This started out a short little scenario in my head I wanted to get down, and it ended up growing a lot larger than I had originally planned. I intended this to be a one-shot, but it's hard to find inspiration with no feedback, so I decided to start posting bits at a time here for the time being. I'll post it as the long one-shot it's intended to be on A03 once it's finished. Until then, enjoy, and thanks for taking the time to read.
Fuck your life.
You roughly shove a branch of pine needles from your face and stumble into a rocky clearing. You've been wandering this forsaken alien forest for hours and getting absolutely nowhere, just as your superiors planned. Well fuck them, fuck them all if they think you'll give up that easily.
You shrug off your backpack and slump down against a large boulder and try to catch your breath. You need rest, food, water. They sent you on this scouting mission (scouting, yeah right, you're not stupid enough not to know they sent you on a suicide mission to get rid of you) three sunsets ago, and you've run out of supplies. You're tempted to eat the grass off the ground, you're so hungry. You honestly would if you had any idea of what might be poisonous or not on this planet. You close your eyes and lean your head back against the rock. At least you can rest here for a bit.
You should probably count yourself lucky you weren't just culled the day your eyes started betraying your mutant blood to everyone. But because of your relationship with a few highblood friends, you'd been spared enough to be allowed a suicide mission instead. Of course when they shipped you off to scout out this planet, they'd kindly refrained from giving you any information on it. Fuckers.
You grind the heels of your hands into your eyes. You know there is some sort of alien settlement on the other side of this forest with weird, spiky trees. You'd scoped it out from atop a tall hill (small plateau?) before starting your trek through the woods, but you think maybe you should've just stayed on the hill until night came. The sun on this planet isn't fatal like it is on Alternia, but it hurts your eyes and makes it hard to see. You decide to take a nap until the sun sets. Then you can get out of these woods and hopefully find some food.
You can't have slept for more than a hour or so before your stomach forces you awake, demanding food. At least the sun is set enough to not hurt your eyes as much. You roll your stiff shoulders back enough to crack and push yourself to your feet. Swinging your backpack over your shoulders you once again start marching forward, ignoring your stomach's protesting.
It takes a couple hours for the trees to start thinning, and by then you've started munching on a branch of one of the prickly trees, too hungry to worry about poison. There's some sticky sap on it that tastes sour and the bark gets stuck between your teeth. You wish there were some animals you could catch, but so far you've only seen some birds and small, bushy tailed beasts too far up in the trees to reach. You tell yourself that you must be close to the settlement now. You'd bet your own bulge there has to be at least some garbage there you can eat.
When you finally reach the edge of the forest, you want to cry with relief. You can see the settlement just down past the slope of another hill. There are lights coming from the buildings, so there must be technology on this planet, which you hope is good. You lay down at the edge of the hill to watch. You'd be stupider than a wriggler to blindly march in.
The settlement isn't that large, only a dozen hives or so. You have no idea if that's normal or not for this planet, but from what you'd managed to overhear from your superiors, you were honestly expecting something bigger. You see a handful of what look like vehicles outside the hives. This world must be pretty developed at least, which is probably why the Condesce has her eyes on it. Your platoon was the most recent of many within the past few sweeps. At least that's what they'd told you right before they sent you marching.
Your eyes are beginning to droop again when you hear the door to one of the hives slam. You jerk back to alertness and frantically locate the source of the noise. When you find it, you just stare, not quite believing your eyes.
The two aliens that walk out look just like trolls. Or, almost. You squint to get a better look. They're weirdly colored. And where the hell are their horns? You can't tell if they have small horns like you and you're just too far away to see them. They can't just not have horns. Maybe they're broken? You lean forward to get a better look.
And, oh shitfuck, you nearly tumble head first down the slope as some of the ground breaks under your hands. You stumble heavily back on your ass, but only after sending a mini avalanche of rocks down the cliff.
The aliens notice.
Really, it would be more surprising if they didn't. Fucking rocks were loud.
It takes the aliens all of two seconds of dumbfounded staring before they start yelling. One of them starts running your way. Scrambling to your feet, you blindly take off back into the woods. There's cover there, the trees should make it easier to hide.
