Faith, Blood + Toasters( A BSG 2003 and L, D + R crossover)/ SI.
Unknown city
Unknown planet
Unknown City.
Waking up should have been as normal, spend five minutes fending off my dog sleeping on my legs, let them out, and then go right back to sleep.
The keyword, in this case, being should, not that I knew that at the time.
Instead of what I was expecting to feel, my slumber was broken by an unbearable stiffness imbuing my body, like that one time I fell asleep on the floor by accident and woke up feeling like shit. Knowing how bloody painful working out the kinks that had developed as I slept, I decided, like every procrastinator ever, to put it off until future me dealt with the problem.
Part of me knew I had to get up at some point, but that got overruled by the rest of me which just wanted to go back to sleep. I expected to hear everyone else getting up for the day, but it was oddly silent, which my fogged mind put down to waking up earlier than normal. Now, I'm an inherently lazy person at heart, and a tad oblivious at times, which still was no excuse for not noticing what I was laying on wasn't a bed. Even half-asleep me knew the surface was rough, uneven, and somewhere near my ass, there was a crunching noise every time I moved.
Time was still hella fuzzy, so eventually, even I couldn't ignore the noise and decided to grab whatever it was and have a look. Rolling over slightly to grab it, the sound of nails running over metal rang out, the sound echoing slightly as if my room had somehow grown exponentially. Chuckling in my head at such a stupid thought, my hand found something I could get a hold of, from the feel of it around the size of a melon. By this point, enough little things had made it through the sleep-haze in my head to worry me a little, like if a tiny little me was jumping up and down in my head waving a "Something's Wrong" flag very vigorously.
I imagined that mini-me had a very smug expression on his face as I extricated the object and raised it to head level, what I had taken to be some kind of oversized ball was revealed as… well, something that made me very much doubt my sanity right now. Damaged and with its silver plating shorn through across the cheek, it was still recognizable, despite how impossible it was, as the head of a Cylon Centurion. In a rational universe, this would be about the time I'd wake up, laughing at how weird dreams can be and then forgetting about it soon after. Unfortunately for my sanity and any hope of this not being a dream, my mind finally made the connection that the head was much larger than it felt in my hand, which lead me to find out why.
I want to say that I was cool as a cucumber, that the sight of a large, grey, wickedly taloned and very much not human hand clutching the Centurion's helm like a piece of fruit didn't bother me. In reality, I screamed, the sound high and piercing, echoing off the walls I could now see rose into the sky within touching distance.
Off in the distance, half-obscured by normal-looking dumpsters, the glint of sunlight on metal drew my attention, an honest to god actual Centurion came into view. The iconic red mono-eye swept across its visor, the movement halting as it caught sight of me holding the severed head of its brethren. If anyone tells you having a gun pointed at you isn't scary as hell, they can piss right off, especially when said gun is being held by a 2-meter tall Chromed murderbot out for revenge. I'm not sure what possessed me to throw the head I was holding at the incoming death machine, but it did frighten me as my body reacted on instinct, aiming my impromptu projective dead center into the approaching Centurion's reinforced chest plate.
From seeing the Centurion until my body decided to act on some kind of built-in defensive instincts took at most a second, that one moment is drawn out agonizingly slowly. Before my eyes, time slowed to a crawl, a feeling like getting hit with the world's biggest sugar rush flooding whatever fucked up body I now inhabited. I watched the powerful muscles in the arm flex, a detached part of my mind noting it had some kind of bone or exoskeleton protecting the outside of the limb. The hostile Cylon was maybe 50 meters away from me, which, combined with the warped and very much not aerodynamic projectile meant I didn't hit center mass and instead through some fluke brained the toaster with a headshot.
Several kilos of armor and circuitry impacting at the speed of a professional baseball toss hit the Centurion like a freight train, it's sweeping crimson visor just… ceasing to exist in a hail of shards that pinged off the dumpster it was standing beside.
W-What the actual fuck!
Okay… I was clearly either in some weird-ass drug dream where I can throw heads hard enough to disintegrate a Centurion's head… or whatever body I'd been dumped into was stupidly strong, hell, frighteningly strong! Bringing my hand, creepy as it looked, back to my face, I got distracted watching the movement of muscles under my leathery, almost scaled skin. The bone I saw earlier turned out to be a series of interlocking bands, gaps between each band providing a nearly full range of movement, though the lethal talons capping off my fingers drew a wince as they dug into my palm when I tried to make a fist. Now that I had time to calm down a little and focus my thoughts, the crunching noise from underneath me must have been another Centurion, unless people just left decapitated Toaster heads in alleys here.
