Angels with Newfound Hope
Act 1 Chapter 1: Impressions
Alex's Apartment - Day 1, 9:04AM
Alex awoke to an unfamiliar ceiling. That and a sore back. Sunlight showered his face and back in an uncomfortable warmth. His pistol lay on the floor right below him, likely having fallen out of its holster sometime in the night. He rubbed his eyes, glancing blearily around the room.
Across from his resting place sat another sofa like the one he lay on. Between the two stood a mission style end table with a sheet of paper on it. To his left sat a cozy blue chair. Across from it, a lovely mahogany bookshelf stood filled to the brim with various novels. Now he remembered last night in full.
Inspection of the note revealed numbers for Remy's home and work, food delivery, emergency services and other necessities. The brunette was thinking about what a dragon plumber would look like when the doorbell rang. He fixed his shirt haphazardly and peeked out.
A tannish brown raptor donning a police cap awaited the human. His amethyst eyes told the larger male he was rather timid and nervous. This must've been his first time meeting a human. He carefully opened up to greet this thing.
"H-hello. You must be Alex. I'm Sebastian, and I'll be your escort. Or s-security I suppose. I usually work for the police. It's nice to meet you." The raptor, now Sebastian, nervously extended his hand for a shake. Alex gingerly took it. He could feel every individual bump and scale on his skin.
"It's... good to meet you too. And if I may, you won't need to be formal with me. I'm just another person. I'll let anyone know about it if they get onto you." The human was more confident in the fact that these reptiles didn't appear related to the others. The look on the raptor's face at least instilled a little confidence in not getting killed today.
"Thanks for letting me know. Now back to business. We'll be going to the plant that's making your generators. I heard they have some news for you and Reza. I caught him on my way over here." He explained. The man nodded and followed him out into the city...
The duo avoided all the main streets, purposefully sticking to edges and alleyways. Alex never thought he'd end up like that aside from when he's out as Viper. They made it to some sort of large lab in only a couple minutes. Reza and a silver quadrupedal dragon awaited them in the courtyard.
"Hey." The hispanic said simply as his partner approached. The dragon went off with Sebastian to chat, leaving them alone.
"Long time no see." How true that was. Alex hadn't seen him since they graduated high school five years ago.
"How true that is. Good to finally see another human face around here. It's funny that you, of all people, showed up." Reza held his arms out for emphasis. That was when the paler human noticed something fishy about his right. What looked like a tiny seam ran around the circumference just below his elbow. Only one thing came to mind: prosthetic.
"Guess I should be surprised. I didn't think you'd end up doing this kind of stuff. Who's your friend, by the way?" The pair glanced at the gray dragon chatting with Sebastian. He glanced their way out of suspicion. They both turned back before he noticed.
"That's just my bodyguard. Don't bother with him, he really doesn't talk much." Alex grinned cockily. Now he had a chance to try and roast him.
"Just like you then. Unless we count the times you bitched about it being hot, cold, humid or generally not what you want." The darker looked at him with a deadpan. He already knew his sordid attempt at an insult would fall flat.
"Real funny, there." The brunette just shrugged with a sheepish grin. Their security finished their exchange, with the larger of that pair trudging up to them.
"Alex, I take it you've met Maverick already?" Alex shook his head and turned to the quadruped. The look Maverick gave him would kill by itself.
"Good to meet you." The man outstretched his hand for a shake. Meanwhile, the silver reptile denied the gesture a bit rudely.
"Whatever. Just don't expect me to treat you special like everyone else will, and we'll be good." Maverick brushed him off which prompted a nasty look. Were humans really that divine to the reptiles of this world?
"Never expected it. I actually hate that kind of attention." Alex kept it even as the dragon cocked a brow: already a new expression.
"You hate being treated like the next messiah?" The stormy-eyed man pinched the bridge of his nose in irritation.
"Ugh, yes. It puts me on the spot and makes me nervous. I feel like everyone will hate me if I do anything at all." He really couldn't tell if the silver reptile was surprised at all through his gaze. It felt so numb to him.
