Madam Pomona Sprout is concerned, a few hours ago the school wards transferred over to her unexpectedly. Normally she wouldn't be that concerned, as it just means that both the Head Master, Deputy Head, and Filius were out of the castle. Which given it's the summer holidays, isn't actually that unusual. She knows that Fillius is judging on the duelling circuit, as well as giving classes on charms to up and comers. However, she is expected to be at her Niece's birthday party later this afternoon. After which she has a portkey booked for a conference in Germany about the latest research in fertiliser for magical plants. Making her way over to the Head Masters office, the Gargoyle moves out of the way and she climbs the stairs. As she enters she can see Fawkes on the Head Masters desk pecking at one of the drawers.
"Oh, hello Fawkes, you wouldn't happen to know where Dumbledore or McGonagall are?"
Ptiana looks up from the drawer that she knows contains the sweets, damn her lack of leverage. "Human, open this drawer or I'll… You can't bloody understand me can you. Fine miming it is." She then looks back down and continues to peck and claw at the drawer.
Pomona watches her for a moment, "Oh, is the answer in that drawer. Thank you Fawkes." Moving around the desk she pulls the drawer open to reveal a large paper sack of lemon drops.
"There's nothing there."
Not taking any chances, Ptiana jumps on her wrist and flames her to the egg room by the first adoption egg she was going to try. Jumping off she returns to the office to gorge herself on candied fruit.
Pomona lights the tip of her wand and looks around the room she finds herself in. It's surprisingly large, with some sort of large creature against one wall, a lot of weapons and skulls on another, and maybe two dozen leathery pods dotted around. Unnoticed, the one that she was deposited next to opens up, and a face hugger crawls out. As she swings her wand back to have a look, it jumps and latches onto her face. Stumbling backward, she trips over another egg and her wand goes flying. A minute or two later, the constriction on her throat finally knocks her out.
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Arry looks at Minerva in confusion, "Why do you look so horrified?"
"Tail, claws…"
Arry points at T'o-Ba'sall behind her, "Do you think that T'o-Ba'sall was born with her tail and claws?"
"How would I know?"
Arry stalks out of the room, "T'o-Ba'sall you talk to her, I'm going to brood."
Once in the hall she reverts to her normal form and runs down the hallway. As she enters the laying room her echolocation picks up something breathing when there shouldn't be anything. Making her way through the eggs, she locates the source of the breathing and sees another human with a face hugger around her neck. Letting out a keening noise, she flames to Ptiana, who is pulling yellow things out of a container as fast as she can. Lightning fast, Arry grabs the phoenix in a massive claw and flames out just before Irma Pince, the Librarian, walks into the office to ask why the wards have shifted to her.
Reappearing in her laying chamber, Arry points Ptiana's head at the human on the floor, "Explain!" she commands.
"The plant lady wanted to know where the cat lady and my human were. So when she helped me get at the candied fruit I brought her here."
"You almost killed her is what you did. The egg that she tripped over contains a chest burster. If she'd turned around before this egg opened, she'd have activated that one. I would then have to choose between killing one of my children, or letting her die. If you do that again, or think about bringing anyone to an egg chamber without me present and awake, I will find you and I will kill you every time you recover enough for 60 rest cycles. Do you understand?"
Ptiana had never understood why humans talked about shitting themselves in fear. As the lemon drops she ate take the express way out, she finally understands. The pressure her Queen is bringing to bear, along with the inner mouth snapping in and out a mere beaks length from her head, makes her realise that her carefree days are well and truly over. No longer would she be able to just pick an interesting looking human and while away a few decades watching their antics. Her Queen could and would ensure that Ptiana kept to her own standards.
"I said, Do, You, Understand?"
"Yes." Ptiana manages to squeak out.
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In the infirmary, Minerva notices an odd pressure in her head. What draws her attention more is T'o-Ba'sall pausing in mid-sentence and tensing up, along with the two… It's hard to call them monsters when they've just started cowering behind you.
