Of Sentience and Predator

D5: Walk Through Fire

How long does this go?" Frightwig asked as they walked.

Thumbskull grunted.

"Do you think the thing from that agency meant to be a time machine?" Acidbreath asked.

"Too small," Frightwig pointed out.

"Then how are we in the pre-Quirk era?" Acidbreath countered.

Thumbskull made another noise.

"The problem with that is that no one is freaking out about Quirks," Frightwig stated.

"Everything here is just so... alien," Acidbreath muttered.

Thumbskull made another grunt.

"Ha! Like there's aliens in the universe," Acidbreath commented.

Suddenly, a long, black spike struck itself through the ceiling, causing the trio to stop. After a moment, the spike was pulled back up. A somewhat large drone then flew in through the hall, having no obvious flight system.

"You were saying?" Frightwig deadpanned.

-()-

The door opened, causing Ben, Gwen, Kevin, and Psychobos to look over as EightEight entered. She closed the door, then placed the bag she carried on the table. Psychobos commented, "Convenient there's an Undertown here."

"Not complaining," EightEight shrugged as she began to go through the bag. Almost systematically, Kevin stood up as the Sotoraggian took a collection of strange banana-shaped fruit out of the bag. Kevin came over and she handed it over as Ben and Gwen also stood up.

As Kevin went over to the fridge, Asani made a weird thrill. Psychobos asked, "May I ask what is going on?"

"Restocking on food, it's easier to put away with more than one pair of hands," EightEight explained as she handed a plastic casing holding a strange meat that looked like worms within it to Ben.

Psychobos made a nodding motion with his claw as they continued. The Cerebrocrustacean watched in an odd fascination as they worked together to put food away. His eyes followed them, though they kept glancing at Ben whenever there was a strange lull in the work.

After some minutes, they were finished and went back to what they were doing before the Sotoraggian returned. Gwen was on some sort of tablet that seemed to be displaying some sort of chat room as the girl sometimes made motions over the tablet that looked like typing. Kevin was next to her, holding some sort of device that flipped open and which displayed some sort of game. The device was softly playing music, which kept going back and forth between somewhat calm music and intense music. EightEight was, again, sitting weirdly on the driver seat while using the odd badge she had to look through a holographic screen. Ben was closest to the Cerebrocrustacean, reading through another entree from the lifeform datapad. When he looked over from what he was writing, he noticed that it was of a species that the child did not have unlocked at the time in the Nemetrix.

Suddenly, EightEight looked over and gurgled, "Gwen, Ben, Kevin. What is Earth schooling like?"

Ben and Kevin promptly paused as Gwen answered, "I went to a private school, but it teaches us normal things like math, science, English, and history. Knowing my parents, I'll probably stay in a private school for next school year, but I know middle and high schools have electives."

"Electives?" EightEight questioned.

"Like band, or programming, or art, more things not considered absolutely needed," Gwen explained.

"Why with the strange question?" Psychobos asked.

"Apparently, at least in this country, kids are required to go to school until the final year of 'high school', whatever that is," EightEight answered. "Which means a compromise has to be made at some point with the damned Plumber."

Psychobos raised a brow and telepathed, "May I have context?"

Kevin's attention was brought back to his game as EightEight commented, "We didn't tell you yet?"

"No," Psychobos replied.

The Sotoraggian seemed to blink, but he couldn't tell from behind her mask. "Two of them share a father's father, I believe the Earth term is grandfather. Said grandfather is Maxwell Tennyson," she stated.

Psychobos hummed. "I am afraid I do not see why speaking with a former Plumber Magister is such a problem."

"Do you want the long version or the short version?" EightEight asked. Gwen began to ignore them and he noticed that, at some point, Ben returned to the datapad.

"We have the time. Long version, please," Psychobos answered.

"To my understanding, it started before the two watch wielders were even born. It began with Maxwell's two sons, who grew distant with their father."

-()-

Vilgax looked down at the three humans his drone found. His universal translator had yet to be fixed, so the Chimera wasn't able to tell what the three were snapping at each other. Although, he wasn't too sure why the biggest one only grunted and how the other two understood their friend.

An angel-like drone returned, coming up to him and holding out a small, circular device. Vilgax took the small piece of machinery and placed it in a spot that was near his mouth and behind one of the breathing mask's tubes.

"Oh please, like this is an alien! It's clearly a Quirk!" the female of the three chirped.

The largest grunted.

"How do we know either way?" the smaller male asked.

"Doesn't this look like a Quirk?" the female asked, motioning towards Vilgax.

Vilgax took this chance to speak, "Hello there."

The smaller male freaked, the female stepped towards her friends and flinched to look towards the Chimera. The largest just stared at him, the constant anger still on his face. The smaller one pointed at Vilgax and chirped, "You understand us?!"

"Of course," Vilgax replied, looking at the three. The female and the smaller male stepped closer to the largest as the Chimera began to walk around the trio. "Have an offer for you. Work with me and you won't need to wander any more."

"How do we know you aren't lying!" the smaller male yelled.

"You're not intimidating, boy," Vilgax growled. The smallest flinched and the female stayed close to the largest.

The largest grunted something.

"Yea, how do we know what that entails?" the female asked, her eyes staring up at Vilgax.

Suddenly, the two drones lifted their weapons towards the three and a whirling sound came from the angel-looking robot.

"We can do this the easy way... or the hard way," Vilgax growled.

-()-

SixSix shoved the piece of rubble out of the way. He glanced towards FiveFive before moving another piece. His younger sister was at a different section of the ruined castle, clawing through it like he was. The older Sotoraggian moved another piece, then looked at the metal under it. SixSix placed a claw between two of the metal pieces before pulling up. It didn't budge. He let go and began to move other pieces that covered the metal.

FiveFive suddenly let out a cry and SixSix's attention snapped towards her. "What is it?!" SixSix gurgled, quickly coming over to her.

She stood up, and held out two tan, claw-like items. SixSix paused as FiveFive chirped, "I found them! NineNine's gift isn't lost! It's here!" He smiled under his mask and hugged her. FiveFive snuggled into him, continuing to ramble about the two talons.