"We're only here to get what was agreed upon. I'd actually prefer if you left us alone, but you insist on following us around everywhere." Reza chastised. A deep growl escaped Maverick's lips as he bared his teeth at him. The brunette spun the latter to fire an intense glower at him.
"Knock it off. This guy's easily five times your size and could rip you to shreds. Only warning." Alex warned. The hispanic shrugged out of his grip as Sebastian intervened.
"I agree. That's enough from all of you. Let's just go inside already." The two originally there relented and left the courtyard, with the latter two close behind.
The raptor officer led the group to their destination somewhere inside the lab. Another of his species awaited them in the hallway. Their salmon scales glistened in the late morning sun. The only thing labelling them as an employee were the safety goggles around their neck.
"There you are. I've been waiting for you guys." She spoke with a voice much akin to Mongoose's, minus the accent. Alex inspected this reptile further. The bright blue markings down her back added a nice contrast to an otherwise boring natural look. Her pure white underbelly reminded him of fresh fallen snow. This reptile had an admittedly nice roll with genetics to him.
"Wait a minute, I thought we were going to meet the guys from production. What are you doing here?" Sebastian queried with annoyance. The lab tech shrugged.
"They're actually coming in later today. Looks like little old me will have to do for now." The stormy-eyed human liked this one. Her voice and attitude reminded him even more of his partner back home: smooth and snarky.
"I see. Well Alex, this is Anna. She kind of manages this building. Though she's more involved with research than production and engineering." The human held his hand out, which she firmly shook.
"A pleasure to meet you." He said in as charming a voice as he could muster. And the lab tech was completely immune. He really needed to work on his charisma more.
"The pleasure's mine. I've got one of the generators for you guys. It'll take a while to make the rest, so feel free to send that one home and give it a whirl." Anna offered. The brunette was about to take it when Reza cut him off.
"That's great. I'll take it." He almost knocked his paler partner over whilst taking it. Said partner was admittedly offended by the action.
"It looks a touch small. Then again, big things do come in small packages." Alex observed. The salmon raptor smiled softly at the comment.
"Glad you're not underestimating its power. Just be careful not to drop it." She warned. The hispanic brushed her off like a speck of dust. The brunette knew he was annoying before he got famous, but now, he was just a plain asshole.
"Sure. I'll wait outside while you do your thing." Reza spun around and left with Maverick in tow. The remaining human sighed in annoyance.
"I suppose I'll meet you outside as well. Try not to keep us waiting." With that, Sebastian left the two to each other.
"So have you brought the PDA?" PDA? What PDA was she talking about? Alex patted his pockets in a mock search until something on the floor caught his eye. It looked like an early revision of his watch. He assumed Reza dropped it in his rush outside.
"Guess this fell off Reza's wrist. Well, if he's going to be so generous..." The human handed the PDA to the raptor smugly.
"Naughty boy. I should punish you." She flirted, earning herself a confident cock of the brow from him.
"Hit me hard, mother." Alex smirked. Anna just laughed the sordid attempt at flirting off.
"That's really the best you've got? Anyway, back to business. Let's give this thing a whirl." The taller male wasn't even surprised. He decided he'd work on his flirting game whilst he was here. Anna's nimble hands darted about the holographic interface with calculated precision. She finally looked back up at her disappointed company.
"Hey by the way, would you possibly consider letting me run tests on you? It would only take a drop of blood." The human clamped down on his left arm at the request. He always hated needles and getting blood drawn.
"What?! Why?!" Alex grew more uncomfortable by the moment, and she was eating it up. The look on his face was admittedly funny too.
"I work in biology, so this kind of thing would be quite interesting to us. I'd even share the results with you." Alex wrenched his eyes shut to think. He'd like to see the genetic differences between them too. He just despised the giving blood part. He eventually relented and held out his arm.
"One drop, hand only." His stormy glare drilled the point in pretty well. Anna herself pulled out a vial of some sort. A needle no bigger than your standard vaccine rested right at the entrance.
