Upon returning to the Lexx the next morning, Kai and Xev were greeted by a very ill-tempered Stan, who was tied and gagged to the command pedestal. He was covered in paint, as the kids were quite content with shouting as loud as they could, while chasing each other around the most dangerous room on the Lexx that didn't contain Vlad. They paid no mind to the fact that they could fall off the bridge, and were simply having fun with throwing things off it. Kai undid the binding on Stan, and stepped off the pedestal. "Please, please, please, please tell me that you found where they're from, and that they're going home now. Sooner than now!" said Stan.
"Their planet is one called Evelle. In my memories, it is a planet that is not far from where we are now. There is little atmosphere, but it has been inhabited by people longer than I have existed. I suggest that we find it, and return these...guests home,"
After explaining the situation, he immediately had to step to the side, as Len tried to fire a magenta colored paint bomb at him. Kai looked at the child, who responded with a defiant "nyah-nyah", and stuck his tongue out. Len probably would have tried again, had Gilly not run up and kicked him in the rear end, causing her to be the twin's next target.
"So until we get to their planet," said Xev, playing with her fingers nervously. "All we have to do is...watch them ?"
"It would appear so," said Kai, as Len threw another paint bomb at his brother. "There were no adults aboard their vessel,"
"Ugh, this is just great!" said Stan. "A whole ship full of midgets, and the adult's missing!"
"There are no adults on Evelle," said Kai. "To have an adult, there would have to be an inhabitant of the planet over twenty years, which does not happen. Their aging process is different from the one you and Xev are accustomed to,"
"That would explain the savage behavior," said Stan, rolling his eyes.
"What's the matter Stan?" Xev asked, sweetly smiling at the kids tearing all over the bridge. "I don't mind them. Do you, Kai?"
Stormy came up and kicked Stan as hard as she could in the shin. "As I am not aware of likes or dislikes," said Kai, ducking a flying toy of some kind. "I do not feel anything for them,"
"Well, yeah, that aside, we gotta do something about them!" said Stan. "I mean, we can't have a bunch of kids running all over the ship, it's too risky!"
"Stan," Xev said sweetly. "It's much safer for them to be here than out there where the Lexx can eat them. The only thing that we have to worry about here is Vlad, and we haven't seen her for days, so what's a few hours more?"
"They had me tied up and were throwing paint at me!" said Stan. "A few hours more, and then all three of us are gonna be at their mercy!"
"They're just kids!" said Xev.
"Out of the question!" said Stan. "Either they go back to their shuttle so the Lexx can tow them to their planet, or I start looking for Vlad! And believe me, Xev, these aren't the little kids you think they are. If Vlad shows up, she has my full permission to-"
"Kai!" said Xev.
Stan sighed. Whenever she didn't get her way, she always played the card of "the assassin always responds to my orders, so you better change your tune before he gives the bridge a new coat of you."
"I do not have an opinion on the situation, however if you ask me to, I will kill Stan," said Kai.
"Kai!" said Stan, backing away slowly. "You're human now, you can't kill people on command anymore. You wouldn't kill me...right? I mean, you gotta have some kinda feelings by now!"
Unbeknownst to Stan, the attention of the kids had been caught, and they were huddled in a group, watching the scene between their supposed rescuers. "My body is human now, that is true," said Kai. "Though my mind is still very much programmed as an assassin's. Your first inclination would be to cancel out Xev's plea with an order for me not to kill you; however, as I have told you on other occasions, your desire to have Vlad kill innocents tips the scales,"
As Kai primed his brace, Xev smiled triumphantly at Stan from behind her overly obedient assassin. Stan growled, and hissed in Xev's face, "You really, really need to rethink your priorities,"
An angry Stan sulked off in the direction of the galley, but he couldn't make it there without a hearty kick in the rear from Quet and Stormy. Xev followed after Stan in an attempt to comfort him, while Spaz looked at Kai quizzically. "Yes?" Kai asked.
"Is she your girlfriend?" the boy asked.
"The dead do not have romantic relationships with the living," said Kai. "Most of the time,"
"Then she isn't?" said Spaz.
"No, she is not," said Kai.
"Then how can ya be so whipped if you aren't even sleeping with 'er!" said Spaz, making his brother and Quet burst into uncontrollable laughter.
Kai tilted his head slightly in thought. "The dead do not get whipped," he said, following after his shipmates.
He stepped up onto the path that led into the passageway, but since his guard was down (how many times a day did he cross that passageway,), his foot managed to find a green puddle of some kind, and he found himself falling backwards, and landing hard, flat on his back. The children all burst into eardrum piercing fits of giggles, as he stiffly sat up, with his tailbone and head screaming at him. "We'd have warned ya that Gilly spilled her electrolyte supplement there, but it was too priceless to pass up," said Stormy, taking a cautious step toward the sore assassin.