You barely make it to the edge of the trees when you hear the first shot. Startled, you nearly fall on your face, but manage to grab a tree branch before you hit the ground. Fast as you can, you re-balance yourself and sprint through the trees, barely noticing the way the sharp needles on the branches scratch your face.
Okay, don't panic, don't panic, they can't be too fast. You're fast for a troll, and if they look the same, they're probably only has fast as normal trolls. You can outrun them.
More shots blare through the air and you put all your effort into running, running, escaping. But you're too hungry, too tried, and you start slowing. You can't get enough air and your limbs are jelly from lack of nutrition. You stumble against a thick tree trunk, gasping. Maybe you can climb the tree. Your claws dig into the bark, but before you can begin to pull yourself up, you hear another shot, followed by an explosion of pain in your shoulder.
You hear someone scream, and as you stagger away from the tree, you realize it's you. You grind your teeth together to cut yourself off and shove your hand into your shoulder. Your traitorous mutant blood drips through your fingers to the ground as you stagger forward, your mind still screaming get away, get away.
You manage to stumble a few steps forward before tripping over a root. You tumble down a small hill, your shoulder shrieking. You stop when your back collides against a boulder. Using your good arm, you try to push yourself back up. But you can't. You slump against the stone, head spinning.
You try not to cry because fuck, fuck, if this is really how you're going to die, you're going to do it with dignity.
You can hear someone crashing through the trees towards you and you lean you head against the boulder, close your eyes in defeat. You can't bring yourself to look up when you hear the footsteps suddenly slow and then stop in front of you. The alien says something, and you drag your head up to look, surprised you weren't killed on the spot.
The alien is all the wrong colors. Pale, pinkish skin, and bizarre, almost white hair, like a lusus or something. You can't see the alien's eyes - they're covered by big, black shades. The alien says something again. The language is weirdly flat, with too many vowels.
You close your eyes again as the dizziness in your head overwhelms you. You hear the alien shuffle forward before you lose consciousness.
.
You've always considered yourself to be a pretty cool guy. But even someone as cool as you has limits. So when you were told you were being shipped from Texas to Washington you found it nothing short of a travesty, and not even in an ironic sense.
But aliens aren't going to kill themselves you know.
At least, you'd like to be killing more aliens, but oh no, they had to be researched.
But at least you got to be with your friends in this god forsaken ice-block of a state. When the aliens started popping up in small numbers a few years back, your Bro got in touch with his scientist friend, who recruited the two of you to help her and her daughter do research on the bastards. Turns out Bro's friend was actually the adoptive mother of your cousin, Rose. Who knew.
(You're actually pretty damn sure Bro knew and was keeping it from you to troll you like the fucker he is.)
And after a year of kicking it with the Lalondes, you managed to convince your friend Jade to help out and bring her crazy adventurer grandpa along. Jade was the one who convinced John to come, since she's his half-sister. Dadbert stayed back in his cute suburban house in the more urban side of Washington.
But even though it's great living with your best buds, you seriously think you might go insane from the Washington weather. For the love of God, it's summer, it should not be this cold. And is it really necessary for it to rain every other goddamn day?
You adjust your shades and look up at the sky. It's sunny today, for once, and you're soaking it in as much as you can. You don't even care if you'll come out looking like a crab by the end of the day. Jade's out with you. You suspect she misses the sun just as much, what with growing up on a Hollywood-worthy tropical island.
"Hey, Dave, Jade!"
You turn to see John waving at the two of you from the research building's door, buck teeth splayed everywhere. You nod in acknowledgment as Jade waves back.
"Mr. Harley wants us in the Lab to see something," John says, holding the door back for the two of you as you walk over to him. You try not to groan. You like the old bastard, but the man needs to learn when to shut up after he gets going. "He says it'll be quick, and then we can get something to eat."
Well, at least you'll get some food out of it, you're starving.
There better be apple juice.
You stretch back in your chair, groaning. Damn, old Grandpa Harley sure knows how to cook, you're beginning to wonder if your stomach will ever shrink back to a normal size after living here. But there wasn't any apple juice. Bluh.
