on Earth, under the cover of the International Extraterrestrial Command's defensive mission, and the other based in space, by a race that found other intelligent races to be a fine delicacy.
Tangent had never even seen an Ugly, and had helped to topple their plans. If she had, the memories of her former human self might have dredged up another name for what they were:
Ilythids. They may not have actually been the race thad had been described by the AD&D role-playing game system, but they sure did resemble them...
The other race would have been harder for her to identify specifically. They bore a strong resemblace to velociraptors, only with more cranial capacity, an extra set of arms, and omnivorous teeth. They could sing with great range and beauty, and declared the similarly musical humans to be their sister race in the stars.
None of which Tangent was aware of, as she had long since located an old faerie mound whose mushroom ring had nearly grown too far to retain a suitable amount of symmetry...
* * *
Tangent hadn't been expecting Underhill to be so... lifeless. There *had* been faeries here before, the scattered bones of the fey long since dead showed her that much, but what had killed them all? She didn't stick around to find out.
Passing through a few more veils, until she started seeing life again, Tangent pondered on where to go next. She had originally set out to try to hook up with either Grey or the Pheonix Mage, but the chances of actually encountering either of them or a suitable analogue had dropped drastically once she had been dragged out of her dimension of origin. She couldn't go back, as her experiments with traveling between the faerie and mortal realms there had proved that all access via the routes that she could use were nonexistent at that end. A hill was just a hill, and a ring of mushrooms was just a ring of mushrooms, even if they were found together.
Actually staying in the faerie realms was out of the question. Gremlins were pretty much shunned by the members of the Sidhe Courts as being too strongly alligned with cold iron and technology. Few even chose to acknowledge that gremlins were derived from the old Fey Tuin race as well, although those that did often referred to them as techno-sprites.
Relations with the Unsidhe Courts were worse, as they merely tended to enslave gremlins to their own ends. Adding to Tangent's problem in specific was the fact that she used to be a mortal. As souls were not destroyed by transformation into other beings, that meant that Tangent still had one. This would make her a prize for those who could sense such. Granted, gremlins were also among the most toxic faeries around, due to their inclination for supplementing their diets with the strongest poisons and pollutants that they could find. More of a method of self-defense rather than offense. Few things, even of magical nature, wanted to eat something that could eat a South American Poison Arrow Frog and ask for seconds...
Still, torturing one until she gave up her soul would probably be fun for one of the Unsidhe faeries, so Tangent didn't actually want to encounter one while travelling underhill. So it could be understood why she jumped through the veil into another mortal realm as soon as she she spotted the troll. Well, that and the fact that trolls were among the few things that would not think twice about eating a gremlin...
End Chapter one
A Self Insert Fanfict from Beyond by Tangent!
Based on a possible after effect of "Otaku PC" by Metroanime.
Expanded upon with the express permission of Metroanime.
Possible additional scenes by Metroanime (doubtful, but you never know...)
Pre-reading and editing assistance by:
Metroanime;
Lord Talon;
Howard Melton;
Nevrmore;
And some guy named Steve
DISCLAIMER: 'Ranma ½' and all characters therein belong to Rumiko Takahashi, Shogagukan, Kitty, and Viz Video. 'Sailor Moon' and all characters therein belong to Naoko Takeuchi and Toei Animation Co. Ltd. Tenchi, Bubblegum Crisis, Riding Bean, Cyber Punk, Shadowrun, X-Com, and sundry others all belong to their respective creators and associated companies as well (which should worry some of you...). The original concept for the Otaku PC fusion was Metroanime's. This fanfict has been produced for my own enjoyment and to pass on without profit. Other characters that come into play in this fanfict may or may not be pulled from other sources (including other fanficts, RPGs, manga, anime, literature, or possibly even *GASP* American comic books!).
CHAPTER ONE:
Tangent blinked.
Having come up with a plan to deal with what she had previously thought to be a free roaming, artifact level, techno-spiritual doomsday virus, only to bear witness as the darn thing 'hatched' and 'flew' away into nth dimensional space, dragging her through a few dimensional barriers in the process, had left her awe struck. Having all memories of the portions of its code that she had personally read ripped from her mind had left her disoriented. The large crescent wrench hitting the back of her head filled her vision with little stars...