Kai peeled himself off the ground with much difficulty, as his back wasn't exactly cooperating. He knew he'd made a mistake, but the fall shouldn't have injured him so. It wasn't that far, and he'd taken worse hits than that during this short new life. "Are any of you aware of what an assassin is?" he asked.
"Not really," said Len. "Should we care?"
"An assassin...is a man who intentionally kills people," said Kai, gingerly standing up.
"So what!" said Spaz, his expression mirroring his brother's. "Make your point already!"
"I am an assassin," said Kai, limping off in the direction of the protein regenerator.
The Lexx came upon a grubby looking orange planet later in the day. It was useless to try and contact the inhabitants, if there even were any, since no one had answered back. Stan seemed to think they were cursed with these heathens, while Kai was thinking more along the lines of either insects or Lyekkas. The heathens, on the other hand had spent the day with Xev. Something about her attitude was different with the kids around, and she seemed to really enjoy having them around. Their attitude with her was different from their attitude with either Stan or Kai, as well. Kai didn't think much of it, but then again, he was the one who had to keep them from killing each other while she took a nap. He had endured a lot over six thousand plus years, but he had never been prodded, questioned, or ridiculed so much in half-an-hour as he had been throughout his whole existence. So far, he'd received questions such as "Why is there a weasel on your head?" and "Does that thing on your arm hurt?" He'd answered them truthfully of course, but he was now beginning to realize that the truth wasn't sufficient enough for children so young.
He was trying to come up with something that would cease their questioning when Xev came onto the bridge in a pressure suit, and smiled as Stormy won a fight against both twins, who had tried to steal a candy bar from her. Kai was sitting on the command pedestal, and stood up upon sensing her presence. "I must urge you to be aware of your surroundings, Xev," he said. "I have been observing them all afternoon,"
"And?" said Xev.
"They are not the sort of kids you were most likely trained to raise," said Kai.
"I'll keep that in mind. By the way, there are only two pressure suits on board, and Stan's going with me. He said something about better being in danger than being tied up again. You're staying here," she said.
"Why?" he asked.
"Because someone needs to stay with the kids, and I think it would be good for you," said Xev.
"Why?" he said again.
"Well, you need experience with all kinds of humans to learn how to be human again. You're hardly in contact with anyone aside from me and Stan, so this is perfect for you. I promise, it should be easy. Just make sure they eat a decent meal, and stay out of trouble, okay?" she said. "If they get tired, they can always just sleep out here,"
"I will do as you ask," said Kai grabbing one of the twins (he couldn't tell them apart, and since death was still a part of him, he didn't care.), who was about to hit his brother with what looked like a piece of chain. "However, would it not be wise for me to protect you?"
"Kai, you were gone for three months, remember?" she said, smiling. "I think I can handle a planet full of kids,"
"The dead do not get ideas, but the dead baby-sit?" Stan asked coming onto the bridge. "Whatever, man, but hey, couldya do me a favor and keep Vlad from coming down to the planet if she decides to show herself? She's got a habit of doing that, and this seems like the last place she should be,"
"I will do as you instruct, Stanley," said Kai.
Xev rolled her eyes and pecked Kai on the cheek quickly. The kiss caught the attention of all the children, and they all responded with an "Ewwww!"
Xev had to laugh, while Stan echoed them sarcastically. "Don't wear yourself out, dead man," he said. "Be careful. Uh...don't fall asleep, okay? For more than one reason,"
"I understand," said Kai, as he wrestled the weapon out of the child's hand. He then proceeded to toss the chain off the bridge despite Len's protest, since he didn't know what else the child had in mind for it. This was bound to at least be interesting. Since regaining his memories from that Divine Predecessor, the only other child he's encountered was Norb. He supposed Norb was what a well-behaved child was supposed to be, but the problem was that he had no idea as to what a bad child was like. Now he was beginning to think that this was one of those things Stan mentioned that are better not knowing about.
He watched as Xev and Stan boarded the moth and flew out to the airlock, leaving him with five adolescents and Vlad, who was still MIA as far as he was concerned. Len, still angry about the loss of his chain, took a swing at Kai, who immediately grabbed his wrist. The dead did not get annoyed, that was very true, but how long would it take before the living did?
Xev piloted the moth through the Lexx, and out the airlock, smiling. The kids had a life so unlike her own at that age, and in that, they intrigued her. If she hadn't wanted to explore the planet so badly, it would be her staying instead of Kai, but then again, such a planet seemed to be the kind of place that would make Kai more uncomfortable than he already was with his new life. "So...you really think it was okay to leave him there?" Stan asked, putting his helmet on. "I dunno about you, but I'm still learning how to speak Divine Assassin. What makes you think the kids are gonna listen to him?"
