─────────────────────────𝐄𝐔𝐑𝐔𝐒 '𝐑𝐎' 𝐀𝐐𝐔𝐈𝐋𝐈────── i. xxxgemini. xxxii. xxxtwenty-three. xxxiii. xxxtags: all, odette.xxx iv. xxxcrash crater. 𝗌𝗈𝗎𝗍𝗁𝗐𝖺𝗋𝖽 𝗐𝗂𝗍𝗁 𝖿𝗅𝖾𝖾𝗍 𝗈𝖿 𝗂𝖼𝖾 𝗌𝖺𝗂𝗅𝖾𝖽 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝖼𝗈𝗋𝗌𝖺𝗂𝗋 𝖽𝖾𝖺𝗍𝗁; 𝗐𝗂𝗅𝖽 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝖿𝖺𝗌𝗍 𝖻𝗅𝖾𝗐 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝖻𝗅𝖺𝗌𝗍, 𝖺𝗇𝖽 𝗍𝗁𝖾 𝖾𝖺𝗌𝗍-𝗐𝗂𝗇𝖽 𝗐𝖺𝗌 𝗁𝗂𝗌 𝖻𝗋𝖾𝖺𝗍𝗁.. ───────────────────── xxxxx the rush of awakening had quelled, briefly, and allowed ro a moment of reflection as he launched himself into action. there were a multitude of questions that begged his attention: first of all, the planet. it was warm. the air felt thick, polluted - a memory of the mines of tii’al. he’d only visited once, as a child, but the ravines and the lifts had all seemed so painted, created out of necessity rather than chance. it had been the first time he’d truly put any weight in the myths of the planet’s origin.
xxxxx they’d been mining for danaium, the gemstone of legend, mythicised to have great, unbridled power - trumping all of the sources they were already using to their limits. if they had found the rock, then they would have had the power to win any war. they’d have had a monopoly on the rest of the galaxy. but then, the plague.
xxxxx his jesterly manner had a moment of pause, the reminder a crash landing in and of itself. he pulled himself back to the present - or, rather, a few hours before the present. dancing and singing and drinking and laughing, conversing with people he barely knew, sharing jokes with them as though they were old friends and not shades of creatures that he would never see again. he’d been halfway through a sentence, and then…
xxxxx falling. ro remembered falling. for a moment, he thought he might have been frightened. that would be ignored.
xxxxx and then here. the air was important. the air was unlike anything he’d experienced before, which was interesting. he’d travelled far and wide for the past six years. new atmospheres were exciting. if it had been night, he may have been able to tell by tracking the stars, but it wasn’t. just wispy clouds overhead. just arid land around. maybe there was a tree in the distance. maybe it wasn’t a tree at all.
xxxxx the girl, who seemed a little worse for wear - there was blood upon her brow that he had to fight the urge to reach over and wipe off - appeared just as baffled as he was. there were others, too, rising and talking, but his attentions were on her now. “’jittery’ is one way to describe it,” eyebrows wiggled, him drifting back as she rose from the lying position. “i did!” he beamed despite the scenario. “oh, i bet you would’ve, darling. it was a sight to behold. no cameras, though. still, the best lens is in the mind, so they say.” he tapped his forehead.
xxxxx “well, i’d hazard to guess that we had a bit of a blip,” ro answered, then leaned forward a little. “at least you have an answer for when the locals start asking if it hurt when you fell from heaven, eh?” he was teasing, for the most part, building a bit of a repertoire. if they were stranded, best to make it a pleasant desertion. “so, i’m tasting nitrogen. hate nitrogen. it’s claggy.” he pulled a face to demonstrate the disgust, as though his words were not enough, then sniffed. “oxygen. that’s a given, though. those are oxy-trees. probably life around here somewhere, and...” his teeth chattered. it wasn’t dissimilar to how someone would look when tasting wine, trying to decipher the notes of a particular glass from mere mouthfeel. it was a special skill. he was quite proud of his atmospheric identification. “helium, argon, neon, carbon di-” a realisation: he knew this makeup.
xxxxx “are we on earth?” he believed that was the name for it. “oh, that’s hideous. what creature borne of the lower depths of remus put me on earth?” he did feel personally offended at the notion, which appeared clear. “eke almighty. i’m gonna send for a rescue.”
xxxxx the dramatics briefly over, he looked over the girl again. “sorry. i’ve forgotten my manners. ro,” a hand was outstretched, only his index finger offered, a localised greeting. the expectation was for her finger to curl around his own, though he noted that it was not the same throughout the galaxies. how she would react to the greeting was not within his power. “eurus, if you’re yearning for a clipped ear. ro works fine. gemini.” a glance over at their rising counterparts. "and i think those are our fellow victims." his voice rose. "hiya!"