"Alright. Just hold still..." The lab tech pressed the vial to the back of his hand. Light pain stabbed at the limb as a single drop of his blood filled the tube. He manually activated his regeneration augment to at least stop it from bleeding.
"There. I'm all done, you big baby." Alex sighed in defeat. He wouldn't ever stop hating those damned needles.
"So when do you think the results would be available. For curiosity's sake." The brunette asked with some interest. In the least, his company seemed to perk up at the question.
"Should be done in a couple days. I'll mail them to you unless you want to meet up." Now it was his turn to perk up. If he played his cards right, he could turn that into a date.
"A meetup sounds nice. Let's exchange numbers so we can call each other." The taller male pulled out his phone, showing her the holographic display. She took immediate interest in the device.
"Is that really one of your phones?" Alex nodded and held it out, to which the raptor snatched it with innate fascination.
"This is amazing. I didn't think they'd be so commonplace among humans. You certainly didn't make it out that way." Anna tapped away at the screen to get out of his contact info. She unfortunately hit the home button, which brought her to all his apps.
"I'm going to advise you not to look through my apps. Most of them won't work anyway." His request ended up largely ignored as she scrolled through all his personal stuff. She came across one app in particular that caught her eye.
"JustLove? You visit those crappy dating sites?" Alex snatched the phone back with an irritated look. He immediately locked it to prevent further prying.
"No! I do not. I used to years ago. I just keep forgetting to purge my phone of that crap." The human pocketed the device, much to the scientist's dismay. Sebastian decided to interrupt at that time.
"Are you going to be here much longer? Reza's getting quite impatient. Maverick's not really helping anything either." The last part was said under his breath.
"Guess I've got to go. I'll show you more later, okay?" The brunette waved her off and went with his escort.
Reza was staring impatiently at the door as the pair exited. The quartet, after some meaningless dialogue, decided to head to a nearby cafe called Uncle Mugen's. Alex wholly expected his partner to start some drama with a waitress just because he was feeling pissy. He was that predictable.
The atmosphere of the little restaurant filled the stormy-eyed human with a sense of being back in his college years. He and Reza sat across from each other, whilst Maverick and Sebastian gave them some space. They browsed the menus as they chatted.
"Finally. God, I can't stand that guy being on my ass all the time." The hispanic groaned. Alex knew the guy to complain about everything. He once bitched to another of his classmates about it being too hot in the middle of summer.
"Dude, quit your bitching. They're here for our security." Reza glared annoyedly at the man across from him, who was leaning back casually.
"I'm clearly aware of that. They insisted on it in the first place." The olive-eyed man deadpanned. His companion grabbed a napkin and began doing some origami.
"So you'd be fine if a cultist kidnapped you off the street one day, and used you in some sort of sacrifice." Alex's nonchalant mention of a sacrifice admittedly disturbed him a little. The former set a neatly folded carp down next to the centerpiece.
"That's why I have my gun." The darker human showed him the handle for emphasis. It was a polished mahogany reminiscent of a revolver. The paler remembered his friend Chris showing him one before. It had been very well taken care of to survive two hundred years. He pulled out his phone to try and write a little, pointing it casually at Reza.
"Point proven. You don't feel safe here even with a ripped-to-shreds bodyguard." Alex teased, much to his partner's chagrin.
"You have a gun too. Don't think I didn't see that five-seven." Reza pointed out. This made the brunette glance down at his thigh-based holster.
"True, but it's also clearly visible. It's like saying 'I'll defend myself if need be, but I also trust you not to attack me'." At that time, the duo was approached by a waitress. Her large wings held a notepad and pen. The taller man noticed her aviator goggles when she came up. He also caught her general looks. In short, he began to feel concerned for his mental well being, finding a reptile like that cute.
"Oh. It's the humans." The stormy-eyed man suddenly sat up whilst Reza grumbled something incoherent.