"I trust Kai," said Xev, landing the moth. "He'll do just fine,"
On the planet, there was a city of perhaps billions of interlocking buildings all made out of scrap metal. There was an obvious designated structure for landing small vessels, so she landed the moth with as little noise as she could assemble, and put on her helmet. "Uh, Xev," said Stan. "What's with all the secrecy?"
"Do you see anyone around?" she asked, putting her own helmet on.
"Oh boy," said Stan. "I got a feeling this is gonna be bad,"
Upon exiting the moth, they looked at the sky to see it was a dull orange color, and the land around this odd structure they'd landed on was just as dull and orange as the sky. It felt as if they had gone completely colorblind, save for the color around them. Stan paced around a bit, and said finally, "Great," he said. "How do we get in, oh fearless brave, cluster lizard?"
Xev looked around, and then pointed to what looked like a doorway to a stairwell. "Come on," she said.
Xev marched straight up to the door, and keyed in a combination. Stan was a bit more cautious about it, since most doors led to psychopaths who wanted to cut off their heads if not some part of their body, or homo-cyborgs. "Hello!" Xev called into a speaker on the mechanism. "Anybody there?"
A child's voice, maybe a girl of about six, echoed back on the speaker. "Who are you!" she asked. "We don't want your help!"
"We're not here to help you," Xev said gently. "We're here to make sure everything's okay. You see-"
"Everything's humming, you ditz!" the girl snapped back. "Get outta here!"
"Look!" said Stan, stepping forward. "We just found a ship full of your buddies out in the middle of space, and we're just here ta make sure they're gonna be safe here!"
In Stan's mind, it was much better to yell at a bunch of kids, instead of having to eat breakfast with those monsters every day for the rest of their existence. Vlad was bad enough, since she was like a child in her own right. "...Was Stormy one of them?" the little girl asked.
"Yeah, yeah, I think so," said Stan. "Big pink bow, loudmouth?"
The speaker shut itself off, and the doors automatically slid open. "Nice going, captain," said Xev, smiling at him through her helmet.
As always, Xev casually stepped over the threshold, and into the building, whereas Stan followed cautiously after her. He'd given up any hope of finding any open minded women; even if he did, Vlad would know it and never let him forget about it simply because she was insane and probably considered him to be little more to her than a pet under her control. Besides, the last time he'd been promised a good time, he ended up losing the key...again.
She came to what seemed to be an elevator, and pressed the button. An orange, gel-like substance shot out, and wrapped itself around her, pulling her through an open void where the "elevator" doors used to be. "Xev!" Stan shouted in alarm, before the gel engulfed him as well.
"Stan!" Xev said impatiently, tapping him sharply on the back of his head. "You can stop screaming now!"
He opened his eyes, and then looked around. The gel was gone, and neither of them were covered it in. There were kids everywhere, making him more nervous than he was aboard the Lexx, except that they were now at the end of a narrow street. There were buildings everywhere, underneath a light orange sky, which didn't seem to make any sense at all since the planet seemed devoid of any atmosphere at all. Since it was in fact, a child's ideal planet, balloons dotted the skies in every color, and there seemed to be no end to the stores dedicated to selling junk food and/or toys, video games, and various things anyone from two to nineteen would enjoy. Stan felt as if he were going to be sick with all of this exaggerated cuteness, while Xev seemed quite curious, as her own childhood was so different.
An attractive male of twenty stepped forward wearing a blue robe, and shook Xev's hand. "Hey, I'm Melfus. I kinda run the place, and hear that Tyen up there let you in because you know a girl named Stormy. You are?"
"Xev," the love slave replied promptly, removing her helmet, and shaking out her hair. "Xev of B3K,"
"And you?" Melfus asked, turning his empty gaze on Stan.
"Stanley Tweedle, captain of the Lexx," he said, disentangling himself from the netting on his own helmet.
As they walked with this Melfus and his accomplices, Stan calmly let Xev do all the talking, since she was better at it as of late. He was trying to get used to getting the image of her wearing a cute, vacant smile, flirting endlessly with this boy out of his head, since she now kept a serious face on at all times when meeting new people. Three months had changed more than just the number of people on board the ship. "You see," said Xev. "We're here, because we picked up a distress signal from a drifting vessel containing a little girl named Stormy, along with her little sister, twin boys, and another little boy who's a bit older that the twins," said Xev. "They said they didn't want our help because we'd hurt them or something. Could you...explain to us why that is?"