...
...Tangent awakened bound and gagged, secured to a gurney in some sort of motorized transport (a flying one from the resonance she was getting through her strakes). She was still nude, as she had been since shortly after becoming a female gremlin.Which had either been about a week ago or over a hundred years ago, depending on which perspective she chose to follow. That she now remembered actually having been a male human by the name of Allen or Alex or something like that was noted for later perusal. That she had apparently lost the memories that had accumulated over a few thousand years of technological development, and had lost the part of herself that remembered being an Empress was also noted.
A wave of dizziness and nausea passed over Tangent, and she became aware of a throbbing headache. She felt weak, and doubted that she'd be able to stand under her own power, even if she hadn't been tied to a gurney at the moment. Not that doing so would have done much good, as her sensation of 'down' was meandering randomly instead of orienting either towards the true gravity well or whatever surface she happened to be roughly in contact with. Remembering the last time that she had a concussion (back in her former life as that guy... Alec? Eric? Ricky?), Tangent tried to review a few questions to herself in an attempt to self-diagnose how bad it was.
The current president was... An actor? Harry Potter perhaps? That sounded about right for the time being.
The year was... Vanilla extract multiplied by the square root of George Washington Carver. That didn't seem right for some reason, but just why escaped her at the moment, so she gave that one a pass, hoping to be more confident about it later.
Err... She was pretty sure that Beethoven wasn't a heavy metal superstar, but did he do rap or jazz?
Tentative conclusion: BAD head injury. No sudden changes in size for a while, unless she wanted to risk an anu... inna... abba... popping a blood vessel somewhere vital in her noggin'. Most of the rest of her innate gremlin abilities would probably be effectively "off-line" as well, until the problem cleared up. She could still 'hear' broadcast bands via her strakes, but she couldn't discriminate among them well enough to split radio stations from broadcast television. Nor were any of the signals being automatically decoded into a format that made sense. It was all just gibberish for the time being.
She doubted that she could generate enough of a charge to zap a mosquito, although it *would* be amusing to watch one fly off of her and do a header due to the toxin levels in her bloodstream...
Hmmm... was that an erotic feeling? Her nipples were hard, and she was unaccountably more aware than usual about her neither regions, but she didn't feel any actual desire
That clinched it. She remembered this much at least. Sexual reaction, without desire, in conjunction with a head injury definitely placed her in concussion territory. That meant that she was at the mercy of whoever had her at the moment.
"Our little visitor seems to have recovered somewhat from the blow that the mechanic had given her." Tangent turned her head to look at the speaker, a human male in his early to mid twenties by his appearance, wearing a dark riot-style uniform favored by some S.W.A.T. units that her former self had been aware of. That the words "Federal Bureau of Alien Management" were emblazoned across the front of what seemed to be a kevlar vest worried her.
Human Federal Bureaus of anything tended to be rife with a thorough mix of competence, incompetence, idealism, and corruption. Exactly what combination of which anybody encountered at any given time was thus far a statistical problem that had evaded resolution by her people for quite some time. Even including the people her former human self had belonged to, which said something sad about human nature.
Okay... She was, as far as she could tell, unmolested, and hadn't been taken advantage of while she had been unconscious. This suggested that this team were comprised largely of professionals.
She was also still nude, other than her restraints. Although this didn't really bother her in the slightest, she was aware that humans seemed to generally frown on public nudity. Granted, she had to accept this from the memories she had from being Nick or Mike or whoever she had been, so she took it with a grain of salt. One couldn't judge a whole species by the standards of only one of its cultures after all. Still, these agents had left her nude, and didn't seem inclined to remove even their armored vests. This suggested either a cold detachment, a lack of sentiment, or a desire to intimidate her by leaving her feeling vulnerable.
None of the other five had said anything in response to the comment from the one, and he had nervously slipped back into silence as a result. Looking over at the others, Tangent noted that two of them had their weapons carefully trained on her in such a manner that there was no risk of hitting the others in a cross-fire.
Paranoid professional alien hunters. Well, at least they hadn't killed her while she was unconscious or disoriented. Which, given their weapons, was the only time they had a good chance of actually hitting her. No reason to aggravate the humans though.