"What's going on?"
T'o-Ba'sall shakes her head, "The Queen is very angry with someone. We can all feel it, and instinctively we are all worried that she's going to lash out at us. I know she won't, but our genetic memories are stronger than that. That and I've had that anger turned on me before. I had wanted to lead a hunt on a world where there was a research team. Much like hunters from my old clan would have done. The Queen made it very clear that we only hunt other hives and those who break the law. It's strange, I feel like I have more honour now, than I would have done as a hunter in my old clan. Yet, they and the other Yautja call us abominations and send hunters after us ever 30 rest cycles or so. The ones behind you were born a few months ago after a few of my siblings were killed defending a ship from pirates. They grow like younglings mentally, even though they mature physically in days. The oldest of them can hold very simple conversations. If you want, they like having the underside of the back of their heads scratched. Never touch the top of their head though, if they choose to rub their head against your hand that's different. The crest is full of their sensory organs, and allows them to navigate in pretty much any condition you can imagine. Arry allowed me to experience her senses once, and it incapacitated me for multiple rest cycles as my brain tried to cope."
"T'o-Ba'sall would you be able to show Minva to the sleeping quarters, Ptiana decided to endanger a human, and by extension possibly one of my children. Luckily it was an adoption egg that detected the human."
Minerva looks at T'o-Ba'sall with a confused expression, partly from the message, but also at how quickly she's got used to T'o-Ba'sall's appearance, "What's going on? And why do you all keep getting my name wrong?"
"Ptiana is the phoenix?"
Dawning understanding crosses Minerva's face, "Oh Merlin, that's bad."
Picking up her pace, T'o-Ba'sall nods, "It is. Arry has strong opinions about not just dropping that sort of thing on people. Especially when it could endanger one of her children. It's why the old command deck is her laying room. It's the hardest part of the ship for any intruders to reach."
Breathlessly, Minerva replies, "I still can't believe this is a spaceship. Or that we're so far away from earth."
"It's not nearly as unbelievable as Arry being a human male."
Minerva skids to a halt and falls backwards as she sees a monster that looks like one of Arry's children, only 15 foot tall, and dripping malice with every curve and spine. In its hands she recognises Pomona Sprout, with a face hugger covering her face. The only thing staying her wand is the sense of familiarity she's getting from the monster.
"Good, you're here, could you take the human from me and place her on the bed? I'm a little large to be squeezing through the door carrying someone."
T'o-Ba'sall steps forward and takes the unconscious human. At the same time, Minerva's face drains, and her hand goes limp, as she realises that the Monster is Arry, "Merlin, she's really not human."
Arry turns to her and leans down so her face is inches away from Minerva's own, "I did say. Come on, I'll show you my laying room."
As she enters the Laying room, and the lights come up, Minerva stops in shock, her hand covering her mouth. The source of the shock? A wall full of skulls mounted over the weapons they had when they were killed by Arry, "How? How could you?"
"Hmm? Oh, it was fun. This one was my first, he boarded the ship, oh, 6 cycles ago and killed the worker that raised me. Unfortunately, I wasn't the one to kill the other two, otherwise they'd be on the wall too. This one was another hunter that boarded the ship, in fact, most of these are. I don't have any from when T'o-Ba'sall joined the ship. But that's ok, she became one of my children instead. These ones were special, they were from our first bounty, Bad Bloods both of them…" As Arry continues, Minerva finds herself feeling more and more nauseous, until she can't take it anymore and staggers from the room, bile burning the back of her throat.
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Pomona wakes up with a sore throat, both inside and out, and no idea where she is. Sitting up she clutches her head as the room swims in front of her. Once it's subsided, she looks around and screams when she sees the weird spider thing next to where her head was.
Someone says slowly and carefully, "You are wake. Good, will inform Queen." Pomona's head swivels to find the sound, only to eep as she sees a monstrous humanoid kneeling on the floor, its tail curled around its knees.
