Please don't let my glasses break, please don't let my glasses break, pleas-
Tororo's prayers were interrupted when his feet hit the roof of that building violently, making him lose balance and fall with his face on the floor. He quickly got rid of his parachute, which in turn hit a fan slightly more violently than it should, making a loud noise that the entire neighborhood probably heard. Tororo didn't care, though.
"Yes!" He yelled, raising his closed fist to the sky in a victory-like way.
His glasses cracked the moment he spoke.
"No!" He yelled, this time with his hand wide open, as if he was trying to reach the sky like in a movie.
What a Drama Queen.
He sighed exasperatedly and pulled out of literally nowhere another pair of glasses in perfectly good state, switching the cracked ones for the new ones. Once he realized he could see the world clearly again he looked around, trying to find something, anything about the whereabouts of his ship and his platoon mates.
Unfortunately, all the he saw was buildings, trees, and a sky full of extremely angry gray clouds.
He felt his heart tighten on his chest when he thought about his colleagues, and found himself missing even Taruru. He didn't know how he was going to make it without them – after all, he was just a kid. A very smart one, but nevertheless, a kid.
He focused his thoughts on the tracking devices that he had made and that every one of them had, and realized that his was in perfect state. He didn't know about his friends, but at least he had a small chance of finding them. That was something.
He tried to ignore the little voice on his head that kept saying 'You don't even know if they're alive'.
His line of thought was, however, cut short when he heard what the deduced was the door that lead to the roof being opened.
He abruptly turned around, his eyes growing wide behind his glasses as he looked at the Pekoponian girl that was now in front of him, her big and shiny brown eyes just as wide as his.
"I, hm… Bia? Yeah, I'll… I'll call you later. I think… I think there's an alien on my roof." She spoke to the device on her hand, ending the call and then shoving it into her back pocket (almost missing because of her shaky hands.), without never taking her eyes of the little orange tadpole.
Only in that moment did he realize that she could see him.
They didn't speak for what seemed like hours, but couldn't have been more than just a few seconds, until the girl finally opened her mouth to speak.
"Do you… wanna come inside?"
Tororo wondered how she knew he could speak her language, but assumed it had only been a lucky guess. He faintly nodded his head and walked towards her, but then his eyes fell on the fallen parachute lying on the floor. The girl looked at it as well, scratching the back of her head.
"We… we should probably take that with us."
"Probably."
o – o – o – o – o
Bruna, that was the girl's name, was seventeen years old, had an older brother that was in college (whatever that is), her parents worked in a factory, had a cat and never shut up. Physically she was average sized, skinny, had straight brown hair, large and shiny brown eyes and she also had freckles on her cheeks and nose, reminding Tororo of his light blue colleague.
Now that the initial chock was gone and that he was finally calmer after nearly having a panic attack when he realized he didn't know where his platoon was, the New Recruit was starting to get extremely annoyed with his situation and with the conversation that the girl was trying to start. She had promised him she wouldn't tell anyone about him and to give him shelter as long as he talked to her and didn't ignore her.
What was he thinking when he accepted that deal?
"… And this is Octavia, Bellamy's sister and my favorite." She finished, staring at the tadpole with her eyes shining even more than usual. She was talking about some TV show – The 100, or something. The girl loved TV shows.
"Hm. Whatever." He said with an uninterested shrug, looking at her laptop on the other side of the room. Oh, how he missed his laptop… Sargent Major Kururu would probably think that he had just given up on their games and would never let him hear the end of it.
That made him feel anxious.
A long sigh coming from Bruna made him "wake up" and stare at her. She looked just as bored as him – but why? She was the one who hadn't stopped talking.
"Where do you come from?" She asked, out of the blue.
Her question caught him a bit off guard.
"Why do you wanna know?"
"I didn't want to ask, since you told me you were involved in a crash and didn't know where your teammates were and stuff." She said with a light shrug. "So I just assumed you didn't want to talk about it. But I noticed that my attempts to start a conversation were boring you to death, so maybe it wouldn't be too bad for you to start talking. After all, you're going to be here… For a while, I guess."
Tororo thought about this for a few seconds, but ended up admitting that she was right. "Keron, pu pu."
It was the first time that Bruna heard him use his iconic "pu pu", raising her eyebrow at the situation. She didn't, however, say anything on the matter.
"Keron." She muttered, almost as if she was trying to see what that foreign word felt like when coming out of her mouth. "And how did you end up here?"
Tororo shook his head, focusing his attention of his tracking device. "Pu pu pu. You Pekoponians are too curious for your own good."
"Us… Pokemons?"
He let out an exasperated sigh. "Pekoponians. Geez, this is just like talking to Taruru."
"Who's Taruru?"
Tororo fought the urge to roll his eyes.
o – o – o – o – o
All that there was in the room after Tororo finished his story was an awkward silece. Bruna played with her earrings uncomfortably, feeling guilty for bringing the issue of his (platoon, as she discovered) friends up.
Tororo was just a kid. She, a seventeen year old girl, couldn't even begin to imagine how she would feel if she had to move away from that little down and leave behind all of her friends, some whom she has known for all of her life, and go back to square one. So she certainly didn't know how she would feel if she ever lost her friends, her brother, and the person that she saw as a paternal figure.
Because that's what she concluded. Tororo saw Garuru as some kind of… father? Probably more like an older brother. Or maybe he saw him as one of those teachers that we don't even consider to be teachers because they are so cool and understand us so well. Perhaps all of this was only because the Lieutenant was someone extremely fulfilled workwise, but Tororo definitely saw his as some kind of role model.
Not knowing if he was even alive was probably breaking him into pieces.
"I…" She started fearfully, now knowing what to say. "I wish I could tell you they're fine, Tororo… but I don't know. I really don't."
He shrugged and stared at his feet, trying to avoid eye contact with her.
"But… not knowing means that there is a 50% chance that they are, indeed, fine. If they're alive, do you have any was of contacting them?"
The orange tadpole looked at her, raising his arm so she could see the tracking device on his wrist.
"Well, assuming that theirs aren't broken… We have a chance, even if small, of finding them. And that, let me tell you, is already a good start."
Tororo stared at the girl in front of him, who in turn was smiling slightly at him. She was saying – if he was understanding her correctly – that she wanted to help him find his platoon, his family. He didn't know how to thank people; but he certainly hoped that she could see how grateful he was.
"I'm on holidays, so tomorrow – alright, fine, I need to study for my exams, but… anyway, it's raining, so I can't really go to the beach with my friends. So we could go out and see if we can find any kind of lead. What do you say?"
Tororo's only reaction was nodding his head lively, making Bruna let out a small chuckle. She looked at her desk, where her laptop was, and after a light shrug of her shoulders she got up put it right in front of the tadpole.
It was a little too big for him, he couldn't deny it… But the tadpole didn't seem to mind, staring at her in disbelief.
"I saw you eyeing it earlier. Just don't get any virus in there, alright?"
"Pu pu pu." Said the frog, turning the device on. "I don't make promises."
Bruna laughed, but her face took on a serious expression once she realized the frog didn't look like he was joking.
"Tororo. I'm serious."
…
… I don't think I have to say that by the end of the day, the laptop had already exploded.