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─────────────────𝐁𝐄𝐑𝐍𝐀𝐃𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄 '𝐁𝐀𝐌𝐁𝐈' 𝐖𝐘𝐍𝐃𝐇𝐀𝐌──── i. xxxhunter. xxxii. xxxtwenty-five. xxxiii. xxxtags: all, meg.xxx iv. xxxapartment | main corporation.𝗍𝗁𝖾𝗋𝖾 𝖺𝗂𝗇'𝗍 𝖺 𝗆𝗈𝗇𝗌𝗍𝖾𝗋 𝗈𝗇 𝖾𝖺𝗋𝗍𝗁 𝗍𝗈𝗎𝗀𝗁𝖾𝗋 𝗍𝗁𝖺𝗇 𝖺𝗇 𝗈𝗋𝗉𝗁𝖺𝗇 𝗂𝗇 𝖺 𝖻𝗈𝗑. .─────────────────────────────────────────────────── xxxxx there was something very invigorating about the fact that none of them had no idea what was coming. of course, it was expected with this kind of taskforce - uncertainty hung in the air, the elephant in every room. every day promised something bizarre, a question mark without an answer to follow. this felt larger than a question mark. this felt like an exclamation; emboldened and thrown into orbit. this felt like an aeroplane with a message trailing it. her heart was thumping in her chest, drowning out the droning, trilling noise, but that was good. bambi worked best when she had no idea the size of the threat that she was facing; because if she remained ignorant to its potential, immense or otherwise, then she had to make the assumption that things were the worst that they could possibly be. it brought out the power that normally lay stagnant, unused underneath the surface.
xxxxx plus, this was far more interesting than studying rockfall.
xxxxx “okay. has anyone got a geiger measure in here? should we be donning hazmat suits, or are we safe?” she glanced around, mistrustful of the rest of the organisation but certain that there was something that would indicate the threat. was it safe to go outside? “do we need to send a bell to the military? have them cordon it off? some neurotic’s gonna have eyes on this place, they always do. if they clock that something’s amiss, we’re gonna be swamped. hacks and vultures and police alike. it’ll be redtaped to oblivion before we even get outside.” she wasn’t speaking to meg so much as she was running through her own thought processes audibly, mind working at a mile per minute. “need to shut it down. i can send a message to the local forces. tell them we’re on it. put a few injunctions out, get someone to leak something or another so that the journos are switched onto something a little less nuclear.” her hands smacked together. “phone calls. joy of joys.”
xxxxx not meterorites. something had fallen to earth with a crash and a wallop, but it wasn’t a rock. reasonable thought extended - perhaps the conspiracy theorists were getting to her, or perhaps they were about to sink their teeth into something bigger than they could have ever imagined. “try life forms,” she said. “thermal detection. we could be working with organisms. or - or bacteria. more red tape. christ alive,” she turned to the computers. “i’m gonna get on the phones. play comms. shout at some civvies. lucky me,” funnily enough, she did feel lucky.
xxxxx she had a strange stress reaction. she knew that. It worked in her favour, most of the time. “get people out there. i can hold the fort. someone’s gotta make sure the plants aren’t dying. and someone’s gotta make sure that these don’t start dinging again, since whoever was on that job is an incompetent, blundering moron.” she didn’t know if the person responsible was in the room, if they could even hear her tirade, but it felt good to shout at thin air. “get samples if you can. it’ll be interesting to see what fell. see how it ticks. it might just be -” a few thoughts in rapid succession. “might be that one of the satellites blew up. fell and crashed to earth. that’d be fun. someone might miss their daily scheduling of jerry springer.”