"Hey, Dave, wanna take Bec for a walk with me?" Jade asks you, bounding up to stand next to your chair.
"Ugnnn, not really," you answer. Jade bounces lightly on the balls of her feet, leans over you, and goddammit why does she have to be so good at the puppy eyes.
"Please, Dave! Rose says she needs to brush Jaspers and John needs to finish up something in the lab."
You groan and try not to look at her pitiful green eyes. "Why can't you walk your damn bear yourself?"
"It's not as fun alone," she says, and you can practically hear her lips pout in her voice. Don't look, don't look, oh fuck, why did you just look at her now you have no choice.
"Nnnngh, fine," you groan, scraping your chair across the floor as you stand up. "But only a short walk. I'm not getting eaten by mosquitoes just for a flea bitten monster."
"Thanks, Dave," she beams and grabs Bec's leash of the top of the refrigerator. You grudgingly follow her to the door, making sure to drag your feet enough to express your displeasure.
You and Jade are barely out the door when you hear it.
It sounds nothing short of a bulldozer crashing to a mountain. You whip your head to the source of the noise. The last of the boulders are settling at the bottom of the cliff, but that's not what catches your eye.
At the top of the slope, you see someone stagger back from the cliff edge and fall down. You tilt your head slightly, confused why anyone would be out here in the middle of nowhere, but your heart stops when you see a flash of gold in that black hair.
Jade notices at nearly the exact moment you do. You feel her stiffen next to you.
"Jade, go get the others," you say quietly, and when she starts to protest you snap loudly, "I'm serious, Jade! Go!"
She hesitates for a fraction of a second before dashing back inside, calling over her shoulder, "We'll be right behind you!"
You start running towards the cliff, and you can see the alien scrambling to its feet and take off towards the woods. You curse under your breath and try to run faster. When you reach the cliff, you scramble painfully up the rocks, ignoring how it scrapes the skin off your knees and palms. At least the slope is pretty small.
When you reach the top of the hill, you glance back to see that not far behind Jade has gotten everyone out to help give chase. Jade has her gun with her.
The alien is about halfway to the woods now, and you race to catch up before it can disappear into the trees. Just as the alien is about to disappear into the trees, you hear Jade shoot from behind you. The alien stumbles, you gain a few feet on it.
It disappears into the woods before you can catch up and you curse. It can't get away, it's not an option. Who knows what'll happen if it does. There could be a whole slew of them waiting away for that one to return for all you know.
You reach the trees too late, you've lost sight of it. You grit your teeth and push forward. You hear Jade fire a couple more shots and the crashing of underbrush as the others reach the woods. You slow and try to listen for footsteps ahead of you.
You hear Jade fire again, followed by a strangled scream. You take off in the direction of the sound.
When you reach a tree splattered with blood, your heart freezes in your throat.
That's human blood.
Bright, red human blood. Not even that muddy red that some of the aliens have. Human red.
Your eyes trace the trail blood and you try not to panic. You can't have been wrong. It was an alien on that hill. You're sure of that. Your heart clenches again when you suddenly wonder if Jade mistakenly hit one of your own.
You shakily step along the trail of blood, see the crunched underbrush leading to a small drop off. You peak over the edge of the slope.
At the bottom of the slope, you see someone covered in blood, trying to push up from a boulder. You edge a bit closer, trying to get a better look. The person slumps back against the rock, head down. You can't see anything but the person's hair and blood. You ungracefully slide-skip down the slope, hesitantly walk up to the boulder.
Your heart nearly gives out in relief when you catch sight of two small horns in that hair. You were right, just an alien.
"Hey," you say to it, and take another small step towards it. If you stand over it, it should take it as a sign of dominance. That's what Rose always says anyway.
It drags its head up and focuses its creepy eyes on you. Now you can definitely see its alien grey skin. Its irises are a violent shade of red against its gold sclera. Its eyes pop out against the dark grey of its skin and its black clothes. The thing is all eyes and dark, dark everything else.
You realize this is the closest you've been to one of the aliens while it was still alive.