Stan rolled his eyes, as Melfus snapped out of a trance-like state he'd been in since Xev started talking. Things had changed, but obviously not that much. "I'm sorry," said Melfus. "You must forgive my ignorance. You see Xev, why is it that you speak about these matters to me, when you are not the captain of your vessel?"
"Because she likes to," Stan said bitterly. "It's not like I command the people on my ship, too. They're not my slaves!"
"Hmm," Melfus said distantly. "I feel so sorry for you. Now then, would you care to explore the city a bit? I would stay with you a bit longer, but I'm afraid I have other matters to tend to. I will meet you at the hotel on the next block tonight. Until then, feel free to do as you wish,"
It had taken the better part of an hour, but Kai had finally managed to get all five of the drifter children seated in the galley after their incessant chanting of "Hungry," not too long after Xev and Stan's departure. He was programmed to take orders, and since Xev had left him with instructions to make sure they ate something, he had no choice but to attempt this somewhat dangerous mission. He was just relieved to know that the ship they had been stranded on had a food supply that wasn't Lexx paste. He was used to it by now, but he knew kids from the ages of four to nine would find it to be a better projectile than anything else.
He'd gathered what hadn't gone bad from their ship earlier, which was everything they hadn't opened; fruits and vegetables. He also didn't want to attempt eating a meal with them, since he'd already seen one of them pick their nose and stick their finger in their neighbor's ear. There was no telling as to what they'd do with a meal. Plus, he needed both hands for this maneuver. He'd now learned the names of the twins, only because Len, the dominant brother of the two, had been found in the cryochamber, trying to stuff his brother Spaz in one of the pods. Kai had also learned to treat freezer burn without the help of a working protein regenerator (courtesy of the twins yet again) all in a matter of fifteen minutes. "I hate this stuff," said Quet. "It's too purple,"
Kai said nothing, since he was too busy trying to keep Spaz and Gilly from stuffing the undesired food items up the Lexx's nozzle, which was still having sudden discharges at regular intervals onto the table (the best bandage they could find for it was what suspiciously looked like one of Stan's socks). "Um...Mr. Kai?" Stormy asked, pointing to little purple radish-like objects . "I can't eat this either...I'm allergic,"
"Did you eat any of it?" Kai asked warily, now knowing that getting information out of adolescents wasn't entirely impossible, but it barely crossed the line of impossible, especially with this little pink nightmare.
"...I don't think so," said Stormy.
Kai didn't understand what it was, since his emotions were so suppressed, but for some reason a tiny part of him wanted to throw something himself (quite a lot of that had been going on since Stan and Xev left for that planet). "Is there anything else that is unacceptable?" he asked calmly, addressing the kids as a group.
Sure enough, they all held up something or made a face, and screamed "Ewwwwww!" on top of that. "Then discard whatever it is that you will not eat to the middle of the table," said Kai. "And Stormy, it would be wise to tell me if you begin to feel odd,"
Stormy nodded sweetly, and then pelted Gilly from across the table with the undesired food item. Before Kai could respond, the squawker he'd attached to his belt clicked on, and Xev's voice came up on the other end. The kids took this as their chance to get up and start tearing all over the room again, this time using food and whatever else as ammunition. "Kai, come in!" she said.
"I am here," he replied. "Where are you?"
"You sound almost anxious," said Xev. "Are you okay? How are the kids?"
A piece of fruit splattered against the wall behind him. "The dead do not get anxious," said Kai, grabbing Len by the back of his shirt, while dodging another attempt to hit him with a flying object (he swore he could hear Spaz whisper "Damn it, he's too fast!"). "The kids are alive,"
The twin had been trying to run off again, so Kai put the squawker between his ear and his shoulder, and dragged the little monster over to the stool, sat him down, and primed his brace. The boy's eyes widened, and sat as still as he could. "Hey wait a sec!" said Quet. "Are you really dead?"
Kai dodged an oncoming piece of fruit from Gilly. "Up until recently," he said truthfully, while dodging a heavy toy of some kind.
"Well then how long have you been alive?" said Stormy,
"Perhaps a bit more than two weeks," said Kai, turning his attention to Gilly. "I request you stop that before I am forced to-"
"Are you still there?" Xev cut in.
"Yes," said Kai.
"Well it's going to take longer than we thought. Sit tight, okay?" said Xev.
"I will do that, Xev," said Kai, shutting off the squawker, as he finally silenced the mob by taking what seemed like a purple melon, throwing it into the air, and destroying it with his brace. Pulp and juice flew in all directions, plus the screeching sound elicited from the weapon instantly made them cease all action. Then, the room began to tilt, and Kai suddenly felt a distant thud as the universe went black, and pain ripped through his body once again.