Taking a minute to gather my thoughts, I plucked up the courage to see what the rest of me looked like, one of the buildings being clad in some kind of snazzy-looking metal, reflective enough it acted like a giant mirror… which made what I saw in it all the more shocking.
I don't even remember getting to my feet as I examined the… creature in the reflection, every inch of its features inhuman to the extreme. Forgetting my surroundings, I tapped one clawed hand against the bone shielding my head, deep thunks reverberating in my skull as the talons made contact. What parts that weren't armored in bone had a dark purple/greyish cast to it, scales and more ivory bone spread across my chest and arms.
If anyone was watching me right now, I wouldn't blame them for being confused, hell, I was just as confused, if not more. Of all the damn creatures in fiction I could have ended up as Khanivore wasn't the… worst, but, being a twelve-foot tall, Bitek, pit-fighting Frankenstein of animals that looked like she'd eat babies for breakfast wasn't great for interacting with people. Despite my predicament, I sent whatever gods might be listening a heartfelt thanks that they gave my body all its natural instincts, as much as natural can be applied to something grown in the back of a semi-truck in suspension gel.
At odds with my inhuman form and towering stature, there was a certain elegance to how it… I moved, a sort of sinuous grace that inhabited every movement I made, from turning my head to letting my tails (And wasn't that something to belatedly remember Khanivore had going for her) duck and weave around my form. Anddddd that was enough of being vain in the middle of a fuckin warzone, the Fel mood that had taken me shattered as in the distance, the sounds of all-out warfare were evident now that I wasn't obsessed with preening in front of a mirror. Grumbling at the thought of God's damn Pit-fighting creatures and their need to be visually striking, I took the time to actually look at my surroundings without being wrapped up in my own headspace.
For all the fact I seemed to be on a planet with Cylons of all things, the alley I was in looked mundane, positively quaint in that "70s American Movie" way, all trashcans, piles of rubbish and larger dumpsters set against the walls of I presumed restaurants, judging by the smell. Even the buildings looked normal, at least until I looked up and saw the one I used as an impromptu mirror was tall enough to give me vertigo, some sort of… tannish metal or cladding reflecting sunlight like a goddamn lighthouse. It was clear that I couldn't stay here, either the distant fighting comes to my little corner of whatever city I was in or the Cylons come looking for the one I fragged, the body I could still see slumped inside a doorway, sparks intermittently coming from the stump of its neck.
In the end, the only way I could go was up, the directions the Toasters had come from was right out, I sure as hell wasn't going to play chicken with guns, thank you very much. Behind me was a sheer wall, leaving the only way out of here to scale a building and get a vantage point. From what I could remember from the animation, Khanivore could easily climb sheer surfaces, though how she got her tails to do all that I had no damn clue. The moment I thought about scaling the building, my tail tentacles did their thing and split into four, each appendage piledriving into the brickwork to give me leverage. Once I had that foothold so to speak, scaling the rest of the way was as easy as thinking about it and using my arms and legs to hold my weight as my tails shattered more masonry to climb higher.
Let me tell you, climbing the face of a building while also avoiding looking at the ground was a pain, especially with the way my new eyes were inset on each side of the armored wedge that was my head. Spotting a balcony on the floor above me, it only took a thought to swing over the low railing and settle down for a breather. The metal creaked uncomfortably under my weight, the temptation to keep climbing wiped from my thoughts as an oh so sharp and coppery smell hit my nose, the stench sickeningly sweet in its intensity. I tried to vomit, the scent overpowering and perhaps a little… enticing… oh fuck me, please don't make me have a taste for human flesh, this day was already blown five ways to Sunday, though intellectually I knew the scent of blood must be some kind of trigger to help in the Pit fights.
A thought had my tails link together, my curiosity warring with my body's instincts while a third part of me was loudly shouting at me to get the hell out of here and don't investigate the building that stinks of blood… so of course, I crouch down as best I could to fit through the human-sized doorway and make my entrance. Admittedly, driving a taloned hand through the door was incredibly loud, but it cleared any obstacles or traps that the Cylons might have left when they swept through here.
