Chapter One: Beyond Yourself
Files RxkL-00487q recovered on the third revolution of planet D, translated into English on the last revolution of plant E by the Ambassador of Planet X.
This part of the report is from the combined memories of the following people mentioned.
Super Nova had just occurred to a star near Planet T, or the Sarutobi quadrant, killing the planet's leader Hiruzen before he had time to elect an heir.
So now the Ambassadors of the known universes were gathered together to elect a new leader for the intelligent fire planet.
Little did they know, though, that Kiba, skilled tracker of Planet D, or the Inuzuka quadrant, had some news for them all.
The glass dome, nicknamed "The Academy" by some past Ambassador for all of the pointless things discussed there, only received light from four different suns once every revolution of planet C, or the Hyuuga quadrant (Earth translation: Once every 3 ½ years), so, for the surprise meeting, the Academy only received light from one sun, making it very shadowy.
Homura of planet A, or the Mitoka quadrant and Koharu of planet B, or the Utatane quadrant stood in the center of the room. Homura's form was similar to an ostrich, but scaled like a lizard, with the head being the most humanoid part, 6 large tusks curling from his forehead, while Koharu's form was a silver line (about 6ft tall) surrounded by silvery mist, voice projecting right into thoughts. Together they had lived the longest of all other Ambassadors, and therefore their voices were well acknowledged when the time came for listening.
Which there would be a lot of today, if they had their way.
Kids nowadays... projected Koharu, never taking the needed time to properly decide things...
Homura blinked in agreement, not feeling like speaking.
Koharu and Homura were friends by the barest definition of the word, and didn't really enjoy conversation that wasn't vital in any way. So they waited for the others to show up in silence, not feeling awkward because they never knew it could be another way.
Tsunade of planet F, or the Senju quadrant arrived first out of the guests. Homura and Koharu weren't exactly fond of the small, chibi like creature (resembling a small, brown furry person) that could lift up to a thousand times it's own weight.
She spoke in the high, trilling language that was the language they all talked in together (1), and said, "Hello. I assume I'm early."
Her large golden eyes observed the two eldest Ambassadors as they did their best to remain pleasant, and not say anything they'd regret.
Tsunade knew of their hatred of her, and when they were not on her case, liked to provoke them.
The next part of the document comes from personal accounts.
Ambassador Sasuke, of Planet V
I arrived late. Not really my fault, more my father's for running through my opinions over and over so that I wouldn't forget what the Uchiha quadrant's views are on the new leader of the Sarutobi quadrant.
Entering the hanger leading to the meeting room, I could see the room was packed, no one daring to miss such an important gathering.
The glass doors moving aside soundlessly for me, I scuttled into the room, my body quite noticeably larger than anyone else in the room.
"Sasuke, welcome," stated the shadow, Hinata, as everyone else cringed away.
"Hello," I replied apathetically.
Of course I'm well aware how frightening the Uchiha quadrants' people looked to the other races, but for some odd reason, the timid heir to the Hyuuga quadrant had never seemed afraid.
This time, though, neither did Kiba.
Compared to the rest of them, I stuck out: I had a large, almost touching the ceiling height, where as my body was pure white and as hot as any star of that color, my body in three, heavily armored sections and hairless, two arms coming from the second section, with 6 sharp legs that could cut through just about anything if swung correctly, and my eyes large, deep crimson red balls.
"Gaki," growled the voice of Tsunade, "how long were you gonna make us wait?"
I apologized, "Excuse me, but my ship was having trouble..."
"You sound like Kakashi..." Ino, the blue puff ball, stated flatly.
"Oi, oi..." grumbled Kakashi, a sleek, scaled form that had no legs or arms, but instead hovered, "It isn't my fault that my chivalry is so widely known!"
I interrupted Koharu would like to get started by nominating Sarutobi Asuma to position of Ambassador.
Various debates broke out at her blunt statement –agreements, disagreements, and I would keep my silence until directly asked. Otherwise, the Uchiha voice would be worth less, if we had to push our voice over others.
Luckily, though, a majority was easily reached, and in the favor we had chosen, so when asked, I merely told them that I agreed.
Asking me had been the last measure, and, with only two unhappy members, we all began saying our goodbyes.
I turned back to my hanger, ready to go, no one really worth reaching out to. My planet is a lonely and severe one, where weakness could get you killed. Only women were spared –men only when with the women they chose.
