arg! I got like 4 GR fics now! okay...so one of them isn't written yet, whos counting! Is it you! Its you, isn't it! Sorry...Noah, where are you? TT_TT
Rex woke in the near dark, the lights had yet to be turned on so he bused himself with untangling his legs from the sheet and blanket the 'wall' had generously lent him the night before. After freeing himself he made his way over to the cleared part of the wall, wondering why in the hell that one spot wasn't tinted. Then the events that had taken place not eight hours ago came back to him and he realized why that particular chunk of the wall was see through.
"OH! That girl!" He tapped his fist on the flat of his opposite palm and looked through the proverbial gap in the wall. It was dark on the other side, but he finally made out a small cocoon where he remembered her falling asleep last night. He flinched back, but quickly reclaimed his ground, one couldn't help thinking of the phrase; Curiosity killed the cat.
A closer look proved to him that yes, it was in fact, some form of chrysalis. But one unlike any he had ever seen before, It looked like a small jet turbine, the wider end was opened, but a small film covered it. the majority of the cocoon was a light, sapphire-ish blue, but the little end faded into an emerald green, as did the lip of the big end.
Thats...really familiar actually... Rex thought. He tapped lightly on the glass. "Hey!..." he faltered, not knowing what to call her. "um...Hey Mitts! You in there?" He settled on the name of a little girl he once knew.
There was no response so he rapped on the glass louder and paused again, this time the cocoon rustled and the film end starting to stretch as something exited. He flinched back yet again as this...thing began to stand and break the blue layer of the cocoon to revile...
...Mitts.
"What?" Rex made a face as the little girl with huge mandibles yawned and stretched, then glanced at him. She cocked her head to one side, then made a sort of happy chirping noise when she recognized him. He smiled as well, relieved it was just her. "I'm gunna call you Mitts, okay?" He said, approaching the glass and looking her in her multicolored eyes.
She paused momentarily, as if pondering the matter, then erupted into another chorus of chirping.
"Cool." Rex nodded. He paused as a familiar feeling set in his stomach. Mitts was quiet as Rex's stomach glowered and rumbled at them both. The teen Evo blushed in embarrassment before realizing that a girl that was more creature than human probably wouldn't care in the least, in fact, she seemed to smile and disappeared into the deep, dark recesses of her room, only to reemerge with a rat in her jaws.
"Thanks Mitts, but I think I'll skip." He smiled and turned to the wall, feeling really stupid as he asked it nicely for food. When it didn't respond he cursed at it and considered using the smack-hands to bust a hole in the wall in order to better share Mitts' rat, but dismissed the idea when he heard a tapping on the door. He turned to see none other than Seth coming in, the shorter teen smiled and waved nervously.
"Umm...mornin' Rex...can I...uh...can I come in?" He looked horrified as Rex pretended to ponder the question.
"Hmmmm yeah okay." He finally said to the albino's relief.
"Don't do that man. I have this thing with trying to please people." Seth wined, scratching the back of his head. He perked up immediately. "I figured you'd wanna have some breakfast! So I decided to come and eat with you cuz you must be kinda lonely and wanting to ask a bunch of questions and stuff." Rex nodded.
"Yeah! that would be nice, actually." He paused. "Can we invite Mitts?" Seth shot him a questioning look, the Latino pointed at Mitts' wall.
"What! You want to invite E71 to brunch!"
"Is that her name? I call her Mitts and she likes it, and she's real good at sharing, so I don't see the problem." Rex muttered. Seth paused about to say something when he saw the look on Rex's face, never one to turn someone down, he sighed.
"It's not that she isn't...well bad or anything, it's just, us in the higher ranks are encouraged to make rational decisions we think are best for the situation, but removing an E.V.O from lock-down is kinda frowned upon in this society without the corresponding paperwork..."
"Who said we have to leave?" Rex smiled mischievously, it was a smile Seth would grow accustom to, though he didn't quite know it now.
"What do you me- what are you doing!" Seth looked horrified as Rex activated the B.F.S and began cutting a hole in the wall. when he finished he kicked down the glass material and called Mitts to come out. She timidly crawled through, pupils adjusting to the lighter environment. When she saw Rex she shakily stood on her two feet and ran over to him and began... sniffing him?
In the light Rex could see her better. She had slightly deformed limbs that extended farther than normal humans at the elbows and turned into sort of tattered wings. He patted her on the head (something he had secretly wanted to do since he had first seen her, despite her appearance)
"Umm...Okay, I guess..." Seth muttered defeated. "Why so attached? you've been conscious all of ten hours." Rex paused and thought about it for a second.
"I can't really explain it...but ever since i first saw her, my nanites have been talking like crazy. They keep telling me to watch over her, like she's my responsibility and I feel as if I'v known her before, briefly, but definably. And if I don't look after her, I'll regret for the rest of my life. You ever get that feeling?"
Seth had to pause to think about it, but eventually he nodded slowly. "Yeah, I think I do...so I 'spose when you put it that way, I don't have much of a choice, do I?"