"They coming. Sorry English bad, first speak it. Why oomans scream when see me? Oou second to do so."
Pulling her wits and dignity together, Pomona says, "While we have non-humans in our world, they are, ironically, either more human or less human than you are."
"Children coming, be gentle will not harm you."
True enough, Krizror, Brugroch, and the youngest Xenomorphs come charging into the room and stop when they see T'o-Ba'sall.
Brugroch bows to Pomona and says something she doesn't understand. T'o-Ba'sall shakes her head, and says, "Children, this human doesn't yet speak language. Use Minva language instead."
Using the smile she gives first years, Pomona says, "I'm Pomona Sprout, who might you four be?"
"I'm Brugroch and this Krizor, she can't speak ooman. What like only have two arms?"
"Let me ask you, what's it like to have four arms instead of two?"
Brugroch frowns, "I don't know…"
"Exactly. You can't explain what it's like to have something that another person naturally doesn't. Nobody can. That being said, I would imagine that having an extra pair of arms would be handy when I'm working with my plants. However, your fingers don't look as dexterous as my own."
Brugroch looks at his four fingered hands thoughtfully, "I don't know."
"And that's OK. Now how old are you?"
"I'm six and Kirzror is 7. Arry adopted us when bad xenomorphs attacked our home. We're good xenomorphs now."
"I've got a niece that's the same age as you. I was supposed to be going to her birthday party later."
"What's a birthday party?"
"Do you know what a party is?"
"No?"
"How about celebration?"
"Oh yes."
"A party is a type of celebration."
Minerva and Arry come in, with Arry shrinking down to her humanoid form to fit through the door conveniently.
"Arry, Arry, can we go party?"
Minerva speaks up first, "Not until you've met more humans. We are more fragile than you're used to, especially children."
"Aww."
"Pomona, how are you feeling?"
"My neck hurts."
Arry shakes her head, "I have taken Ptiana to task for bringing you here. She's lucky that nobody was killed."
Pomona frowns, "Ptiana?"
Minerva laughs, "Fawkes, turns out she's not just female, but called Ptiana."
"Minerva, have you seen my wand?"
"Accio Pomona's wand."
"Thank you. Arry was it?" – Arry nods – "Would it be possible for me to go back to Earth. I promised my niece I would go to her Birthday Party this afternoon."
Arry frowns, "It would be best if you were near me until you've fully joined my hive. I'm not sure what would happen if your connection matured without me there. If you were a pure xenomorph, you'd be driven to start a hive yourself. Even if I turned the ship around now, we're still 25 cycles from your planet."
"What if you stayed on earth?"
T'o-Ba'sall says, "I think I can handle things here if you take the children."
Minerva hands Pomona her wand.
Casting a tempus, Pomona breathes a sigh of relief, "I've still got an hour. If we go now I might be able to get the bruise dealt with at St Mungo's."
Minerva stares at Pomona, hard, "Pomona, you understand what's happening to you?"
"Oh, yes. I'll cry and scream about it later, but right now I need to be happy for my niece, so I'm not thinking about it."
Minerva just gives her a couple of slow, catlike blinks, "I'll never understand how you do that."
"It's simple, ask two different questions – Is it a problem that needs to be dealt with now? If no, why worry about it? Can I do anything about this problem? If no, why worry about it? I teach it to all my badgers. Whatever's happening isn't something I can control, so I'll worry about it when I have time."
"If Arry can do it, then we can go. I will need to contact the ministry and the board about Albus' absence. I also need to find someone to take over as Deputy while I'm the acting Head Master. I'll also need to talk to Babbling about taking over my duties to Gryffindor."
Arry shakes her head, "Very well, this might take me a while to work out, as carrying more people is a learnt ability, so I'm having to read Ptiana's memories. Everyone that's coming, hold onto my tail."
It takes her 10 ticks, but she's able to get everyone to the Head Masters office.