Surely this was all some sort of misunderstanding. She'd merely clear it up when they got to wherever they were taking her, and she'd be on her way again!
Settling in for the rest of the trip, mentally at least, Tangent idly tried scanning the local broadcasts again, wondering about the new world that she was in. If she *was* in another dimension, this was arguably the first time this had happened to her, as the previous experience that had felt similar had actually been her transformation from a Human male into a female gremlin. At the time, she had been so confused that she hadn't even thought of scanning the local frequencies in order to find out more about the world around her.
Now if only her headache would just go away. What had she been hit with anyway? A crescent wrench?
* * *
Jones had a few observations of his own. One was that Harrison was still a little green. Not because of his desire to chat so much, but because he had lapsed back into nervous silence when nobody responded to him. He'd either settle down and conform or grow more confident and the rest of the team would accept him and open up a bit more. Either option was fine by Jones, as long as the team remained competent in their duties.
Another habit to break Harrison of was unwarranted compassion for untested aliens. He had started to cover their captive with a blanket once she was secured to the gurney, only to be stopped by the more experienced members of the team. Conner, for example, knew far too well that some Uglies could slowly form either sharp spines or lethal stingers from various locations on their bodies. That most of the members of Conner's former team had paid for that knowledge with their lives still haunted the man from time to time.
Spines and stingers took a while to form or deploy, so if specialized restraints were unavailable, leaving the alien in question nude and under several sets of watchful eyes was the only option they could safely go with. Jones frowned slightly. Stingers, spines, tentacles dipped in acid... At least five catalogued breeds of the Uglies could produce them, and specialized restraints had been designed for each of them. The team had brought a set of each along when they got the call that some civilians had managed to capture an alien alive.
Naturally, it turned out that the alien was a new, and uncatalogued type, apparently unrelated to the Uglies. *Of course* this meant that none of the specialized restraints that had been brought along were suitable for their intended purpose. The fact that the new alien *appeared* harmless was making the team nervous as they waited for the other shoe to drop. Harrison's attempt at humor could have taken the edge off of that anxiety, allowing the team to concentrate better, or he could have kept his comment to himself, and not provide a distraction in a tense situation.
Jones would have to schedule some drills to get the team used to the new dynamics and settle in one way or another. This going on missions during a transition period had to go too, but Jones knew how likely that was.
Trusting Cartman, Conner, and the others to keep an eye on their prisoner, Jones headed up front to start on his report.
This alien had appeared, literally out of thin air by the accounts, outside of an autobody shop in southwestern Ohio. She had then been promptly cold-cocked by one of the mechanics using a crescent wrench. As the most serious emergency reported in the area in the past five years had been a local boy's cat getting stuck in a tree, the local authorities had deemed her to be potentially non-hostile. They had called the Bureau anyway, as a matter of prudence, even though she looked nothing like the 'Uglies'.
Five invasion attempts in the past fifteen years, by a race with an admitted taste for human flesh, had left the people of earth a bit paranoid about non-humans. Jones was quite frankly surprised that this visitor had been left alive and unmutilated for them to pick up. Granted, she bore a strong resemblance to a short (roughly four feet tall) human woman, if one chose to ignore her light green skin, the large vaguely pointed ears, the tail with the tuft of hair at the end, and the broad iridescent blue antennae sticking out past her hair.
Cursory examination showed that her hair was naturally a snowy white, although it was extremely fine over most of her body, like that on human child. And like a human child, the only places it was evident on her besides the tuft at the end of her tail were her cranium and eyebrows. The size of her breasts suggested that she was post-pubescent despite the lack of hair in that region, although making such assumptions about a non-human one way or the other was inadvisable.
More telling was her calm examination of her situation once she had recovered consciousness. After her initial worried expression, she didn't appear to be particularly concerned about the facts that she was restrained and under armed guard. Granted, her body language *could* be completely different, but her over all external physiology seemed to be close enough to human that basic reactions should be similar between their species.
The only thing absolutely certain though was that she was neither human nor an Ugly. Jones and the rest of his team would turn in their observations with their reports. After that it was up to the specialists to determine what she was.
And if her people were a threat to man kind...
* * *
A week later, two uniformed men were confronting each other outside of a national research facility.