"Wait. Where?! Oh hey Reza." Alex whipped his head in their respective directions as he spoke. The waitress tried to hold back a fit of giggling. At least he knew he could joke around with someone.
"That's a good one. Anyway, welcome to Uncle Mugen's. I'm Adine and I'll be your waitress today. What can I get you guys?" The paler male skimmed over the menu for a bit. Most of their entrees were classic diner food. Some others were a bit more exotic, like the daily special.
"I'm feeling adventurous today. Could I get the special?" Adine jotted down his order in a hurry, then looked to Reza.
"Same with me. Just make it quick." He brushed the poor wyvern off. Alex glared daggers at him whilst she wrote a quick 'x2'.
"Coming right up." With that, the wyvern zipped back to the kitchen to get the orders started. The brunette turned back to Reza with an annoyed stare.
"You seriously need to quit acting like an absolute prick." The vigilante chastised his partner, with not a single reaction. It was like he hadn't said anything at all.
"Anyway, doesn't something seem off here? Just look at the big picture-" Alex leaned forward angryily. He never took being ignored lightly.
"Don't you brush me off!" The two shared a harsh stare. Both were getting irritable now.
"Would it kill you to hear me out? This place is supposed to be a completely different world from earth. But some things just don't add up. Wouldn't you agree?" Reza reasoned. The stormy-eyed male positioned himself back.
"You have one minute." He warned. His green-gazed partner leaned in close.
"I can't say anything with we-know-who over there. He's likely spying on us." Alex glanced at Maverick. Their eyes met for but a second before separating. Those blood red orbs spoke volumes of some sort of trauma, yet hid it dangerously well to an ordinary passerby.
"I wouldn't doubt it. Some of us would be suspicious of a dragon suddenly appearing. Especially if said dragon has unknown intentions. You just have to look at it from their side." The taller human explained. The hispanic motioned him closer again so he could whisper.
"Look, I'm just going to send a coded message later today. I'll explain after you figure out its meaning. If I'm right about this, we're in huge trouble." Reza whispered. Now he had Alex's attention.
"What kind of trouble?" He glowered, earning him a shushing.
"Just play along for now. We don't want anyone getting suspicious. We've already got one of these bad boys." The darker patted the generator's box for emphasis. "God knows we need them." Adine came back with their orders in hand. Those no-doubt-hot plates being balanced on her wings can't have been very good. She set her forearm on the table, sliding each dish off with a gentle push.
"There we are. Be careful now, it's hot." The brunette inspected the dish with a gentle smile.
"Thank you. It smells nice already." Reza stared down at his unusual breakfast as the two chatted. He decided then and there never to order off Alex again.
"You're very welcome. Just let me know if you need anything," The waitress slipped off to check on the other tables. Meanwhile, the darker clothed male inspected the food he'd ordered more closely. It was a lightly breaded fish served with sauteed greens. There wasn't any garnish that he could notice, nor any cocktail sauce. He was, unfortunately, a little disappointed by the presentation.
'Okay? Maybe the fish is good at least.' He thought as he flaked a filet. The funny odor wafting through the air immediately gave him second thoughts. And that was when his partner decided to get up.
"I'd best be going. Expect that letter later." Alex cocked a brow as he marched out with Maverick in tow.
"Didn't even touch his fish." The remaining human speared a piece and bit down. The flavors that hit his tongue were far worse than he thought. He swiftly flagged Adine down, asking for a lemon slice...
After Alex got done eating, Sebastian stepped over to his table. He whistled at the pristine plate.
"Damn kid. You just made me lose a bet with Maverick." The officer mused. The larger male just grinned with satisfaction.
"Not bad once it's sea- wait, what bet?" His tooth-picking was so rudely interrupted with that fact. All The raptor did was chuckle casually.
"I bet Maverick you wouldn't get past the first bite without giving up." The vigilante just gave a bemused huff at the statement.
"Hope that teaches you to underestimate me then. Now come on, let's get going." Alex set his neatly folded napkin next to the plate and stood up, the two leaving the cafe with a generous tip...