With a bang that echoed through the narrow hallway, the way was clear for me to enter and enter I did, the crest of bone running down my head gouging a line along with the ceiling before I remembered to duck. What greeted me was a darkened corridor, apartment doors evenly spaced on each side, most closed, though a couple showed signs of forced entry. Even with how cramped the building was for me, moving on all fours felt… natural somehow, I knew from the alleyway I could easily stand on two feet, but here in these confines, I was stuck traversing on four legs, my tail gently swaying automatically to keep my stride steady. I resisted the urge to check the shattered doorways, the scent of blood acting like chaff for my sense of smell, the entire place reeked of the stuff so badly that even If I wanted, I had no way to tell where it came from.
My passage left a trail of scores and marks along the floors, walls, and ceiling, between my talons driving into the floor and my tail ready to strike if I got ambushed. With the light coming from the open fire exit weakening the further I moved from it, my eyes adjusted to the gloom, the double doors leading to what I thought might be a stairwell sitting ajar. A now-familiar chrome form was keeping the doors ajar, though, judging from the fact this particular Toaster ended at the waist with the rest spread across the nearby wall hinted at resistance if in my mind a pyrrhic one. Still, I wasn't taking chances, using the wider space near the intersection of hallways by the stairwell to maneuver a sub-tail to ever so gently nudge the Cylon out of the way to let me pass. Now that the sole obstacle was pushed into a corner, I was free to slip through the door, the bare concrete steps dimly lit by red strips of emergency lighting.
Thankfully for my poor nose, the stench from the corridor was far lighter in here, at least when I shut the fire door behind me to block the airflow. I might be a 12 foot tall genetically sculpted and wrought amalgam with no ability to be sick, but that didn't stop me from dry heaving as I collapsed against the nearest wall. Just my fucking luck I ended up in a pretty cool world right as it went through a vicious and brutal machine uprising… though at least this wasn't the second Cylon War, otherwise I'd be so much ash from the saturation nukes. Right, I could either A: mope here until the Toasters got me or B: keep climbing and see if the roof showed anything better. Returning to all fours, my tails poised and ready to strike, I made my way higher, the click-clack of my nails deafening in the silence, the sound of fighting gone completely, deadened as it was by the meters of concrete and steel between me and outside.
The higher I went, the more signs of battle were evident, shell casings, splashes of blood, and shattered Cylons spread amongst the detritus of war, each floor worse than the last. I couldn't read the writing on each level, the (Caprican maybe?) script alien to me, not that I was really reading them when a scent I hadn't sensed before started to become noticeable. It said a lot about my current surroundings that the growing scent of human sweat had me excited, the stronger it grew the more dead Centurions packed the stairwell, blasted, dragged, and hopefully very offline. The ascent wasn't quiet in the slightest, my body weight either crushing Toaster parts or shoving them out of my way in a racket of metal.
I turned the second to last corner, coming face to face with a barricade made up of a mix of furniture and Centurions, the Cylon bodies a much better shield against gunfire than simple wood. Aiming at me from her position in cover was a battered woman armored in an older set of Colonial Fleet marine gear and aiming a very large and very real rifle at my face. Even with the poor light, the sight of my head looming out of the gloom scared the hell out of the Marine, the blood draining from her face coinciding with her aim wavering in shock. Judging from the sheer number of Cylon bodies and the blackened and pockmarked barricade, I bet my third tentacle there was actual living humans up here! Making no sudden movements and staying right where I was, had the desired effect, the woman lowering her rifle from pointing right at me.
"Alright, what the Frak are you, I'd assume you're a politician but even those snakes aren't half as ugly as you", the Marine's challenge carrying the tones of someone balancing right at the edge of a meltdown, not that I could blame her given the whole… Cylon genocide thing going on right now.
What happened next shocked me as much as the possible friendly challenging me, the insult annoying me enough to throw one right back at her before my mind remembered Kahnivore literally couldn't speak.
"I'm surprised you know what one looks like Marine, without your Sergeant to explain it to you in baby talk", my retort carrying more hostility than the norm, but given how crap my day so far had been, can you blame me?
Whatever the Marine was expecting to happen, me actually speaking wasn't one… her shock a mirror of my own, for the voice that came from my throat was colored with the same accent as Sonnie from the Animation, hell, it sounded right like her even if the act of this body speaking was an impossibility in of itself! I'd like to say the revelation of my being able to talk brought understanding to us both, but in reality, it left us unknowingly echoing the other…
"What the Frak?"
This... horrible attempt at writing is what happens when I watched too much BSG: 2003 and watched Sonnie's Edge from Love, Death + Robots back to back. I'm not making any guarantee on quality or if it will go past this, but it is an idea I want to keep exploring, just for the total mess that this entire crossover is.