"Wait!" called out Kiba, stopping everyone in their tracks.
Yelling at the peace meeting meant one thing –important business. So we all froze, waiting to see what the best known tracker had to say.
"I've found a new planet!" he announced happily.
We all just stared, not believing what was just said. I certainly didn't look as silly as all the others, but it was still astounding news.
Each rotation brought about better technology, and it was rare for something to so easily escape our notice for so long.
"Where did you find it?" Ino demanded, her six eyes blinking in excitement.
"Well..." the giant , four-legged, white furry creature started, (2) "It's blue and green, with white clouds covering up some of it."
Interested murmuring began at this –no one had ever heard of white clouds.
"And..." he went on, "the head species of this planet, that they call "Earth" are called-"
"Wait," interrupted Tsunade, "you've already attempted investigating this foreign land? You idiot! Do you realize how dangerous that is! What if a similar form of your planet's death resides there?"
Shushed by many, Kiba was prodded on to continue.
""Humans" are what the main species are called. Their speech is odd, and their languages vary by the green patches that they live on. Oddly, they don't live on the blue parts, which I don't understand... But-"
"What do they look like?" asked Asuma, the tall, almost made of liquid figure that had just been elected.
Kiba now looked rather proud of himself, and proclaimed, "I don't have to tell you, I can show you!"
He then held out a small square with an alien on it.
My teeth protruded from my mouth as I prepared to kill the threat, but, before I or anyone else could, he yelled, "No, wait! It's one of their inventions –it's just...an image, not living."
We all stopped, and now, even I was pretty curious. We were so advanced, yet, why had we never thought of the potential of this kind of thing...?
"Oh, and," he continued on, showing us all more images, "there's only two genders; the ones that produce young usually have longer hair on the head, and no hair on the legs or pits under their arms, unlike the other breed who has shorter hair, but hairy legs and pits of their arms."
We all recognized the nose, eyes, mouth, ears, legs, hands, etc...but...
"What are the fleshy parts here?" Ino asked, pointing at the female's torso.
"They're the parts that feed their young," Kiba explained, and we all nodded, getting this, as well, "The larger, the better. But here's the weird part, men have teats too! Not just the women! But no sustenance for their young... And, and, the men have these three fleshy parts down here," He said, pointing at the place in between the two legs of the males, "that I'm pretty sure are used for reproduction."
"How large are those?" asked Kakashi.
"Well..." Kiba trailed off, thinking, "too large isn't good, but too small also isn't good... I think it's from the tip of the longest antennae off the arm, to some lines on the arm."
"The eyes are three colors..." Hinata quietly noticed, sounding pretty awed.
This opened the floor for more random comments.
"Why do they have two layers of differently colored skin?" asked Homura.
"These are their protection, for human skin is sensitive," explained Kiba, "It's mostly for decoration and covering; both male and female wear two layers of it around their legs, but female also have two around their fleshy parts."
Balance for these humans were also explained, as well as their speech and that they had to breathe oxygen. Like my planet, though, they consumed other living things for energy. Like Hinata's planet, they needed an odd type of gas to run their body as well. And like Kakashi's planet, they need to rest every so often to recharge. But they were also delicate and broken simply, yet these things were the top species.
The most important thing about them, though, may have been that they have something we don't, oddly enough. Something called "emotional range", whereas we all only felt certain emotions.
Sadly, their emotion range may have been huge, but...
"They're so...ugly," Ino mumbled.
The Ambassadors didn't often use that word, but there was no other way to describe these pathetic beings.
Don't complain. Input Koharu. You're going to have to take their form.
"It's pretty far to their galaxy..." Kiba informed them, "It won't be a problem with our new skippers."
Hinata cringed at the nickname for her invention, but chose to stay silent to it. The powerful jets ran off a special component only found on her planet, but it had been Hinata who had finally found the use for it.
Precisely that reason made my father want to marry me off to Hinata, making an alliance that "they couldn't afford to let go". Supposedly after this meeting the two planets were supposed to plan out the wedding. Now that Earth had turned up, it would have to be a while, though.
"Time to get down to business..." chided Homura.
All Ambassadors could change their shape to match other species –it's how we blend and inspect without war. You can only be chosen if you have the potential to work with and control chakra –the energy combined from mental and physical power that every single race possesses. But, just because every race has chakra doesn't mean that every individual can bend it to their will.