"I'm telling you," a rather gruff and irritated man in a tan military uniform and light blue beret was practically shouting, "International Extraterrestrial Command should have been notified right away! How can we do any good if every country just *has* to get first crack at any aliens that slip through our defensive net?"
"This new alien was captured easily by civilians," another man spoke calmly, unaffected by the other's bluster. His uniform was the olive green of the United States Army. "Quite frankly, X-Com's record of *incidental* human casualties leaves us rather concerned about calling you in for ground based missions on American soil."
"Those were all accidents, Colonal Norris! Perfectly explainable as covered by the reports and follow up investigations!" The mans voice, while still loud and demanding, had started taking on a placating tone as well. The combination did not sound at all convincing.
"Tell that to the survivors of Willow Creek, Wyoming, Colonal Harver," Col. Norris suggested in the same dry manner as before.
"I wasn't aware that there were civilian survivors from the Willow Creek incident," Col. Harver admitted nervously. If Col. Norris had any observations about Col. Harvers sudden change in demeanor, he chose not to point them out... to Col. Harver at any rate.
"There weren't any," admitted Col. Norris. "Which is exactly why X-Com is no longer permitted to initiate ground based missions in the United States without a team of our FBAM agents along as observers. X-Com has a record of incidental civilian casualties for thirty percent of its ground based missions, most of which involving entire populations of small towns and villages. The teams who were involved in these *accidental* massacres have never been reprimanded, or even removed from duty during the follow up investigations." If Col. Norris' irritation was begining to show, it could probably be excused.
"The individuals responsible for those accidents were punished!"
"Name one," Col. Norris demanded. "Name one single individual who was punished for those incidents who did not later turn out to have had nothing at all to do with them!"
"Well, congradulations, Colonal Harver," a man in a dark suit interupted them. "You've managed to set off Colonal Norris. Again."
"Agent Kelly," Col. Norris acknowledged the man's pressence.
Col. Harver simply went silent. The FBAM agent had always made him nervous for some reason.
"If you'll both follow me, I'll bring you up to date on what we know about the new alien." Agent Kelly handed each a folder and turned to enter the facility.
* * *
Tangent sat up in the enclosure that she had been placed in. She felt a lot better now, but was disturbed about what had happened to her when they put her through a Magnetic Resonance Scanner. Which had been nothing out of the ordinary at first. It wasn't until the thing reached her head that she had started spasming uncontrollably. By the time the scan was done, she had been rendered unconscious again.
When she has awakened again, Tangent remembered being little better than a drooling idiot. For days she had behaved like an animal, without one single sentient thought floating through her head that she could now recognize as such. Not that she had been aware of her loss at the time.
No, she had been a happy, curious primate with only the most basic concepts of comunication and tool use. Not even as smart as a chimp or gorrilla, really. More like a monkey of some sort.
Tangent wondered if the experience would have bothered her so much if she didn't remember it all so clearly. Tangent felt for her strakes before remembering that she wouldn't be able to feel them even if they had returned. It wasn't as if they were solid. More like ethereal manifestations of specialized organs. Their absence was an indicator that something was seriously wrong with the individual missing them.
Tangent did not like it at all. Not one single little bit. She absently picked up a small rock in one hand and squeezed it out of frustration, not even noticing when it crumbled under the stress.
"I see that you're awake, Mint!" a voice Tangent recognized called out to her. "Would you like your breakfast now? We've got lots of yummie fruit for you!" Dr. Patterson was a bright and cheerful woman. Tangent did not feel at all comfortable with the resentment that she now felt for having been treated like an animal for the past week. At least Dr. Patterson was a primate specialist.
Some of the others treated her as if she had been something even less intelligent, like a lemming...
..or a radish.
Crushed rock was ground into even smaller pieces by a clenched fist before Tangent sighed and reined in her anger. She was a civilized being, and she would behave as such now that she was once again able to do so.
"My name is Tangent, Dr. Patterson. And yes, the fruit does sound nice, but you've been feeding me nothing but fruits and vegetables for the past week. Could I have some bacon and eggs? Or perhaps some sausage, pancakes, and an omlette?"
Dr. Patterson somehow managed not to drop the tray that she was holding. "You can talk!?"
