The next day Dudley arrived at work and Luna rushed passed him holding a box of blueprints "hiDudleysorrycan'ttalkrightnow" he looked confused for a second but then saw a strange metallic colored fluid lining her path, he went over to it and put his fingers in it. "What is this stuff?" he then followed Luna into the Lab "hey is everything alright?" he saw her with a blowtorch welding some metal plates together, she continued to work as if he wasn't there, Dudley was getting concerned "Luna?"
After he got no response he touched her shoulder which made her jump "whoa!" Dudley laughed "relax Luna, what's wrong?" she continued her work but actually started talking "sorry Dudley, I have a lot on my mind, my phakes period started." Dudley just stared at her lost for a second "wait, aliens have those?" Luna was now confused "um I think we're thinking of two different things here" Dudley sighed in relief "oh okay then, but what is a phakes period then?" Luna took out a wench and continued.
"It's a time where the veetle inside me goes into a protective state, you see when a veetle is subjected to different environments over a long period of time they develop a sort of defense, by coating it's host in liquid metal, but it will kill the host." Dudley got a horrified look on his face "so the veetle is trying to kill you?" she shook her head "no, no, it's scared, all it needs is to realize that I'm okay, I figure that when I was in stasis it was building up, that's why I'm already at stage three and skipped the other two."
Dudley was still concerned "so you're going to be okay though right?" She nodded "well normally I would just have to take a pill, but that's out of the question now, so I have to build a special environmental suit to keep it calm." He thought about it "well what can I do to help?" Luna smiled "I should be alright" that's when Kitty walked in "hey what's that weird stuff on the ground?" Luna frowned a bit, disappointed that she interrupted them, and Dudley turned to look at her.
"Oh hey Kitty, apparently Luna is going through her fakes period" Luna stared at him confused on how he got it wrong, and Kitty just sighed "um okay let me check to see if I have anything for that" when she left Luna was about to continue on her work when she started coughing. She coughed so hard that a piece of hard metal came out of her mouth, they looked at it confused "I thought it was a liquid metal?" she nodded "this is a first for me to" Luna took the cautious route and and got some tongs, she then carefully picked it up and put it under a scope.
She looked in the scope, then she got confused and checked again to make sure "this can't be right, but here it is" Luna moved away from it and she noticed that the liquid metal was getting worse "what is going on?" she suddenly felt sick to her stomach. She hit the floor and put a hand over her mouth, until she couldn't hold back anymore and threw up metal shavings, she held her throat and suddenly couldn't breath, Dudley quickly went to her side "Luna!" just then Kitty walked in and saw what was happening.
"What's going on?" Dudley was panicking "I don't know, she's not breathing!" Kitty turned and went halfway out the door "Keswick we have a problem!" Keswick came running in "what, w-what?" he then saw Luna grasping for air. He quickly grabbed a hypodermic needle and set up an Intravenous system, he handed the needle to Kitty so she could put it in a vein since she had the most steady hands, she tried to stick it in her arm but she couldn't get through the metal "oh come on."
They were really starting to panic when the metal started to come out of her whole body, and Dudley started to pat her back, and with enough force she coughed up a circular disc made of the strange metal, and she threw up a lot of built up liquid metal until she could finally breath. She laid there in the pool of metal and breathed heavily "I...I...never thought it would...this bad" Dudley sighed in relief "oh man that was quite a scare" Keswick looked at the metal, and then he took a sample, he then put it under the scope "fascinating."
Kitty got up and went over to him "what is it?" Keswick continued to look at it "this isn't any type of metal I've ever seen" Kitty looked back at Luna for a second "so it's a new metal?" he nodded "I need to study this further" he grabbed a glass tube and took more of the metal, then quickly left. Kitty went back to Luna's side "are you alright?" she nodded as she sat up "I'll be fine once I finish that suit" Dudley thought about it "wait a minute, if your tech was far more advanced then ours, then how can you recreate something like that?"