All who try to abuse it in the past have failed and been destroyed –that's why we only use it to replicate our physical forms. Otherwise, there's no guarantee to our survival. And that's what we were attempting to do now. The sooner we succeed, the sooner we can complete our observation.
Even with the chance of danger, no one looked eager to attempt it.
Other than Kiba, that is, who had already transformed and began pulling on his second skin, showing us how to put them on. The language coming from his mouth made absolutely no sense to me, and I could tell the others didn't get it either, but his gestures made enough sense.
I closed my eyes, focusing to build up the chakra to mold my new body. Everything had to be just so, the eyes small circles, three colors, the face shaped just so, the body, the skin tone... I felt the pressure on getting it right –after all, I had gotten every other species that we had done on the first try, and a human really didn't seem that difficult at first glance. The muscle structure had to be just so... I felt slight pressure right above where the eyes were supposed to go, and opened my eyes, alarmed.
I didn't recognize a single being in the room –they were all successful.
But then I looked closely and noticed some subtle differences, like Hinata's eyes were only one, pale, washed out color. Kiba, though, had nothing right, from Sasuke's eyes: His eyes lacked one of the colors, and he had large, bright red forms on either side of his head under the eyes.
Kakashi, Ino, and Tsunade, though, had all turned out right.
Homura and Koharu hadn't transformed because you take your own age when transforming, and they would be so old they would be able to accomplish nothing.
Tsunade knew how to hide her true age, but she had never said how it was done.
We all moved to the large mirror on one of the walls to check our effort, and that's when I saw the body I had made.
I had messed up, to my complete shock.
I had three parts to the eyes, but two parts were black, though the white around the outside was correct, so instead of brown eyes or anything, mine were black.
The hair at a good, length, and also black, I checked that off and moved on. The muscle work looked not nearly as obnoxious as Kiba or Kakashi's, of which I admit I enjoyed. The arms, and parts hanging off of the arms were fine, as were the legs. And, probably an after effect of my species, size, I was taller then everyone else in the room. Reaching the beginning of my legs, my eyes widened as I saw the fleshy part between them.
Did I get that right...? I remember what Kiba had said and compared it to the longest finger from some lines. Actually, yeah, I did...weird. It looks somehow bigger than it should be.
"Alright everyone," called Kiba, "It's been about ½ of a revolution (1 ¾ years), it's time we get going."
The language I thought in while in this body resembled no other language I had ever tried. It appeared that we all were a little...creeped out by how simply we translated and interpreted a language never before heard.
"Shouldn't we get dressed first?" Sasuke questioned, testing the human voice out for the first time.
"Woah, deep voice," Kiba said approvingly, "Nice. Oh, well, yeah. The clothes I brought are over there."
We followed his pointed finger to piles of clothes, labeled "Male" and "Female" with sheets of paper, written in sharpie. I paused in mid-step, wondering what the hell paper and sharpie is, and how I know about them.
"Kiba," I asked, noting the rumble in my voice. Annoyance, and maybe a tad bit of panic. "How do I suddenly know things I've never heard of?"
"Um, well," Kiba said, looking nervous, "Human minds kind of have their own voices. Like, they sort of whisper in your ear and tell you things that you would normally know if you actually were human. Which is why you can't stay in this body for more than a year."
My mind showed me how impossibly long or short that could feel, and I asked, "Why a year?"
"Because..." he stated, "I had a partner...(3) We decided he would stay while I monitored, so I could back up our information gathered away from Earth. They have a specific time system on Earth, so we agreed to a year. And the day he was supposed to come back, the voice went away. Attempting to contact him didn't work, so I went back in. He..."
Kiba looked brokenhearted, "he didn't recognize me. He was human, with no knowledge of how to turn back."
(1) The equivalent of Latin for Earth an "international language"
(2) Two guesses who he resembles... XD
(3) Yet again, take a guess who the partner is.
*sweatdrops* Yeah... I was gone for a while. My life has sucked a lot lately and I just didn't feel like writing. I'm back, though, and working on the next chapters of my other stories. But...this plot-bunny hit me in the midst of it, so, I decided to go ahead with it! I really like this idea, but let me know what you think! Oh, and, any side pairings, things I could fix, parts that confuse you... And I'm also looking for a beta. Greedy little bitch, aren't I? ;)
Glad to be back!
~Hippie-chan