"Well, now that I recovered from having my mind scrambled by the Magnetic Resonance Scanner. Why did they hold it in place around my head when I started to spasm? I'd have recovered a lot quicker if they hadn't done that..."
"They were trying to find your antannae. They couldn't find them on any of the images that the scanner was producing..."
"And so, naturally, they kept going back and forth, looking for them while I was experiencing something similar to an epileptic siezure. I hope that they don't treat *everyone* with such care," Tangent commented, voice dripping with sarcasm. Then she blew out a breath in a huff, and forced herself to calm down again. "You'll have to excuse me. I've just recovered from having my intelligence reduced to that of a lower order primate for several days. The experience has left me a tad miffed."
"I... see," Dr. Patterson responded, not knowing quite what to say. "Ummm... I notice that your antennae came back." Indeed, the primatologist could see the irradient blue structures had indeed returned, if set far back on the head, much like the ears of a cat were when the feline in question is irritated. This was nicely synchronized with the scowl she was getting.
"They're called 'strakes.' Faeries have antennae, gremlins have strakes." Tangent flicked hers out to the side, and then flexed them back up to their more normal angle of projection.
"Faeries?" Dr. Patterson asked. Aliens she could believe in. Those had been showing up for the past fifteen years, raiding small towns and villages all over the world when they could get past X-Com's security net. Faeries were another matter entirely. "Like in Tinkerbell?"
"Who?"
Dr. Patterson spent the next several hours explaining the story of Peter Pan to the being that had identified itself as being a gremlin. While she was doing so, several other doctors, scientists, and a team of armed agents had arrived, all of which were noted by Tangent, then ignored.
"So you're saying that this faerie, Tinkerbell, who couldn't speak and had this dandruff problem, had to be revived by children clapping their hands and saying that they believed in her?"
"Well, more ot less..."
Tangent fell back on her ass and laughed her head off while rolling on the ground for several minutes...
* * *
Another week had passed, although this time Tangent had actually conceded to wear something. A lab coat to be specific, but it was at least something. Tangent found the discomfort of the humans around her when she left the front of it open amusing. It had been one thing when they thought that she might be just an alien animal that just had a close resemblance to an adult human woman. They could say that they were just watching an animal like they would in a zoo, and push the embarrassment away.
Tangent's proving to be sentient after all, and a friendly and personable one at that, had left many of the personnel at the reseach facility feeling highly ashamed for having thought of her as an animal in the first place. That she was from a highly technical culture that viewed clothing as a purely optional concept, and thought that their taboo about nudity was cute was only more disconcerting.
"So Faeries don't require people to believe in them in order to stay healthy?" Dr. Patterson asked their 'guest'. She had remained on the examination team, despite the discovery that Tangent was not simply some alien pet or food animal that had somehow gotten loose, largely because she had managed to establish a rapport with the gremlin. The two were walking around the research facility under armed escort. Mostly to stretch their legs for a bit, as far as the doctor knew.
"Not usually, no, although this Tinkerbell may have been under a curse. I'm not well versed in the magical arts, as gremlins tend to be more technologically oriented, but such a curse *is* possible as far as I know." Tangent, having been scanning the wiring in the corridors during their walk, now knew where all of the cameras, hidden or otherwise, were. She also knew which floor tiles were pressure sensitive, how often the guards made radio checks, and which doors required an electronic code to open.
Admittedly, she *could* have been treated far worse while she had been nonsentient for the past week. Dr. Patterson had treated her with the same dignity and respect that she gave every primate that she had studied. Dr. Parks had considered her to be a particularly dumb animal though, having been of the opinion that she had been alien livestock. And Dr. Ikari seemed to believe that she had the same general value as a radish, and had treated her as such.
In fact, he still did, which was why Tangent was planning to leave so soon. Not that he didn't treat most people that way, but Tangent didn't really want to be in the same building as the man for long periods of time. Another week as a captive after she had recovered her mental bearings had helped her finish the healing process. Sticking around had showed her that some of the FBAM agents were much better shots than she had given them credit for, so simply shrinking down to a foot or less in height and manifesting her wings to fly away was somewhat less appealing than it had been before.
Besides, the technical challenge of a night-time escape while at near human size intrigued her...