Rex felt relief surge through his body and he picked up the small, black haired bug-girl in his arms as if she were a baby. Mitts rested her head on his shoulder, glad not to have to walk, seeing as it proved difficult while balancing her large jaws while she did so. Normally, she wouldn't bother, but, in the back of her clouded brain, she remembered being human, and humans always walked on two legs, not four, they seemed to fear things that did not act like they did, so she made the effort not to scare them, but this one didn't seem to mind in the least.
"So...can I leave this room now?" Rex asked, puzzled.
"Yep!" The momentary "higher rank" personality was quickly devoured by the childish one Rex had categorized him under upon their first meeting 10 or so hours ago. "The monitors in the watch room have declared you clean of any radiation or viral infection. You must have some really cooperative nanarobotics in you to be cleaned so fast, most of the time it takes three days to a week, longer still for some unfortunate ones, but your's literally happened over night. Color me impressed."
"I get that a lot." Rex assumed the albino was referring to his nanites. "or used to get that a lot, I have so many questions that I keep forgetting what they are." He shifted Mitts weight ever so slightly to keep his arm from falling asleep. "And I'm thinkin' I need some answers before I start assuming its something much worse."
"I bet! I hate being left in the dark myself, so just follow me. And don't look so timid, weakness is frowned upon around here. E sevent- I mean, 'Mitts' can come. As long as an E.V.O in lock-down is escorted out by a qualified official, no one will get annoyed."
The albino teen marched triumphantly outside, followed closely by a hesitant Rex with the bug-girl still in his arms. He watched Seth quietly, sizing up the youth who walked kinda like a puppy would if it could skip around on two legs, much too happily for the dire situation of the earth as far as Rex could comprehend. His attention strayed from his escort to the halls in which they were traveling. He had expected something more interesting, like the inside of the Galaxy 614m, or better yet, the Deathstar in all it's chocolaty-sith-coated glory, but was sorely disappointed by more plain white decor, blindingly white, in fact, so bright in the florescent bulbs that provided light (as well as the only sound aside from their footsteps, an eerie, obnoxious humming) that simply glancing in any direction of the bleached corridors would burn ones eyes to the point of blinking furiously.
That being said, Rex kept his gaze on the crown of Seth's orange headphones until he led them to a door and punched in a code, followed by a thumb print and retina scan.
"People are very paranoid around here these days, so naturally everything is tightly secure, the only thing keeping them from putting a voice and blood sampler on all the entryways is fundamental frequency and the fact that nanites have the tendency to tint a persons blood."
"I didn't understand a single word you just said." Rex informed him nonchalantly. they entered a room identical in every way to Holidays old lab. Rex nearly dropped Mitts at the initial shock as Déjà vu and fierce nostalgia overwhelmed him.
"Holly?" Rex shouted, suddenly a small child again in his first year working for providence. The normally bright room was dim, and in the corner Holiday was hunched over a pile of paper work, she looked up and smiled at the sound of his voice.
"Hello, Rex." a voice emitted from nowhere. it was her's alright, but it had a sort of echoy sound to it, as if it had been bounced off many walls in a cave before reaching his ears. He walked up to her, only coming up to the top of her tall desk, and peeking over at her from the edge.
"Did you have another nightmare?"
He nodded.
"Would you like to hear a story?"
He nodded again and moved to sit on her lap, she cradled him in return as best she knew how.
"Once upon a time, there was a little boy named Rex." She started.
"Thats me!" The boy looked up at her with a grin, the nightmare all but forgotten. She nodded back.
"Now Rex was a very good little boy who loved to run and play and laugh." her grip tightened on him, but he didn't notice.
She continued her voice dropping an octave "But one day something horrible happened." Rex shuttered as Holiday clutched him tighter, so much that it began to hurt. "A whole lot of bombs went off at once and killed everyone." Rex began to scream and tried to scramble away but her nails dug into his skin. All at once the shadows in the dim room began to grow and Holidays own face started to twist and disfigure itself into a creature with slitted red eyes and a maw dripping with glowering yellow teeth like the kind one might find in a Northern pike, or a tyrannosaurus-rex mouth. The pain from her claws got worse and worse, until he couldn't bear it anymore. Then all he could see was red. Red and fire...
XXX
well that was enlightening. not really, sorry, i know it's been like a month, i'd be surprised if anyone is still following this fic, I just wanted to update cuz i'm going camping this week, i leave in like 3 hours for a week in the boundry waters, so if your reading this, try and get new eps for me while i'm gone. ^_^
Anyway, this chap was originally about 1,000 words longer, but i decided to stick to my 2,000 wrd rule because I tried, and i really can't end it. _ Anyway, I'm hopeing some questons will be answered in the next chap, Seth talks A LOT _
on the bright side, you guys have got to know who this bug-girl is by now, right? I don't know if I can make it more obvious without giving it away. I will say once again, SHE IS 110% not an OC. and if you still don't know, then I guess you will in a week when i finish up the 8th chap and post it, but only in exchange for feedback. As for "Tunnels of Blood" I'm thinking about scraping it so I can use that plot to make a G.R. comic on DA. I mean, do we really need the same story on two sites? Hopefully I can figure out how to work a scanner by then, because believe you me, I can draw 10x better with a pencil and paper than with a tablet.
WARNING! when i post the next chapter, I will also be changing the title of the fic to "Life as We Knew it"