It stares at you for a moment, expression surprised at first, before something like defeat crosses its eyes, and goddammit why do these things have to look so human, you actually feel a pang of pity as it closes its eyes and slumps back against the boulder.
"Haha, oh fuck me of course you'll make me kill you myself." You sigh, shuffle forward, crouch down to face level with the alien. Other than the horns and coloring, it could be human. "Why'd you have to give me Jade's puppy eyes first?"
It takes you a moment to realize it isn't conscious anymore. Or so you think. You nudge it with your knee and get no response. Yeah, it's out.
You sigh and run a hand through your hair. You wish you had a weapon with you so you could just get it over with and bring it back to the lab for Dr. Lalonde to look at. Your eyes trail to its bloody shoulder. With the amount of blood that's oozing out, it'll probably bleed to death, so maybe you don't even need to worry about it.
You still can't shake the weird feeling that settles in your stomach at the sight of its red, red blood. Your group has catalogued 10 different blood colors in these aliens so far, so it shouldn't be so surprising, but these aliens are already ridiculously similar to humans as it is, and so far blood was one of the few things keeping their species separate.
Maybe you just don't want it to be human. You don't want to relate the number of aliens you've killed to human lives.
You wish Jade would hurry up and get here with her gun. You don't like staring at this thing. You rub the bridge of your nose and shift so you're sitting face to face with the unconscious alien. This one's pretty small compared to most of the ones you've brought in. Younger too, like it could be your age (haha brain, okay, let's not think about that).
You really ought to have killed it by now. Just go break its neck. It's not that hard.
But the longer you stare at it, the harder it is for you to do it. This kid - no, alien - looks so goddamn tired and small. Like it's never had a full night's sleep in its life. You remind yourself that it is not a kid. It's an alien, obviously a soldier like the other ones you've killed.
You have to remind yourself that you're not a kid anymore either.
You should really just kill it already.
You jump when you hear John and Jade burst out of the trees behind you.
"Wh- Dave! You found it?" John pants, jogging up to you.
"Uh, yeah."
"You scared us!" Jade exclaims when she reaches you. "We thought it got you! There was so much blood everywhere!"
You shrug and jerk your head towards the alien. "Must be a new blood type. Freaked the hell out of me too."
Jade crouches down next to you, looking at the blood coming from the alien's shoulder. Before you can stop her, she pokes the wound with her musket. The alien makes a small noise, shifts.
"Holy shit, Dave!" Jade yelps and falls back on her rump. "It's not dead yet?!"
"What do you mean it's not dead yet?"
You cringe at the sound of Bro's voice and turn to see him, Rose, the Doc, and Harley making their way down the slope. Oh, God, you should have just killed the stupid thing right away, you can't deal with Bro being mad at you. You try to think of an excuse but you're saved by Dr. Lalonde's thoughtful hum.
"You know, we've never had a live alien before to study," she says, putting a pondering finger to her lips.
"No," Bro says instantly.
"But think of what we could learn," Dr. Lalonde presses. "When will we get another chance to get one this easily?"
"Where will we even keep it?" John asks, curiously walking around the unconscious alien.
"Point," Bro says. You snort, it's obvious Bro just doesn't want to deal with it.
"I could easily keep it sedated until we can make some sort of confinement for it," Dr. Lalonde says easily, waving her hand.
"I would be interested in studying one alive too," Rose adds. "We've only studied dead ones before, which is all well and nice for biological studies, but I'd like to get a psychological read on them as well.
"Not to mention we might be able to get some intel out of it!" Harley chips in. "I think we'd have a lot to gain from this venture if we go for it!"
You see the corners of Bro's lips curl down slightly before going impassive again. He turns to stare at the alien's bag strapped over its shoulders. "Fine," he says, walking over to the alien. "I'll make the confinement, but I'm sure as hell not going to play babysitter for it." He leans down, unbuckles the backpack from around the alien's shoulders and waist. He wiggles it out from behind the alien and tosses it to you. You catch it clumsily.
The Doc cheers and spins in a little circle. You don't think you've ever been so grateful towards her in your life, because as much as you don't want to admit it to yourself, you're glad you didn't have to kill the stupid thing.