* * *
Dr. Gendo Ikari revewed the records that had been accumulated about the new alien. The fact that it claimed to be a gremlin and related to faerie kind was laughable. That an alien knew so much about human myths, and had tried to play on them was disturbing. Tests done on the cell cultures and blood samples taken from this 'Tangent' were proving to be alarming. The special gasses that X-Com had come up with to clear an area of Uglies wouldn't effect her in the slightest.
In fact, the cell cultures seemed to thrive on the various toxins that they had tried to use on them. Nor did oxygen poor environments bother the cells, as long as they had *something* to exchange chemical energy with. Speculations abounded as to whether 'Tangent' could survive unaided on Venus or Mars.
The discovery of the effect of highly concentrated magnetic fields had on her intelligence level had been serendipitous, although Gendo's attempts to find out how long it would take to wipe out even her most primal mental functions had been halted. That she had recovered in about a week was disappointing, but any period in which this new race could be mentally crippled, however temporarily, was a plus. So Gendo had initiated a new project to develop concentrated magenetic field projectors, or what was now being called the Magnetic Lance project.
That 'Tangent' seemed to be friendly and inclined to be generally helpful was not a concern of his. She wasn't human. She wasn't even from Earth. Aliens had captured his wife and had started eating her as he looked helplessly on, fifteen years ago, when a small group of idealists had tried to make first contact with visitors from beyond.
As far as Gendo was concerned, killing aliens was far too good for them. They had to be destroyed. Humiliated and made to feel as helpless and weak as they had made him feel all those years ago. Made to suffer slow and agonizing deaths after long periods of torture, as had happened to his late wife while he had watched from captivity.
Dr. Gendo Ikari didn't care who got in his way. All aliens had to be either enslaved or destroyed! Only that would put the memory of his departed wife to rest.
General Prosek of X-Com had similar views, Gendo knew, so arranging for X-Com agents to be able to claim 'Tangent' for one of that organizations research facilities, where she would be tested to destruction was not something that bothered Dr. Ikari in the least bit. Tangent would die her slow and painful death, over a period of days or perhaps even a month or two.
Dr. Gendo Ikari could only smile at the thought...
* * *
Tangent remained blissfully unaware of the plans regarding her ultimate fate going on around her. She left some notes on the basics for a working faster-than-light drive as a parting gift in return for their hospitality. Nothing major, just something that could get them to 1.2 past the speed of light and back. That would be sufficient to give them an advantage over the would be invaders, as the 'Uglies' had only a gravitic drive that could propel them at about 89% of lightspeed.
The version of the artificial gravity generator that the humans of this Terra had reverse engineered couldn't yet match the original versions, speed-wise, but they *would* permit the basic FTL drive to be safely used by human crews. The war for control of the Sol system was about to take a drastic turn as the natives were soon to pick up a massive home court advantage.
A fact that added a perky smile to Tangent's lips as she wandered down the facilities corridors one night, deftly staying out of camera arcs, off of pressure plates, and avoiding laser grids. Most of the electronic locks were shielded, preventing her from scanning what their codes were and simply feeding them back to deactivate them. She had debated about either reducing down and using the ventilation system for her entire escape, or simply ripping the lock panels off of the walls and rewiring the doors manually while by-passing the alarms.
The first would either be too easy, assuming that the ventilation system was both interconnected and extended to the outside, or pointless if the system was self-contained and partitioned. The second would probably be detected too soon after she had passed an area, provided that the panels weren't rigged to set off an alarm if torn from the walls. So she compromised by using the ventilation shafts that she could fit into without shrinking, and sneeking around until she found unshielded panels that she could scan and actvate.
While Tangent was having fun with her grand escape attempt, she remained totally unaware of the X-Com extraction team that was currently making their way into the facility and towards the cell where she was supposed to be. They were just ariving at the cell as Tangent was passing the front desk.
"Good night, Officer Rhodes!" Tangent waved cheerfully as she walked out the door.
"Good Night Dr. Tan... HEY!"
Tangent stuck her tongue out mischieviously as she picked up her pace. Officer Rhodes had activated the alarms, as expected, stirring up the facilities' security. Pure harmless fun, but she was sure to pop down to about six inches in height and flit off before any of the guards could be directed outside. The empty lab coat was found moments later, but it was too dark to see her tiny form as it flew off into the distance.