Luna was confused at first but then it hit her "oh god, your right, how did I miss that?" she curled up into a ball "I'm going to die, aren't I?" Kitty took out a pill bottle and showed it to her "take some of these, it might help" she looked at the pills and then looked at her confused. "How will that help?" Kitty shrugged a bit "you're running out of options right, just try it" she nodded and took some of the white pills, she looked worried but she put them in her mouth and swallowed, afterwords she tried getting up but Dudley stopped her.
"You shouldn't be moving after that" she smiled at him "I know, but I need to find another way to stop this" she stood up and tried moving, but she felt a bit dizzy and almost fell, but Dudley caught her "you need to rest" she nodded "oh okay, I don't feel so good anyway." And Kitty was about to leave when Dudley stopped her "um Kitty, can I talk to you later?" she smiled and nodded "sure" when she left Dudley helped Luna to a seat so she could rest, he could easily tell she was scared and there was a good reason to be.
She looked at the metal still on her hands, and Dudley knelt down next to her "don't worry Luna you'll be just fine, we're figure something out" she shook her head "I don't know how, every way I know to stop this was on my planet, this planet doesn't have anything I can use." She laid down on the small loveseat and Dudley could see the loss of hope in her eyes, he stood up and was about to leave when she grabbed his hand "please don't go" she sat up so he could sit down next to her, then she laid her head on his lap.
"I wonder if this was meant to be, to die like this" Dudley shook his head "you know that's not true" she sighed obviously not convinced "the phakes period would normally kill me in a few hours, but thanks to the accelerated process I probably only have a few minutes, lucky for me, it only happens once every couple years, the last time this happened I was ten years old." She smiled and chuckled softly and they waited, after awhile Luna blinked "am I dead yet?" Dudley smiled "you look pretty alive to me" she sat up confused "but I didn't do anything to stop it, what could?" she trailed off as she came to a realization.
"Wait a minute, those pills that Kitty gave me, what were in those?" she quickly stood up which surprised both of them, and they noticed the liquid metal had all but stopped, as she left the lab Dudley stood up and followed after her. Luna found Kitty at her desk "Kitty can I talk to you?" she looked up at her and smiled "well you look better, did those pills help?" she nodded "can I get another one of those to study?" Kitty got confused but took out the pill bottle and handed it to her.
"If you want, but you should know-" Luna took it and ran off back to the lab, Dudley walked over to Kitty and watched Luna run off, then he turned to her "what kind of pills are those?" Kitty laughed a bit "there just birth control pills" Dudley got confused. "Wait you carry birth control pills with you?" she nodded "well yeah, look just leave it alone, you wouldn't understand" he shrugged "oh okay, but since your here can I talk to you?" she turned in her chair "okay, what's up?" Dudley sat down and sighed.
Then Keswick jumped out of the other lab, and ran over to them "you two won't b-believe what this metal is made f-from!" Kitty turned her attention to him "what is it Keswick?" Keswick had his excited face on "that metal is made of not just a new type of m-metal but it's also made of a strange gel that acts like nano machines." Kitty looked confused "uh okay, so what are you going to call it?" Keswick stopped "I have no idea" Kitty looked back at Dudley but he wasn't there "Dudley?" he had gone back to the lab Luna was in well they weren't looking.
Dudley saw Luna examining a pill and he walked over to her "so did you find anything?" she nodded "I can't believe it, this little thing has the exact nutrients that we used to calm them down back on our planet, what is this for?" Dudley smiled "it's a birth control pill" she turned to him with a horrified look "you have pills to kill children?" Dudley shrugged "well it is their choice" Luna shook her head "on my planet birth was scarce" Dudley thought about it "well it would make sense if you have to take birth control to keep yourselves alive."
She took the pill and popped it in her mouth "sometimes I wish I didn't have this thing living in my brain, but I never feel sick and it keeps my metabolism strong, so I am grateful to it in many ways, but I'm the last of my race so." Dudley looked confused "so, what?" she blushed a little "so, someday, I need to think about reproducing" Dudley was lost so he just smiled and nodded "I see" her blush got deeper "n-not that I'm thinking about it anytime soon, I mean maybe later in a few years...maybe."