The discovery of the X-Com extraction team and Dr. Gendo Ikari's involvement in getting them to where they were discovered was pure serendipity. Proving that luck flows both ways.
As the notes that Tangent had been left behind had a message of farewell to Dr. Emily Patterson, she was credited with the first friendly contact between Humanity and an alien race. This information was leaked to the general public about a month later by Col. Norris, who was growing more and more fed up with X-Com. People across the world saw the recorded interviews between Dr. Emily Patterson and the perky little gremlin (most of which were from after Tangent started wearing the labcoat, and the few from before then had discrete visual distortion blocks for public viewing).
Much to X-Com's annoyance, Col. Norris was not reprimanded and removed from active service. It seemed that after fifteen years of war, the public was ready to hear news of friendly aliens. Col. Norris and Dr. Patterson had become instant celebrities.
When the FTL drive tests proved to be successful the following year, General Norris smiled slightly. The new ships produced were part of the new Sol System Defense Force, which was largely subplanting X-Com as the front line against alien invasion. That the SSDF received more international support than X-Com did was just the icing on the cake...
Thus, the world was primed to give another set of visitors a chance when they showed up about three years later, with a faster-than-light drive capable of achieving 1.5 times lightspeed. Maybe they didn't look as close to humans as Tangent had, but they weren't of the same race as the Uglies either. Nor, for that matter, were they on the same side as the Uglies, as they had promptly moved against one of the Invader's ships that had surprised a native (human) patrol ship.
Peacful contact had been established, alliances made, and two evil Empires toppled before they could grow too large to stop easily. One that had been based on Earth, under the cover of the International Extraterrestrial Command's defensive mission, and the other based in space, by a race that found other intelligent races to be a fine delicacy.
Tangent had never even seen an Ugly, and had helped to topple their plans. If she had, the memories of her former human self might have dredged up another name for what they were:
Ilythids. They may not have actually been the race thad had been described by the AD&D role-playing game system, but they sure did resemble them...
The other race would have been harder for her to identify specifically. They bore a strong resemblace to velociraptors, only with more cranial capacity, an extra set of arms, and omnivorous teeth. They could sing with great range and beauty, and declared the similarly musical humans to be their sister race in the stars.
None of which Tangent was aware of, as she had long since located an old faerie mound whose mushroom ring had nearly grown too far to retain a suitable amount of symmetry...
* * *
Tangent hadn't been expecting Underhill to be so... lifeless. There *had* been faeries here before, the scattered bones of the fey long since dead showed her that much, but what had killed them all? She didn't stick around to find out.
Passing through a few more veils, until she started seeing life again, Tangent pondered on where to go next. She had originally set out to try to hook up with either Grey or the Pheonix Mage, but the chances of actually encountering either of them or a suitable analogue had dropped drastically once she had been dragged out of her dimension of origin. She couldn't go back, as her experiments with traveling between the faerie and mortal realms there had proved that all access via the routes that she could use were nonexistent at that end. A hill was just a hill, and a ring of mushrooms was just a ring of mushrooms, even if they were found together.
Actually staying in the faerie realms was out of the question. Gremlins were pretty much shunned by the members of the Sidhe Courts as being too strongly alligned with cold iron and technology. Few even chose to acknowledge that gremlins were derived from the old Fey Tuin race as well, although those that did often referred to them as techno-sprites.
Relations with the Unsidhe Courts were worse, as they merely tended to enslave gremlins to their own ends. Adding to Tangent's problem in specific was the fact that she used to be a mortal. As souls were not destroyed by transformation into other beings, that meant that Tangent still had one. This would make her a prize for those who could sense such. Granted, gremlins were also among the most toxic faeries around, due to their inclination for supplementing their diets with the strongest poisons and pollutants that they could find. More of a method of self-defense rather than offense. Few things, even of magical nature, wanted to eat something that could eat a South American Poison Arrow Frog and ask for seconds...
Still, torturing one until she gave up her soul would probably be fun for one of the Unsidhe faeries, so Tangent didn't actually want to encounter one while travelling underhill. So it could be understood why she jumped through the veil into another mortal realm as soon as she she spotted the troll. Well, that and the fact that trolls were among the few things that would not think twice about eating a gremlin...
End Chapter one